Aucourant Records Catalog
The Strong Eye - 1992
Robert Scott Thompson
AUREC 9201-1-CMS
The Strong Eye is the culmination of four years of research in computer generated and processed sound - begun initially at the Computer Audio Research Laboratory (CARL) at the Center for Music Experiment (CME), University of California at San Diego and completed at the Danish Institute of Electroacoustic Music (DIEM) in Aarhus Denmark, under the auspices of a Fulbright Scholar Award.
The title refers to the human imaginative capacity in general and specifically to the inner imaging so central to the act of artistic (sonic) creation. I consider my activities in computer music to be a kind of sonic biology or acoustic alchemy. The aim is the creation of an evocative, idiosyncratic music through the design of novel timbres and textures. The Strong Eye features an intriguing blend of computer processed acoustic sounds and computer synthesized sounds. Flute materials specifically composed for digital transformations were performed by American avant-garde flutist John Fonville and are featured in several of the movements.
Conceived for compact disc publication, this work is continuous in sound, the 67 minute duration is organized into nine titled sections. At the heart of the composition lie the results of a 12 year preoccupation with the development of timbre and musical structure using a wide variety of computer music strategies and applications. Sound materials for this work were generated over a considerable time span on three systems: CARL - a VAX 11/780 computer system designed specifically for the analysis, synthesis and modification of sound, a NeXT 040 Cube microcomputer and a Macintosh II FX. The music was recorded on the AudioFrame DMR 8-track hard disk recording system of the Danish Institute of Electroacoustic Music, and was mixed and mastered completely in the digital domain.
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