Daniel Melo Morales :: past perfect-present progressive is an improvisation developed from my field recordings of audiences and crowds. Beginning as an exploration of vocalities that exceed speech, additional recordings expanded the work to consider ways of being, collectivity, and accumulation. The work also seeks contexts in which sound, as it moves away from its source, is transformed by its surroundings to produce revelatory difference as it circulates.

past perfect-present progressive is supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.

Alessandra Giachetti :: Antigone is an acousmatic composition inspired by Sophocles’ tragedy, seeking to translate its rhythms and sensations into an electroacoustic language. The structure of the work, composed of episodes and choral odes, is reflected in the alternation between two fundamental moments: a slow unfolding of faint textures, followed by a rapid succession of sonic events. The audio materials, predominantly synthesised, evoke some of the imagery of the tragedy. The interventions of the chorus, for instance, are translated into multiple sine waves at different frequencies, while moments of agitation and struggle are represented through rapid sequences of impulses. Space has likewise been conceived as an integral compositional element. Its design aims to project events from the tragedy into the listening environment, giving concrete form to situations, movements, and spatial relationships within the recreated sonic space. The composition explores the tragedy’s atmosphere and structural dynamics through sound, rhythm, density, movement, and spatial perception.

Chuowen Liang :: Dysregulation is an 8-channel spatial composition responding to the systemic crisis of burnout. In our relentless pursuit of automated progress, modern society operates on an unspoken consensus: that human exhaustion is an acceptable, even necessary, fuel for growth. Rather than viewing the days ahead as an abstract destination, this piece examines the realities we are actively constructing right now. It confronts the neglected psychological friction that our productivity-obsessed culture constantly marginalizes, questioning a system that demands endless output at the expense of our vital creative essence.

To bring this invisible mental health crisis into a visceral, shared auditory space, the composition centers on a vocabulary of non-speech vocals. Stripped of language, these sounds project the sheer physical strain of a body pushed beyond its limits. The piece opens abruptly with high-tension, disturbing breaths, enveloping the listener in an environment of severe overstimulation. Gradually, the overwhelming structural order destabilizes. The anxious momentum sinks into a hollow, low-energy state, mirroring the paralyzing peak of burnout where the human engine completely stalls. By spatializing these vulnerable, exhausted textures, the work forces the discarded realities of mental health directly into the open.

Following this devastating period of transition and silence, the immersive 8-channel space begins to shift. The composition slowly reintroduces tonality and defined pitches, mapping the delicate, complex process of recovery. Moving from bodily tension through collapse and finally into melodic restoration, Dysregulation transforms an isolating internal struggle into a collective physical experience. It challenges audiences to envision a tomorrow where sustainable human well-being is prioritized, rather than quietly sacrificed for perpetual motion.

Joshue Ott :: This is a live, improvised audiovisual performance made with superDraw, a software instrument I created to generate live visuals and sound with spontaneity and immediacy. superDraw is built around the idea that a hand-drawn line can generate animation and sound: gestural movement and mark making forming temporal narrative, conveying meaning from the interplay between light and sound in space and time. For over 20 years I have continuously performed and refined the software through a variety of programming languages, computer hardware, and audio technologies.

Early on in developing superDraw, I began to see glimpses of something during performances,
something fleeting I could just make out. I came to realize that the performance itself was only a tiny view of a broader something. Even sound and vision together are not enough: space, time, movement, and physicality could all be employed to present aspects of this unnameable, indescribable thing. It is left to the viewer, the experiencer, to feel the coalescence of these aspects, an intermingling of senses that may, if you’re lucky, quiet, and centered, reveal a glorious, fleeting impression of the subject.

Tonight’s performance will be used to create a lasting physical artifact: a lenticular “score” generated from a video recording of this evening. The score is one view of a multifaceted work that is impossible to understand with one medium alone. More about tonight’s score and its availability: scores.intervalstudios.com