One of the most pervasive symbols offered by the story-tellers is the "Monkey" that appears to the possessed child. As this image is largely manifest in the minds and recollections of the characters, it seems to me (the composer) that this concept would be most effectively developed into a work for voice.
Vocal performance lends itself to the theatricality required of this dissertation project (a multimedia chamber opera). With words comprising the main source material for this component of the work it would be prudent to develop that material in an many ways as possible. Additionally, as a working title I have decided to call this component composition the "Simian Song Variations", thus making reference to various materials developed and altered in the structure of the work.
The words of this source material will be extracted from readily available scientific data which describes and categorizes the language of modern primates. This language will be explored in performative and conceptual ways. In an exploration of the dichotomy contained in the thesis of this dissertation, new media structures will be used to influence the format of the musical document. Social Media concepts such as "Microcontent", "Tag Clouds" and "Mashups" will be used in this composition. Using these concepts and structures, the word data extracted from the scientific articles which detail the language of monkeys will become the substance of the musical document that will be realized in a work of vocalizations and performance art.
It is this performance/musical document that will be developed first.
Another central symbol, that will be used to support the pervasive monkey theme, is the motif of the "tree". In the story, the tree is another symbol that represents the possession of the protagonist, it is in the tree that the evil spirit resides and it is at the tree that the protagonist recalls meetings and playing with the monkey. It is possible that the "evil spirit", "monkey" and "tree" are one in the same, figuratively speaking. If the language of the "monkey" is realization of its concept, then the "tree" as a symbol will require a form that represents all that this concept embodies: the house of a malevolent spirit, an object of curiosity and play, and the perch for the central symbol (the monkey). In keeping with the exchange between new and tradition forms of media, I have chosen to represent the "tree" using what is not only a performance prop but is also a device for augmentation; the computer laptop. The laptop as a support symbol represents the "tree" in many direct and indirect ways: for children of today a portable computer is like the tree as an object of learning and play, as a spiritual object the tree and computer contain the essence of our memories and social networks and all of those elements that define and complete our sense of self (spirit?), as a device of augmentation both a tree and a computer (when connected to a source of energy) absorb what little influence we offer and continue to grow with or without our leave.
The use of the computer laptop as performance device will represent the tree in the above ways as it processes the performative aspects of the musical document. The max/MSP patch that will handle the processing of the performance will be developed in a later entry in this process blog.
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