CeReNeM Journal, issue 4
Matta’s sense of space and depth is connected to my work not only through the continuous re-evaluation of coordinates established by gestural vectors, but also as a more real sense of depth in acousmatic music, which is the result of different reverb times or other reverb parameters applied to the same sound objects that then seem to move in perspectival space. For example, in the second part of Electric Serpent for piano and electronics, or in the second part of Liquid Glass for two percussionists and electronics, I have dispersed one sound layer into different tracks, armed with different types of reverb. This creates the illusion that the object changes in depth. The sound object seems as if it was actually moving or stretching in space. Abrupt panning effects also enhance this effect. In instrumental music, volume changes and filtering gestures applied to shapes lead to similar results.
Another characteristic of Matta’s paintings that is related to techniques that I employ in my acousmatic and mixed works is the concept of biomorphic forms (see figure 2). These are forms that, while abstract, refer to or evoke living forms such as plants and/or the human body. Biomorphism has to do with transformation and hybridization and is a concept explored by many surrealist artists before and after Matta.1
I tend to categorize sounds according to their references to the extrinsic matrix (i.e. the sounding world outside the musical work) (Smalley, 1997, p. 110), in natural sounds and human-made sounds. Furthermore, I tend to categorize human-made sounds in mechanical, electronic-digital, and instrumental sounds. Forms with a biomorphic resemblance can be created when sounds that have a clear human or human-made source-bonding are mixed together 1 I must note that my first exposure on the concept was through the popular ‘biomechanical art’ of Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger. 113