As a composer I have increasingly become interested in composing performance spaces for improvisers.  in_videophone_surroud is one such space for improvising pianist.  Often the visual component of audiovisual performance art begins with abstract materials and forces an uneasy metaphor between sound and image.  in_videophone_surroud critiques this practice by offering a new musical aesthetic—one which I call musique concrete visuelle. The physical movements of musicians are considered musical material, and, therefore, they provide the basis for all the musical images of in_videophone_surround.

in_videophone_surround makes an equation between the microphone and the video camera. The microphone, used initially as an instrument of documentation and amplification, in the hands of Stockhausen and Grisey became an instrument of magnification—a way to enter not only a new world of sound, but a new dimension of time and music. In like manner, in_videophone_surround makes the video camera a musical instrument of magnification—one that allows a new experience of music and time. However, this magnification comes through multiplication.

Several webcams and microphones are used to create a digitally expansive performance space. The musical actions of the performer and their results are captured, manipulated, and re-projected in multiplication back into the performance space in realtime. This is done through simple dataflow algorithms implemented in a custom software application which I designed and implemented.