kite, 2014

omega

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omega is a performed sound, video, and tactile project with seven pieces
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1. rocks

The first piece in the omega project, rocks, develops a direct connection between
counting and infinity.

While white noise gains its meaning from the color white having all colors in the
spectrum, in terms of sound we find white noise to be purely theoretical. It is both
impossible to create all frequencies, and further it is impossible to hear all frequencies,
given physical limitations of space, time, and body. However, there is a point at which the
human ear stops perceiving individuals tones, and begins hearing noise. In this piece,
around 70 pitches are generated in total.

This piece is performed by a single body, placing rocks in a circular pattern on the
ground. The stones are placed one by one during performance until the concentric circle
transition to a cloud of points. The rocks are volcanic stones gathered close to Manzinar,
pieces of a lava flow that erupted x million years ago.

The point at which the brain forgets that 1 to 1 counting has been occurring, I will
call the tipping point. This tipping point creates an access point to infinity, not through
quantity, but through perception shifting to large fields through a forgetting of place and
time.

The sounds triggered by each rock placement are introduced as recorded sounds
of rock hitting piano wood. Following that introduction, computer generated sine tones,
pre-recorded into a DAW, are triggered and then loop through the tail of each waveform,
and do not die out, but continue relentlessly.

The synchronicity of the placement of the rock and the generation of computer
generated sound was made possible through the use of iPhone accelerometer data being
harnessed through the networking application, GyrOSC. The data is received by a Max
patch built by Eric X. The patch converts it to midi and triggers clips in the DAW.

The accelerometer gives this piece the ability to step away from sound performance
and visual performance, closer to the physical art of dance performance, where the body
is the medium, and the technology allows the body information to echo into the separately
perceivable spheres of sound and sight.

2. water

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The second piece in the series, water, utilizes simple sounds and panning to
examine the aural perception of physical dimensions. Shapes are created and destroyed,
moving forwards and backwards through the cycles each time, counting and uncounting
the objects into existence. The piece is performed live with a projected video and in quad
with four speakers. The sound choices of electronic dance tropes, their kicks and white
noise, emphasize the expectation of the form to turn into pulsating four bar phrases.

One by one, the Platonic solids are traced with sound building forwards and
backwards before moving to the next dimension. The first step contains the number of
vertices in the shape, notated by clicks in mono, played forwards, then in reverse. In the
second step, the vertices of the shapes are plotted in stereo, traveling directionally, point to
point. The third step, the lines of the shapes, are traced by tones, traveling directionally,
point to point. In the fourth step, the planes of the now drawn skeleton of the shape are
filled with rising white noise.

The visual element, animated by Eben Zboch, creates a shifting vision of the
shapes, not locked into the strict, unrelenting counting form of the sound. While seeing the
video, it is easy to let the eyes supersede the ears.

3. hand count

The third piece in omega acknowledges our first counting tools, the hands.
Physically interfacing with our bodies seems to make counting real because if the count
exists on my body, it must exist.

Tones are introduced in sets of five upwardly sliding tones, before beginning again
at the first tone. These five tones correspond with a video of a hand counting to five. After
the first count to five, another set begins, staggered from the original loop. The hand
continues with the original loop, but is manipulated live to shift to different loops, creating
different points.

While these layers build, a slow, lower rising tone enters the sonic space, rising and
resetting itself in the manner of a Shepherds Scale, perceptually building into nothing until
the audio comes to a pause. Tones enter again, this time slower, still rising, not
accompanied by white noise and clicking. The tones stop and the noise rises to intensity.
The tones rise again, this time the noise pulsates with the click, aligning. Finally, the sonic
pieces align and move together.

Hi-8 tape footage was taken and re-captured in a way to preserve the ticking of the
tape-clock in the upper right corner of the camera feed. The tape footage is manipulated
live during performance through the video program, Resolume, giving the performer the
ability to control how the content is heard, through the speed, starting points, and layers of

kite, 2014

the video content. Having control over the visual points of the beginning of visually
counting allows the perceptual shift of counting in sets have a perceivable beginning and
end point.

4. Speed up
Suzanne Kite- computer
Jackie Urlick- harp
Kelsey Lanceta- body

This is a performance piece for computer, body, rope, harp. The computer
generated sounds use the thresholds of beatings to create tones, which are combined in
various ratios to form chords.

There are five initial sounds, occurring at 120 beats per minute. The performer
controls the rate of beats through two different parameters: delay rate, and midi rate,
allowing the midi to be extremely fast in tempo, but not effect the tone of the notes. The
midi clock is then controlled to adjust the tones, tuning the chord by hand. The harpist
responds to these chords through improvising off the tones she perceives.

In order to explain the transfinite numbers I try to address in this piece, I will use an
example taken from Rudy Ruckers Infinity and the Mind. He describes moving past infinity
like speeding up an infinite mountain.
The idea is to climb the first cliff in one hour, the next cliff in half an
hour, the one after that in a quarter of an hour, and, in general, the nth
cliff in 1/n hours. Since 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + . . . sums to 2, we see
that after two hours our climbers have passed infinitely many cliffs.
But there are more, many more.

In order to move at such a speed, we must climb through the transfinite numbers.
In this theory, omega () represents the size (cardinality) of the finite set. In order to move
past the finite set, we speed past, seeking , the size of all countable ordinal numbers.

M1= {1 1/2n : N}
______________________????_________________????
_________________

In this piece, the harp solos can be thought of as the first four cliffs, and the dancer
the horrified climber.

5. growth

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growth is a video piece developed in SuperCollider with the help of Scott Cazan.
Using simple L-Systems provided by the built in Nature ToolKit, the video was created to
directly sonify the fractal growth of plants.

6. woman

This piece, titled woman, is for a vocalist, computer, & projector. Using a
microphone is optional. The film clips are controlled live with a backing track and the
vocalizing occurs when the performer feels it is necessary, following the score.

Backing track is pre-recorded with the following lyrics:


woman, wowoman, wowowoman, wowowowoman, wowowowowoman

The choices of vocalizing (screaming, growling, etc) where chosen for their
manipulation of white noise content with the vocal instrument, the mouth. The score itself
was created with a aleatoric system deciding volume and vocalizing type, but leaves a
great deal of uncertainty for the performance, like speed, use of breath, and pace.

All video content for this piece was self-made with the help of cameraman, Joel
Reeves. Wo lyric is attached to images of a womans own hands and Man lyric is
attached to images of a mans hands. As the lyric pace speeds up, it becomes more
difficult to distinguish between the two videos, between the sets of hands, and between
wo and man and woman.

The videos at the end are controlled by the performer and seek to bring chaos in
the form of the physical body as skin, flesh, and violence. It is important to note that at no
point is the camera not level with the female gaze.


7. string paradox

String Paradox :
Every string which has one end also has another end
No. [0, 1)={x:0 x 1}, no number or surreal number comes just before 1.!

omega is an hour long exploration of that which cannot be accessed, and therefore cannot
be sorted in our perception.

The human mind insists on categorizing, filing, and othering in order to make
sense of reality. This 7 piece project, omega, seeks to identify perceptual boundaries
through the use of different methods of counting utilizing physical, visual, and auditory
phenomenon. The moment the brain forgets that counting has been occurring, the
moment where perception breaks from conscious categorization, is a door to the

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inaccessible. By exposing these limits in perception every realm of categorization is

This final piece, String Paradox, is a set of compounding improvisations on the
string paradox: Every string which has one end also has another end; a paradox
because of the possibility of infinite systems. Mathematical theories of infinity and
imperceptible numbers have provided structure to an infinity that can barely be imagined,
let alone heard, seen, remembered, or explained. This piece diverges from the rest of
omega by forgoing the methods of sonification used in the previous pieces. Instead, the
piece was composed in layers, with each shifting layer reflecting and changing the others
throughout the collaboration process. The choices in videography, choreography, and
sound draw from repetition and glitch, altering the flow of Time. Access to this place of
unreality is textural, felt in light and skin, error and absence.

Three female bodies, like writhing oracles, reach through the veil in an attempt to
physically touch what is just beyond, just out of reach. The dancers use the physical body
to search for the physically and psychologically inaccessible within a contained
environment. The dancers explore the enclosed space, focusing on the sensual nature of
physically exploring the boundaries of perception. The dancers in this piece use a large veil
as a prop, finding no beginning, no end, and never being able to reach the other side, or
each other.1 There is a palpable feeling of barely coming into contact with the unknown;
the evocation of sensing ones own skin as both participant and audience is key in this
piece. The veil is also used as a scrim for the Kinect-processed projections, while it moves
across the bodies on stage. The veils interwoven strings are, in part, fine threads of
connection between perceived boundaries.2

Experiencing this piece live is completely different than viewing it purely in a video
frame. In the live performance, the dancers faces are never seen, they are anonymous
bodies shifting under the veil, coming clearly into view only when stroking their faces
against the cloth while the projections shine through. In the published video, the content
that is projected can be clearly seen because it is cut in, further establishing the
importance of the content, and of the multiplicity of timelines, occurring at the same time
during the piece.3 These universes are only distinguishable in the published video because
of the clarity of the cuts between scenes. Equally as important are the cuts to black frames

It is Maya, the veil of deception, which blinds the eyes of mortals,and makes them behold a world of which they cannot
say either that is or that is not: for it is like a dream; it is like the sunshine or the sane which the traveller takes from afar
for water, or the stray piece of rope he mistakes for a snake." Arthur Schopenhauer, The World As Will and Idea.
1

A closed system is never absolutely closed; but on the one hand it is connected in space to other systems by a more
or less fine thread, and on the other hand it is integrated or reintegrated into a whole which transmits a duration to it
along this thread. Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction.
Perhaps the stories I have related are one single story. The obverse and the reverse of this coin are, for God, the
same. Jorge L Borges, Labyrinths.
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in the video version, which are much less obvious in the live version. These completely
blacked-out moments of nothingness are glitches that are normalized through repetition. 4

Within the content and form, glitch and error are embraced. Beginning initially with
clicking sounds taken from failing hard drives and later introducing the sounds of computer
malfunctions and electronic buzzing. Within the video, errors, like shaking of the camera,
jumps in time, and blackout moments, occur first without warning. Error is the horror of
reality tearing through. As glitches are normalized through repetition, the horrifying
realization that reality is constantly malfunctioning to an infinite degree pervades the
landscape. 5

The development process for this piece, while seemingly different from the strict
sonification of theories, became a natural response to the paradoxical nature of the original
riddle. The first set of sounds was created, then videos were shot to reflect the sounds,
then the choreography was explored. Next, the videos were projected live with
improvisation, the projections were developed to follow the dancers with the Microsoft
Kinect, separating the foreground projections from the background projections. Finally, the
sound was developed to be improvisable, so the dancers could ebb & flow with the audio,
the sound could ebb & flow with the dancers, and the video could ebb & flow with either.

The musical content was primarily being driven by the practice of processing
recorded sound. Recordings of harp, bass clarinet, and vibraphone were taken, distorted,
rearranged, and layered to create the basic form of the piece. Months later, the same
instrumentalists recorded improvisations over their original recordings. Electronic music
tropes were embraced through the inclusion of deep kick drums, heavy digital reverb, and
intensifying white noise. Room noise from the recording process was mixed to have its
own sonic shelf.

The projections follow, trace, and frame the dancers bodies using a Microsoft
Kinect. The Kinect tracks the depth of moving objects in front of it, and that data is sent to
Resolume, a visual performance software. Two videos are projected during the live
performance. One video feed is projected onto the background, the second video feed
projects onto the dancers bodies, never bleeding onto the background. This perceptual
focus allows the bodies to act as a unified frame, flowing and moving indepenently from
the background frame. The content of each video feed is similar and repeating, but never
synchronized. This allows the visualization of the bodies to be displaced in time.

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4

Whatever the reality evoked, it had only to be permeated by absence to emerge distilled, emancipated from whatever
was keeping it sterilely shut up within itself, freed from the obstinate tautology in which it was absorbed, thereby giving
access to the profundity of things. Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction.
Even if this gives rise to a new unseen set, onto infinity; and an absolute aspect by which the closed system opens
onto a duration which is immanent to the whole universe, which is no longer a set and does not belong to the order of
the visible. Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction.
5

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The set of video content used as the projected background behind the dancers is
also used as glitched cut-ins in the final video piece. This set of videos contains the video
work of Margie Pratt, which uses light and shifting shadow as its subject. These videos
were chosen for their containment of intense stillness within still shots of moving light. The
other videos used for this purpose were those shot by Joel Reeves and directed by the
artist. These videos also have specific lighting, and use the hands of the artist pulling
painfully at the physical body to connect with the chaos of the dancers.

The strings that connect the live performance of this piece to its existence as a
framed media object (viewed on the internet) are the same that connect the now to the
past and future. It is a delicate incongruity for a live performance to be captured & edited
into video, however, it is a complete paradox that the past is viewable in the now. While
'paradox' suggests an impass in understanding, one can simply dissolve the barrier.
Borges writes, Time, if we can intuitively grasp such an identity, is a delusion; the
difference and inseparability of one moment belonging to its apparent past from another
belonging to its apparent present is sufficient to disintegrate it".

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Videography by Margie Pratt

Danced by Becca Green, Alexandria Rema, Suzanne Kite

Sound Composed by Suzanne Kite

Harp recorded by Marilu Donovan and performed live by Jackie Urlik

Kinect programming and video performance by Lewis Godowski

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Costumes by Hannah Lawton
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Live show produced by Jenica Anderson, Devin Ronneberg, and James Hurwitz