Video Art for Metallics
This 11-minute video artwork is an intricate dance with the musical composition Metallics [1995] by renown French composer Yan Maresz. Commissioned by the Fulcrum Point New Music Project, the composition and video were performed together by trumpeter/conductor Stephen Burns at Chicago’s Cultural Center.
Written for trumpet and surround-sound electronics at IRCAM, Metallics explores the effect of various mutes on brass instruments, and how the acoustic properties of the sounds made by using those mutes can be simulated within a surround-sound electronic music “shadow.”
The animation was based around two 3D primitives as the primary ‘dancers’: the torus [the trumpet's bell] and the sphere [the mute]. Each were rendered in Processing to render the 3D, cube mapping, particle behavior, and sound analysis (using FFT). These animations were then put into After Effects to morph them into different directions.
The piece is set in ‘episodes’ or sections for the soloist, ranging from open to muted trumpet and evolving from warmer hues to harsher tones that explore many musical references—”jazzy flutters, trills, cascading licks, and forceful declamations.”
Throughout, the electronic music interplays directly with the soloist, with a range of sonic orchestrations that is quite incredible. The animation plays directly off of this interplay, at times adding humor, joy, mystery, or an unsettling feeling.
Special thanks to Karen Mozer and Rick Valicenti. All quotations are from Maresz’s linear notes with translations by Stephen Burns.