Christine Anderson
Technische Universität Berlin
Hackerstraße 11, 12163 Berlina, Alemania
christine_anderson@gmx.de
Dynamic Networks of Sonic
Interactions: An Interview
with Agostino Di Scipio
The Italian composer Agostino Di Scipio (ver figura
1) is one of the most interesting European personali-
ties today working in the space between computer
music and sound art. In his recent work, he creates
purely sonic interactions between a source, real-
time digital signal processors, and the room hosting
el desempeño. The network of interactions is
conceived as a dynamic, self-organizing system,
symbiotically connected with the surrounding envi-
ambiente. The following interview addresses such
issues and provides an overview of the theoretical
and technological background behind them. It also
touches on the central role of noise in Mr. Di Sci-
pio’s live electronics compositions and on the de-
gree of freedom allowed to human agents involved
in the performance of such works. A list of his com-
positions is given in Table 1, and a list of recordings
is provided in Table 2.
Born in Naples in 1962, Señor. Di Scipio first ap-
proached composition as a self-taught musician,
and later he pursued more formal studies at the
Conservatory of L’Aquila and the University of
Padua. A former visiting composer in several insti-
tutions, including Simon Fraser University (Burn-
aby, British Columbia, 1993) and the Sibelius
Academia (Helsinki, 1995), he is today Professor of
Electronic Music at the Conservatory of Naples and
instructor in live electronics at Centre de Création
Musicale Iannis Xenakis (CCMIX) in Paris. En 2004,
Señor. Di Scipio lectured at the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, and at Johannes-Gutenberg-
Universität in Mainz. A portrait compact disc, en-
cluding some of the works recalled in the interview,
will soon be released by Edition RZ, Berlina. Él es
also greatly interested in issues of music theory in-
volving the relationship between art and technol-
ogia, and he has published numerous articles and
essays in international publications devoted to
such issues.
In 2004–2005, he lived in Berlin as a guest artist of
Computer Music Journal, 29:3, páginas. 11–28, Caer 2005
© 2005 Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts.
the DAAD Künstlerprogramm. This interview took
place on 28 Noviembre 2004 in his apartment.
Chaos vs. Noise
anderson: What is the main focus of your work
these days?
Di Scipio: I’m working on a live-electronics solo,
Background Noise Study (see Figures 2 y 3). El
only sound material it explores is any background
noise in the room where the performance takes
lugar. It’s the third work in a series called Audible
Ecosystemics. I will extend it into Background
Noise Study, with Mouth Performer, focusing on
involuntary sounds arising from inside the mouth
and body of a performer and other tiny sounds of
the glottis, the tongue, and the facial muscles.
anderson: Is that in the same line of your work
with chaos and numerical models of complex sys-
tems? Allá, también, noise had a central role.
Di Scipio: In a sense it builds on previous work,
Sí, yet it’s very different. We should make a dis-
tinction between chaos and noise, words often used
as synonyms. In contemporary science, just like in
ancient mythology, chaos stands for a highly dy-
namic situation, an ongoing and complex wave of
turbulence between order and disorder, with several
nuances in between. It’s a dynamical process that
may either bear order and form, or collapse into to-
tal lack of them.
As you know, there exist relatively simple mathe-
matical models of highly dynamical systems, columna-
lected under the heading of a theory of deterministic
caos. One night during Spring 1989, in my student
room in L’Aquila, I implemented one such simple
proceso, iterating a nonlinear transfer function. I
tried it first as a tool for algorithmic composition,
assigning the numerical output to entry time, dura-
ción, pitch, and intensity values of instrumental ges-
turas. The next night, I moved to a greatly reduced
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Cifra 1. Agostino Di
Scipio.
to more patterned textures, across a variety of other
behaviors (Di Scipio 1994a).
I used that in transformation of existing sound,
también. I was not aware of the efforts that other com-
posers like Horacio Vaggione were pursuing with
micro-time transformations of instrumental sound
materiales. En 1993, during a residency at Simon
Fraser University, working with Barry Truax’s
POD system, I composed a tape piece—Essai du
Vide. Schweigen—mostly made by “recursive”
granulation, es decir., granulating some material (a harp
sound and a kettledrum sound) and feeding back
the output into the granulation process several
veces, every iteration leading to finer and finer
sound particles.
anderson: So it was a kind of algorithmic process in
the creation of granular textures, linking a formal-
ized approach with more empirical sound design.
Di Scipio: Sí. The motivation behind that was a
systemic one. The question for me was, “How can
you create a micro-level system or process such that
a higher-level Gestalt can emerge and develop in
tiempo?” It’s the kind of question you ask when em-
bracing micro-sound composition (Di Scipio 1994b;
Roads 2001, páginas. 75 y 331). Sin embargo, it addresses a
broader theoretical issue, también, concerning how par-
tial elements get together and eventually disappear
as such—only to let a coherent whole or form ap-
pear. And form is, en este caso, the form of sound,
the array of emergent properties of sound we usu-
ally call timbre.
More in general, I guess I was simply considering
sound synthesis as composition (or micro-
composition, as Xenakis indeed had already put it).
Probably that’s because of my humanistic back-
ground. (In high school, I took classes in Latin and
Greek.) The Greek word “syn-thesis” and the Latin
“com-posing” are equivalent; obviamente, they both
mean “putting together.” Chaos and the dynamics
of complex systems, as accessible with iterated nu-
merical processes, represented for me a way to com-
pose small sonic units such that a higher-level
sonority would manifest itself in the process.
anderson: Sin embargo, chaos and noise have a broader
conceptual meaning to them.
time scale, letting the process drive the variables of
granular synthesis methods that I was programming
on my IBM80286 computer. I had no special attrac-
tions for fractals and other popular science concepts,
but I saw potential in these numerical methods as a
useful front-end for granular synthesis.
A few months later, I presented these experi-
ments at the International Computer Music Con-
ference (ICMC) in Glasgow (Di Scipio 1990). A
little later, at the CSC (University of Padova),
Graziano Tisato and I implemented granular syn-
thesis and granular processing on the local main-
frame computer system, using several nonlinear
maps as a front-end control structure (Di Scipio and
Tisato 1993). With that, and with my own stand-
alone applications for the 80286, I made the tape of
Plex (for double bass and four-channel tape, pre-
miered by Stefano Scodanibbio in Rome during
Noviembre 1991).
anderson: Did you know of previous approaches to
granular synthesis?
Di Scipio: I was aware of Xenakis’s pioneering ex-
periments with granular synthesis, por supuesto, como
well as of the early computer implementations of
granular synthesis—Curtis Roads, Barry Truax.
Sin embargo, the statistical perspective taken in these
approaches, based on probability distribution func-
ciones, was for me just one way to compose grains to-
juntos, not necessarily the only way. With a single
model of dynamic systems, I could exploit a larger
palette of grain arrangements, ranging from random
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Di Scipio: Por supuesto, Sí. Chaos can be understood
as a general paradigm, one that since time immemo-
rial has contrasted with harmony. Is it possible to-
day to understand the world we live in, the natural
and the humanly devised, as part of a harmonic,
well-proportioned design? Can the music we make
today be understood still as part of the Pythagorean
and Keplerian music of the spheres? The world we
live in is caught in a perpetual exchange between
energetic forces whose interactions sometimes re-
veal the dispersive and destructive, sometimes the
constructive and coherent. We should only be happy
to be part of a process within which harmony and
order might happen, albeit only as temporary, tran-
sient phenomena.
Noise refers to a more experiential level. In my
own and in other composers’ efforts, noise moves
from the periphery to the center of musical percep-
ción. Maybe that’s not particularly original—I don’t
know—it’s a question of according our attention to
that which is normally considered marginal and
hence discarded—that which we usually filter out
and deliberately avoid taking into account. En el
Audible Ecosystemics pieces, noise is crucial, como
without it, the real-time process that they imple-
ment would have nothing to chew on, por así decirlo.
Noise is systemically functional; it’s necessary for
living organisms to grow, develop, and maintain
ellos mismos, until the moment when they are not
able anymore to incorporate it.
In music scored for traditional musical instru-
mentos, I often focus on the exploration of extended
playing techniques, which for me represent another
way to draw attention to, and corresponding rele-
vance to, sonic events that normally slip out of con-
trol and disturb a more secure flow of events.
anderson: The German composer Helmut Lachen-
mann, famous for his work with extended tech-
niques, says there is no ugly or musically irrelevant
sound in the world.
Di Scipio: He’s right. Cage held a similar position,
although not identical. The earlier Xenakis works
have been described by philosopher Michel Serres as
purposefully designed bruits de fond (Serres 1967).
Y, as you know, many younger musicians find it
very trendy to label their own music “noise.” Alas,
what these latter musicians seem to be about is of-
ten just a cheap, nihilistic notion of noise, a gesture
of aesthetic fetishism (no surprise they often quote,
as a historical precedent to their work, the Italian
futurists’ Art of Noise from the 1920s, which itself
entailed a fetishistic “aesthetization” of modern
lifestyles that was rooted in fascist ideology).
In a broader perspective, I believe we are today in
a position to better ponder the noise that music is
in today’s society. It’s not just that music uses
noise as raw material and then filters it, molds it,
sculpts it, removes the irregularities in it, chan-
nels it, and hence distracts its impact from the so-
cial and the political (an older view held by Jacques
Attali; see Attali 1985). Bastante, music can really
generate noise, liberate it, and be disruptive even
when it stays completely silent or keeps itself ex-
tremely quiet. (Noise does not necessarily imply
extreme loudness.) You have probably read that
little essay of mine translated into German some
years ago, “The Composer as Noise Generator”
(Di Scipio 2002).
anderson: Noise reflects a tendency not to abstract
from reality, and instead to witness it in a more di-
rect way.
Di Scipio: A heightened sensitivity to the material
and intellectual conditions that are given or socially
allowed, such that we take responsibility over the
changes we implement into those given conditions.
No composer (not I, for one) can be granted that the
end result of the labor can be called “music” instead
de, decir, “abominable confusion.” It’s the struggle—
the sweat and thought one puts into the making of
the noise—that turns the latter into a chance for
communication between human beings.
Interactivity
anderson: Your recent compositions reflect a very
personal notion of interactivity. Could you describe
él? How did you come to it?
Di Scipio: As a student (mid 1980s), I spent quite
some time in writing microcode for real-time syn-
thesis and processing, but only later (mid 1990s) did
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Cifra 2. Signal flow for
Background Noise Study,
illustrating a network of
control signals generated
in real time.
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I seriously consider live computer music perfor-
mance. Perhaps it was out of a need to directly con-
front the so-called interactive technologies in all
forms of human-computer interaction that nowa-
days seem obvious and normal.
My first move was strategic and a little paradoxi-
California: I tried a performance set-up where I would get
rid of any planned interaction, and that would let
me see if any residual interaction would still occur
and in what particular dimensions of the perfor-
mance it would occur. That’s the strategy behind
el 1994 composition 7 Small Variations on the
Cold, for trumpet and a digital signal processing
unit. Every variation is announced by a taped voice
(“uno,” “due,". . .), with a very detached tone. El
trumpet player has a kind of improvisation schema,
totally independent of the computer, requiring only
the production of hisses, blowing sounds, cada-
thing extremely soft (“ppp”), and percussive effects
on the mouthpiece and tube. The computer, sobre el
other hand, runs on itself and processes the trumpet
sound based on a thoroughly deterministic schedul-
ing of time-domain signal processing transforma-
ciones, totally independent of the instrumental part.
anderson: You were not leaning on any auditory
exchange or feedback?
Di Scipio: Exactly, no feedback, no real-time con-
trols, no MIDI messaging around, no interaction,
only an indeterminate plan for sound production on
one side and few DSP algorithms following a deter-
ministic plan on the other.
14
Computer Music Journal
Cifra 3. From the score to
Background Noise Study,
with Mouth Performer.
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Of course it was a failure (in a sense, it had to be a
failure), as some interaction did take place on the
part of the trumpet player, in the performances I
had (a good one was at the 1995 ICMC, in Banff,
Russel Whitehead on trumpet, with most of the au-
dience loudly booing at it, and few others enthusias-
tically whistling). Ahora, this residual interaction
that I noticed was a question of auditory perception,
Sí, but especially a sense of timing, of timely coor-
dination, a kind of opening of the ears to micro-
scopic nuances in the sound and to the way it
travels through the room. I repeated the experience
con 4 Variations on the Rhythm of the Wind
(1995), for double-bass recorder and digital signal
Procesando, composed for the exceptional
recorderist Antonio Politano.
I should mention that, in composing these pieces,
I started working with the Kyma sound-design lan-
guage and its number-crunching engine consisting of
several Motorola processors. I enjoyed working with
it so much, it then became for me a rather stable
computer music platform with which to work.
anderson: So what was your next move?
Di Scipio: I then started to think in terms of com-
posing a network of sonic interactions, and I tried
to accordingly revise a work I had sketched one or
two years before, Texture-Multiple for small en-
semble and live electronics. I wanted to shape out
the relationships among performance components,
the audible interconnection among all the actors
involved. I would ask myself several questions:
anderson
15
How might the instrumental sound affect the
computer process? How might the computer’s out-
put sound affect the instrumentalist(s)? What re-
sponse might the sound elicit from the room
where the performance takes place, y cómo
might that response itself drive the computer pro-
cess and/or suggest changes in the instrumental
actuación? Each partial element in the perfor-
mance influences, by the sole means of its sound,
all the others, and is in turn influenced by them. En
un sentido, it’s a view closer to system theory and to
biocybernetics. And it’s an anti-reductionist view:
you cannot remove any component without also
substantially changing (or even killing) the whole
sí mismo.
anderson: From your writings, I see that you de-
scribe this approach, también, as a nonlinear process,
where feedback has a major role.
Di Scipio: It has to do with feedback, inevitably,
but more precisely with circular causality as a
broader cybernetic principle (von Förster 1993). En-
teraction is too often understood as a determinate
machine reaction to a planned human action. I like
much more the way Heinz von Förster used to put
él, when he said (I am paraphrasing him here), "En-
teraction is when you see yourself with the eyes of
the other.” For some interaction to happen between
two systems, two organisms or processes, either one
should be able to welcome the other’s viewpoint in
its own view and actions.
You don’t have to imply that feedback is audio
comentario. Sí, some works of mine are indeed based
on audio feedback and use the Larsen Effect as the
only sound source, but at the beginning I was
mainly interested in sub-audio feedback, eso es,
feedback in control signals. I would employ feature-
extraction methods to track sonic properties in the
sound source, instrumental or otherwise, y luego
turn that information into one or more viable con-
trol signals, driving with them the run-time vari-
ables of DSP audio transformations. The result is a
kind of feedback loop in the low-frequency domain,
or rhythm domain.
Di Scipio: In some works of mine, the room is part
of the network of performance components. Alguno
sound source elicits the room resonances, cuales son
analyzed by the computer, and the analysis data is
used to drive the computer transformations of the
sound source itself. What is implemented is a recur-
sive relationship between human performer(s), mamá-
chine(s), and the surrounding environment. Cada
action or reaction in any of these three elements has
corto- or long-term consequences on the whole, de-
pending on the particular connections I design. Ser-
cause it’s a recursive process, and because the
recursive mapping of information from one element
to another is far from being linear and void of noise,
the overall process actually materializes a dynamic
sistema. Let’s say it at least gets complex enough to
blur any sense of a stable, recurrent input-output
relationship.
That’s the strategy taken in Texture-Multiple,
whose initial project dates from 1993. The live part
of Natura allo specchio also works that way. En el
string quartet with electronics, 5 diferencia-
sensitive circular interactions, the transformations
of the quartet sound are controlled by the numerical
difference between the total sound in the room and
the sound of the bridge of the string instruments.
The difference-signal represents the room response
to the string sound when the computer is quiet; él
represents the response of all the sound transform-
ers (room plus signal processing) to the string sound
when the computer does make some sound. El
whole interaction depends on that, which explains
the rather complicated title.
anderson: The use of musical instruments is
peculiar.
Di Scipio: Well, musical instruments are devices
usually meant to deliver sounds, but I like to also
use them as devices to exert controls over the digi-
tal transformations of the sounds they themselves
entregar. I do that with any other sound source, incluso
in composing for the so-called tape medium, para
that matter: I let the signal processing automati-
cally change its internal configuration upon
changes in the input sound.
anderson: The room space is also involved in this
loop, isn’t it?
En otras palabras, in this line of research, sound sets
the conditions and boundaries for its own transfor-
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mations. I call it sound-specific signal processing, o
adaptive DSP. When “sound” includes the room’s
resonances, then it becomes room-specific, or room-
dependent signal processing.
tem thus implemented has a memory, but not a
symbolic one. That’s important for large-scale de-
velopments in a performance and directly affects
the overall musical form.
Audible Ecosystemics
anderson: That leads us to the Audible Ecosys-
temics project that you mentioned at the beginning.
Could you describe, step by step, the process of any
one of them?
Di Scipio: Let’s consider the Feedback Study. El
sound source is Larsen tones that the person in
charge of the electronics deliberately causes in the
habitación. The computer, running some DSP transfor-
mations, processes this feedback material. The loud-
speakers are used both to create the Larsen tones
and to make the computer transformations audible.
A few microphones are standing in the room, alguno
of which create the Larsen tones, while others route
the room sound back into the computer.
Because the computer output is also heard in the
habitación, it actually interferes with the Larsen Effect
sí mismo, causing changes in frequency and other by-
products. The computer also executes a variety of
feature-extraction methods, using the extracted
data for internal self-regulation. Por ejemplo, él
traces the input amplitude of the feedback events
and scales the output amplitude down by an in-
versely proportional factor. It’s a kind of “self-
gating,” useful to avoid saturation and to ensure
that a more balanced situation is eventually re-
stored whenever louder feedback events or some
thicker computer sound perturbs the system. Self-
gating and other self-regulating methods I use re-
flect a broader systemic principle of “compensation.”
If some sonic variable happens to build up to a criti-
cal point, some other variable automatically counter-
balances that occurrence by releasing some energy.
A peculiar aspect in this approach is that later de-
velopments are the consequences of (mucho) earlier
events. It’s a sign of the system’s sensitivity to the
external conditions and reflects the fact that the
sound we hear at any given time is the outcome of
the whole history of the system’s process. The sys-
anderson: The role of the microphones is decisive,
as well as that of the room acoustics.
Di Scipio: The microphones are used as interface
between room and machine. Their placement is cru-
cial, perhaps even more so than their technical char-
caracteristicas. The variety of sounding results depends
on the room’s acoustical properties, but also on how
well the microphones capture these properties.
As to the room acoustics, I must say, there’s no
good or bad acoustics to the Audible Ecosystemics
pieces. They just welcome the acoustics of the par-
ticular room as it is—as the room’s own “sound-
mark.” However, more varied room resonances in
principle should yield more varied sound results. En
a space with walls and other surfaces made of sev-
eral materials (madera, glass, concreto, textile materi-
como, etc.), it is relatively easier to exploit a variety of
sonic reflections. In a space with fewer surface ma-
terials, it may be trickier, so I would put one micro-
phone in an angle and another in the middle of the
habitación, Por ejemplo, looking for places with different
geometrical shapes. También, I would place some mi-
crophones far removed from the loudspeakers, y
others closer to them. Just like the microphone, el
loudspeaker is not an element foreign to the pro-
impuesto; it’s part of it, something used to generate the
música, not to play it back.
In the Impulse Response Study, synthetic im-
pulse material elicits the room’s resonances, y
the computer transforms these into control signals
driving audio transformations of the impulse mate-
rial itself (Di Scipio 2003). In the Background Noise
Estudiar, as I said, the only sound source is the back-
ground noise, either in the room, or in a human per-
former’s mouth.
anderson: How is the microphone utilized, en el
last case? Does the performer bring it into the mouth?
Di Scipio: Sí. The performer holds a very small
microphone with the fingers and brings it well into
the mouth, avoiding audible contacts with the
mouth itself. In passages, the performer also pulls
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the microphone out but keeps it close to the lips,
and then swallows, moistens the lips, etc., doing all
sorts of small movements (and sounds) that are
physiologically necessary every now and then. El
computer transforms these mouth sounds, but in so
doing it is driven by properties in the sound itself,
mainly amplitude, density of events (es decir., how fre-
quently these tiny events are delivered), y algunos
spectral properties. The analysis data then drives
simple filters and granular transformations of the
mouth sound. When the performer changes the
mouth posture, the resonances of the vocal tract
cavities change, and the computer adapts to the
new situation.
anderson: Isn’t the performance of such works al-
ways at risk, so to say, of breaking down?
Di Scipio: En efecto, es. [laughs]. The overall infra-
structure depends on so many details and fortuitous
circumstances—it’s literally fragile—you’re right,
there’s a sense that at any time the whole thing may
collapse and crash; not the equipment itself (hope-
fully not!), but the dynamic process.
You know, I accept that risk and even try to make
it tangibly present to the listeners. Facing critical
circumstances, I may adjust things on the mixer and
in the computer, yet the essential concept to these
works is that the real-time process should be capable
of self-regulation even in unforeseen circumstances.
The performance instructions for Background
Noise Study, with Mouth Performer include a sepa-
rate section on “Emergency Situations and Security
Measures.” It describes how the performer, por
changing the mouth posture or delivering some spe-
cial sounds, might handle the situation where elec-
tronic transformations seem to take over and lead
the overall process adrift.
In some of my pieces with solo instrument and
electronics, one can clearly hear that, were the in-
strumentalist to refrain from delivering some sound,
the whole fabric of polyphonic sound the computer
creates from it may vanish immediately. On this
topic, there were some questions in the seminar [re-
ferring to a lecture delivered in the Elektronisches
Studio of the Technische Universität Berlin]. Uno
person observed, correctly, that this fragility is an
element that livens up the performance, y eso
instrumentalists may be more profoundly involved
and made attentive by this risk of imminent failure.
Sonic Dust
anderson: Sometimes you use the term “sonic
dust,” and I wonder if it is related to this thin line
separating an effective performance from failure.
Di Scipio: Maybe. I never thought about it. “Sonic
dust” is a loose definition for the by-products of a
network of sonic interactions, a shortcut term for
thin, noisy artifacts, finely grained textures, maybe
closer to a sand—dispersive systems and processes
that leave light but audible traces behind (Di Scipio
in press).
As you know, Herbert Brün used to say that one
thing is composing, and another is the music. El
latter is the traces left by the former—a residue, si
you like. That was especially in his Sawdust com-
puter music project. My efforts are very different,
but the conceptual separation of composition (o,
responsibility on premises and conditions, in my
fraseología) and music (sonic features arising from
premises and conditions) perhaps attests to a shared
perspectiva. The implication is that sound is the
epiphenomenon of a lower-level process: you design
a low-level process, and the interactions and inter-
ferences among particle components taking part in
the process are heard as a dynamic shape of sound, a
process of sonological emergence.
We touch here on a music-theoretical issue that
became clear to me when studying Xenakis’s pio-
neering electronic and computer music efforts (Di
Scipio 1997). Taking a broader music-theoretical
perspectiva, in essence all music that is primarily
concerned with timbre involves to some extent a
phenomenon of sonological emergence. I’m not a
professional music theorist, but I have occasionally
written on the subject (Di Scipio 1994b).
On Performance
anderson: Is the performance of your works with
live electronics bound to your presence or supervi-
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sión? Today it is difficult or even impossible to
perform some important electroacoustic composi-
tions from the 1950s and 1960s owing to a lack of
documentation.
Di Scipio: Do you refer to the Audible Ecosys-
temics pieces? I perform them myself, Sí, pero
sometimes I have other people do it. The Impulse
Response Study has been set up by two different
live-electronic performers besides myself (Kurt
Hebel, for the premiere, in Keele, 2002, and Alvise
Vidolin, for the Italian premiere, Florencia, 2003). I
provided them with instructions as to all that is
necessary. The Background Noise Study, también, is pre-
cisely documented. I am far behind with the docu-
mentation for the Feedback Study, aunque.
Todavía, I believe that the problems raised in live per-
formance of electronic music are not really over-
come with the simple availability of precise
technical descriptions. Some amount of “oral tradi-
tion” is always needed. Surely, composers should do
their best to provide a good technical documenta-
ción, but some implicit knowledge is necessary, es-
pecially when musical endeavors are able to renew
ellos mismos, opening technical and musical ideas
that did not exist before.
anderson: With works like Texture-Multiple, podría
one say that each performance has the status of a
versión? Not only do works like this involve a vari-
able number of musicians; they consist of a process
involving the particular room where the perfor-
mance is presented.
Di Scipio: Texture-Multiple has been for ten years,
and to some extent still remains, a work in progress.
Maybe it’s correct to say, as you do, that there are as
many versions as rooms where it has been played. I
was thinking rather of multiple versions, owing to
the variable number of performers (three to six),
which of course determines a very different system
dinámica. In the score, the timing is also very flexi-
ble, and from what I learned, it roughly depends on
the room’s size. There have been longer and shorter
performances, depending on how big or small the
room is.
En 6 studi (piano and adaptive DSP), not only the
tempi, but also the intensities are entirely flexible
(no dynamics marks are found in the score). In five
passages, the computer processes the piano sound,
stretches its duration, and eventually pulverizes the
sound by extremely de-correlating the grain signal.
These transformations are driven by the speed and
amplitude of the piano performance. Sucesivamente, the pi-
anist changes intensity and tempi upon perception of
the density and thickness of the computer-processed
sound. A chain of causes and effects is created that
regulates itself and manifests itself primarily in
sound and in the way it is articulated in time.
In such works, the computer creates strands of
textural material or gestural events of various types.
Sometimes the sonority is neat and clean, alguno-
times dirty—a kind of powder of sound of variable
thinness, a sound artifact very dear to me. Sound is
central in my work, but it is not an end in itself; I do
my best to let it take on a functional role in the per-
rendimiento. In Texture-Multiple, the qualities of the
sonic texture arising from the computer are for the
instrumentalists like a direct auditory display of
the current balance between their playing, the com-
puter transformations, and the room resonances.
The same criterion applies in large passages of the
string quartet, 5 circular interactions.
anderson: Properly speaking, there is no score to
Texture-Multiple, but separate musical materials,
rules for using those materials, and instructions for
the live electronics.
Di Scipio: You’re right, I said “score,” meaning the
written musical materials and the accompanying
normas. The musical materials consist of six indepen-
dent musical parts, identical except for small details
and for the specifics of each particular instrument.
In the percussion part of Natura allo specchio, allá
is one only musical line: the first percussionist plays
from this line, and the second (using the same set of
percussion as the first) follows, quickly imitating
the first, independent of the notated materials.
When more than two percussionists are involved,
each subsequent percussionist imitates the previous
uno. I don’t know what to call it—maybe “algorith-
mic performance”—anyway, such an arrangement
is not at all without consequences on the very qual-
ity of sound! It’s a system of performance rules, pero
it translates into a sonority.
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In Texture-Multiple and 5 circular interactions,
the performance rules have less to do with the in-
teractions between the instrumentalists themselves
(as would be the case with Christian Wolff’s early
trabajar, Por ejemplo), and more with the way they re-
act to the computer sound, es decir., their own sound ei-
ther slightly altered or completely transfigured by a
few DSP transformations. The instrumentalists’s
actions are mediated by the electronic setup, pero
precisely how the latter transforms their sounds and
influences the further actions of the electronics is
in turn mediated by the room’s acoustics. Depend-
ing on the sonic features of the total sound in the
habitación, the instrumentalists make real-time deci-
sions regarding their own playing. Por ejemplo,
they may speed up if the sound gets denser or slow
down if it gets sparser. One may refrain from deliv-
ering new material and take a longer rest, if a lot of
one’s own sound is heard in the computer output.
Or one may, en cambio, intervene as soon as possible,
were the computer to predominantly feature mate-
rial of another instrument. When all performers
share similar intentions, they comprise an ensem-
ble, a group, a small community. When they mani-
fest different or incompatible intentions, el
community tears apart.
The oscillation between “many individuals”
(mass) and “one whole” (comunidad) is structural.
The community is more likely to arise in later pas-
sages, as the instrumentalists’s relationship to the
total room sound consolidates. In the beginning,
players are “on their own,” and, although some spe-
cial “sync” moments are requested, a sense of dis-
persion and drift prevails.
The sonic features based on which the instrumen-
talists in Texture-Multiple change their playing in-
clude textural density, total volume of the room
sound, and some simple spectral distinctions, como
bright versus dark, or narrowband versus broadband.
anderson: Pitch is not included. Me parece que
in all of your work, pitch is not a primary element.
Di Scipio: No. For me usually pitch is not the main
dimension of musical structure. Sé, this sounds
like anathema for many, including cognitive psy-
chologists who can promptly illustrate with scien-
tifically sound arguments that pitch is the only
reliable form-bearing dimension of sound. Alguno
frequency-related properties are of course relevant
to me, and they certainly have some relationship to
pitch, but musical pitch as notated is not very im-
portant in my work. I don’t want the computer and
the electronics to deliver notes. And even in the way
I use musical instruments, I try to minimize any
sense that the way pitches are organized is the musi-
cal structure per se. My attention is more focused on
timbral, textural constructs, noise transients, etc..
The instrumental parts of Texture-Multiple involve
basically two pitches: one very high (a shared note,
F-sharp), one very low (the lowest available on each
particular instrument), and only occasionally some
notes in the middle; same with many other pieces.
In works without instruments, there is no precise
pitch at all, no notes. O, if there is anything resem-
bling a note, that is a local feature, a “singularity” if
you like, of the system dynamics particular to that
piece, not something I prescriptively wanted to be
allá. The Feedback Study is indeed rich in pitched
sounds, all of which are a manifestation of the room
acoustics and the electronic setup.
anderson: Does your new percussion piece, pre-
miered in Paris some weeks ago, also include a di-
rect link to the room?
Di Scipio: No. Pulse Code (on wood) is in a line of
work involving no direct interaction with the
space—at least not of the kind we have discussed so
far. The performer plays some woodblocks and any
wooden surface available in the concert place, pro-
vided it features some basic characteristics described
in the score. That’s the only direct connection to
the room.
The percussion part consists of tremolos and
simple rhythmic patterns. It not only provides the
sound material, but also acts as a program code, a
stream of binary instructions (hit = 1, pause = 0)
that sets the internal state of the computer, cual
in turn transforms the percussion material itself. En
some passages, the percussionist can modify his or
her reading through the score, depending on the
computer output. The computer, in its turn, tiene
ways to cope with improperly delivered binary in-
structions, prompting the performer with special
audible signals.
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I’d like to extend this project to also work on
glass, on metal—maybe on paper too. But I don’t
know if I will find time for that in the near future.
The miking is so crucial; I have to work it out again,
before I move forward—same problem with Book of
Flute Dynamics (flutes and electronics), which is a
piece played mostly by hitting the keys, and only in
passing blowing into the mouthpiece. El COM-
puter turns the tiny key noises into a polyphonic
sound structure, and the particular way it does so is,
de nuevo, partially driven by the performance nuances.
A good miking is decisive, just like in Pulse Code.
I guess it’s one of those very fragile pieces, yet it
sounds powerful.
Processes and Methods
anderson: What signal-processing methods in par-
ticular do you employ in your live compositions?
Di Scipio: For the most part, it’s time-domain pro-
cessing transformations. But let me say that what is
really important is their systemic function in the
actuación. To put it simply, some signal-
processing methods are for me “operators of diver-
sity;” others are “operators of homogeneity.”
As “operator of diversity,” I often use granular
Procesando. The output sound could be very distant
from the original input material, yet it preserves a
coherent internal articulation if you properly control
the grain variables. One and the same granular-
processing patch may behave as a kind of reverber-
ator (prolonging the input material in time), or as a
signal chopper (yielding separate clicks and blips,
making impossible to understand their sound
source). But it can also act as a kind of band-pass fil-
ter bank (augmenting the noise transients in the in-
put sound), and in many other ways. It all depends
on the controls exerted.
The good point in granular processing is that, ow-
ing to the underlying time-finite representation,
each control variable is perceptually connected to
one or more other variables. This means that, cuando
you change, decir, the grain duration, the texture den-
sity also changes; when you change the density, el
total loudness also changes. You can hardly separate
the perceptual meaning of any one variable from
that of others. (This was already clear in Dennis
Gabor’s ground-breaking theoretical work in the
1940s, which he in fact presented as a theory of
hearing; see Gabor 1947.) In a reductionist view,
you would consider the sound parameters as inde-
pendent variables, and any mutual influence be-
tween them would be considered a limitation. On
the contrary, for me that is a perceptually signifi-
cant connection among sonic features.
As “operator of homogeneity,” I often resort to
simple sampling-and-playback. You may still come
up with some transformations (changing playback
tasa, reversing or otherwise controlling the memory
read pointers, inverting or otherwise shifting the
phase, etc.), but except in extreme cases, the nature
of the input sound is preserved.
So, when it comes to audio signal processing, I
don’t do things more complicated than that. But I
do a lot of control-signal processing, aunque, to cre-
ate an array of control signals out of the feature-
extraction data, using delay units, filters, transfer
funciones, etc.. The output sound is not just a ques-
tion of what audio signal processing is involved, ser-
cause it also reflects—more than we usually may
consider—the very controls exerted over the audio
signal processing.
anderson: There’s no filtering, aunque, no vocoders,
no reverb.
Di Scipio: I use simple dynamically controlled
band-pass filters, but not too often. In the Audible
Ecosystemics project, and also in sound installa-
ciones, it’s the room itself that acts like a filter or an
array of filters. (That’s probably where these efforts
of mine come closer to Alvin Lucier’s work, cómo-
ever different it may be.) De hecho, the infrastructure
of the Audible Ecosystemics pieces is akin to a phys-
ical model, except that I do not implement a com-
putational model, but a process partially mechanical
(acoustical) and partially computational: the sound
source acts as the exciter, the room acts as the
resonator, and the computer acts as the coupling
between the former two.
A veces, the feedback loop between micro-
phones and loudspeakers itself becomes a delay
line, and the process translates into a kind of reverb
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unit. That happens in passages of Pulse Code, para
ejemplo. Sin embargo, that remains just one of many
byproducts of the underlying dynamic process, not a
goal of the process.
anderson: En un sentido, the Audible Ecosystemics
project abhors artificial reverb, as it is rather meant
to elicit the real room reflections.
Di Scipio: Sí. But that is also the case with some
tape compositions of mine, como 5 piccoli ritmi
(1996), Intermittence (1997), o 3 Untitled (sound
synthesis, Octubre 2001) (2001). They also abhor ar-
tificial reverberation. The piece 3 Untitled (hecho
with iterated nonlinear functions as a direct sound
synthesis technique) presents the listener with abra-
sive sound textures that largely take on the spectral
coloration of the loudspeakers used to listen to
a ellos. En este sentido, it points the listener to the non-
neutrality of loudspeaker technology, turning a
problem in high-fidelity engineering into an ele-
ment of musical experience. Other composers have
works with similar implications (among others, el
A NOSOTROS. composer Michael Hamman). Such works try
to play the loudspeakers more than the loudspeak-
ers play them. Another example of “noise,” I guess.
anderson: By the way, do you keep in contact with
other composers?
Di Scipio: Well, I travel frequently, so I meet with
many people, often with younger composers and
estudiantes, también. I can’t think of any special relation-
barco, but surely some of these exchanges had a sig-
nificant impact on me. I would often discuss
technical and compositional issues with my former
maestro, Michelangelo Lupone, who is so talented
both technologically and musically. But today I
meet him only rarely.
First Steps
anderson: How were your days as a student with
him, in L’Aquila?
Di Scipio: Oh, we were deep into programming
real-time sound synthesis, because that was the fo-
cus of his work then. Lupone brought the Fly sys-
tem into the classes (that he was himself developing,
at the CRM, Roma), and I learned programming as-
sembly code for the Texas Instruments 32010 chip
that was incorporated into it, doing simple forms
of real-time synthesis. In the mid 1980s, real-time
synthesis and processing was quite a difficult chal-
lenge, especially outside of mainstream computer-
music institutions. I made my first tape piece, Punti
di tempo (1987), by programming an 8086 processor
to control 16 analog oscillators in real time, achiev-
ing a very rough form of granular synthesis.
En ese tiempo, I had classes in Padova, también, con
James Dashow and Roberto Doati, and I learned
Music360 and Music V. At some point, Tisato and I
compiled a Csound version including new synthesis
opcodes implementing iterated nonlinear functions,
but I never used it in compositional work.
Lupone’s enthusiastic support was very impor-
tant to me. We would be busy fixing program bugs
until three o’clock in the morning, but always with
the awareness that this was part of our commit-
ment in this society. In making a direct link be-
tween technology and society, I guess we were on
the same path as Franco Evangelisti (who had
taught Electronic Music in L’Aquila in the late
1970s). Evangelisti had already died—I never met
him—but his early intuitions about technology and
sociedad, as well as about hearing and the environ-
mento, were and still are significant (Evangelisti
1991). Walter Branchi had been a student and col-
laborator of Evangelisti, and I was interested in his
trabajar, although I met him only much later.
Social Relevance
anderson: Do you see, in your approach to compo-
posición, any implication or metaphor as to the social
impact and role of music and art?
Di Scipio: Sí, I usually refrain from addressing
this aspect directly, because I want it to rise from
within the auditory experience, not as a kind of
manifesto or a set of ideological assumptions. Este
aspect should be clear in the idea itself that every
component in the performance—human beings,
equipo, the room—has an influence on all
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other components and on the behavior of the
whole system. Our discussion of Texture-Multiple
has already illustrated this point, I think. En el
Background Noise Study, with Mouth Performer,
the performer must literally face the consequences
of their own muscular movements, voluntary and
involuntary, once the latter are amplified and
processed by the electronics. In a recent work, 4
Esquisses de Surveillance et de Contrôle, for instru-
ments and electronics, each performer has an indi-
vidual “surveillance policy” for guarding off what
the others are doing.
A more general way to address your question con-
cerns the way by which we—composers, perform-
ers, people confronting this world in this particular
point in history—establish a desirable and honest
relationship to the technology we live in. I person-
ally don’t view computers as an aid to make music
mejor, but as a technology with its own specific
limitations and possibilities. Different from other
tecnologías, sin embargo, digital technologies and me-
dia have the power—whose power?—to enframe
other technologies. Surely computers have opened
up enormous musical possibilities, but these possi-
bilities are relevant for me only to the extent that
they cannot be reduced to a commodity that makes
it easier for artists to materialize their own imagi-
naciones. That would reflect a purely instrumental
notion of technology, an oversimplification of an
artist’s relationship to the tools of their trade. Él
would reflect, también, the computational paradigm of
“problem solving,” and, to tell you the truth, I am
skeptical that artistic endeavors are “problem-
solving” activities. Art is made less by solving prob-
lems and more by raising (a lot of new) problems—or
at least by articulating unseen problems.
anderson: Por lo tanto, addressing the technological
element of composition is a way to deal with
broader social-cultural issues.
Di Scipio: Oh yes, es. We live in an overly “tech-
nologized” world. We can either try to establish
some relationship to this thoroughly technical envi-
ambiente (Heidegger’s Gestell), or presume to get rid
of it altogether (a romantic reaction) (Heidegger
1953). Avoiding technology is impossible; such an
attempt would be crazy. But it would be just as
crazy to simply let it go and enjoy the commodities
with which it provides us. As artists, we’d better
know the technology we live in and work with, en
least well enough to bend it to our purposes. I think
it was Adorno who said that, by struggling with the
materials and the techniques of one’s labor, an artist
struggles with society (Adorno 1970).
If you just think about it, all art is made by mak-
En g, in the first place, the tools themselves needed
for it to be made (Di Scipio 1998). Hoy, we as
artists should be in principle designers of our own
herramientas, more than mere users of “high-tech” com-
modities designed by others. But of course no one is
in the position to control the complete range of
tools and means one employs.
We all face a number of contradictions in our
daily life owing to the heavy expropriation of all
tools and means and things with which we live. El
fact that we own them doesn’t mean that we know
and appropriate them. I am not very optimistic, en
this point. Como ejemplo, today too much electro-
acoustic music is more precisely defined as “Pro
Tools music.”
Still, I believe that an effort in the appropriation
of technology is necessary to disclose a margin of
maneuver within which we may then compose our
tools and our music, not letting the software, for ex-
amplio, compose our music. The freedom musicians
take in creatively dealing with their working tools
and means could be an important sign to convey to
listeners.
anderson: Does it have to do with responsibility?
Di Scipio: Right, it has to do with one’s own re-
sponsibility over the actions by which one bears and
brings forth one’s artifacts, designs, proposals to this
world. The fact is, all too often we address the artis-
tic qualities of an art work, and we appreciate its
aesthetic content, disregarding that the work itself
comes out of social mediations and negotiations
embodied in the technologies by which it is made.
Artistic achievements are traces of artists’ aware-
ness of the technological processes involved in their
trabajar. My personal opinion is that this awareness is
captured in sound—it somehow can be heard. Mu-
sic always bears audible traces of the composer’s
relationship to society.
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anderson: Is it important for you to be indepen-
dent of large studios and electroacoustic music
institutions?
Di Scipio: Well, you know, the possibility of work-
ing in my own studio (which includes very few
pieces of equipment) is a prerequisite for being mu-
sically independent. It allows me to pursue efforts
and experiments I feel are necessary to do, regard-
less of academic expectations. And it allows me to
respond to institutional invitations based on my
own ideas of what must be done.
A certain degree of independence from large stu-
dio facilities is not uncommon today, but pursuing a
kind of personal research agenda and related experi-
ments—that is indeed a privilege, one for which I
had and still have to strive. It’s not easy to hold
such a position, considering that I was not born into
a wealthy family.
anderson: The emphasis on noise, on the room—
that too has social resonances.
Di Scipio: Sure, it fosters a direct experience of
sound in the real space welcoming us, with its geo-
metrical and architectural, and hence also cultural,
connotations. That is at odds with approaches of
“spatialization” and concepts of “virtual reality,"
however technically refined they may be. I don’t
want to take the listeners to a distant, inexistent
space-time, and then put them back into their
chairs after a nice, but illusory, journey. I’d prefer
work with that which is before our ears and eyes.
That’s especially the case with the Audible Ecosys-
temics project and with installation projects.
anderson: Other composers, like David Behrman,
have worked from a similar perspective.
Di Scipio: The installations of Behrman’s that I
could visit (here in Berlin) are interesting. I have a
special interest for all endeavors where sound, en-
cluding the sound of architectural spaces, is the only
or primary medium of communication. As should be
clear from earlier answers, I refrain from using visual
interfaces, MIDI controllers, heat sensors, photocells,
etc., and keep myself to sound as the only interface
among humans, máquinas, and environments. Este
is a bit ideological, maybe, as after all we use all of
our senses to get in touch with the environment
and with things we encounter in the environment.
Pero, when it comes to the art called music, or to any
form of sound art, that’s my way into it.
(No) Thinking About Form
anderson: You describe yourself as a composer of
sounds. How about musical form?
Di Scipio: Oh, that’s a difficult point to tackle. I
don’t think much about musical form.
anderson: That’s surprising for a European composer.
Di Scipio: I just limit myself to lay down the prem-
ises based on which some overall form or orienta-
tion may appear, but I can’t say much regarding the
shape itself that eventually appears. All I can say is
that some people tell me that they find my compo-
sitions to have a very “good form,” a so-called
“good shape” [laughs].
anderson: Do they mean a sense of drama?
Di Scipio: It may be drama or deliberate lack of it; I
don’t know. I myself ask what they mean. I don’t
think I am in a position to answer. Being somehow
naturally able to shape up an overall coherent ges-
tura, I mainly focus on things that I’m not able to
do and that need more experimentation from me.
Once I was told that Natura allo specchio has a
very clear overall form. Probably so, but I had al-
ways thought of it in terms of a rather magmatic
sonic matter that only in a couple of passages ac-
quires some direction owing to speaking voices
clearly heard on top of it.
Musical Theater
anderson: Natura allo specchio is a work largely
based on iterated nonlinear functions of the kind
you mentioned at the beginning. Like other similar
obras, it is part of a larger-scale composition,
Sound & Fury.
Di Scipio: Sí, Sound & Fury consists of five sec-
tions predominantly made with iterated functions
24
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as a synthesis engine (Di Scipio and Prignano 1996),
some of which can be played separately, as is the
case with the first section (Natura allo specchio)
and with the third (Intermittence). The complete
staging of Sound & Fury calls for two reciters, two
percussionists, eight-channel tape, live sound syn-
tesis, and computer-controlled slide projection.
There is a libretto, based on selected lines from
Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
anderson: What brings iterated nonlinear functions
and Shakespeare together?
Di Scipio: The Tempest asks questions as to what is
Nature and what is Artifact. Prospero stages a pow-
erful thunderstorm by sole means of his arts of
magic. The other personae believe it is a natural—
albeit extraordinary—meteorological event.
In its own way, Sound & Fury also addresses
questions as to the relationship between Nature and
Artifact. At the beginning, the sound is overtly syn-
thetic, but it somehow bears enigmatic traces of
hidden natural agencies. By the end, the sound is al-
most entirely natural, but bears traces of a mechani-
cal element to it, something unnatural hiding
beyond the surface.
Relevant in The Tempest is also the relationship
between Prospero and Caliban, the colonizer and
the colonized. At the end of the play, Prospero
leaves the island he had colonized and sets the na-
tive Caliban free again. In Sound & Fury (following
poet W. h. Auden’s interpretation of this point),
Caliban is incapable of enjoying his freedom any-
más, and he is not able to properly speak his own
idioma. Por supuesto, colonization is not just a ques-
tion of geographical occupation; it’s a cultural pro-
impuesto. Hoy, colonization takes on peculiar forms.
What is called “globalization” is a kind of world-
wide cognitive colonization.
For years, Sound & Fury has been for me a plat-
form to experiment with the weird sonorities I
could get using iterated non-linear functions as a di-
rect synthesis method—low-frequency turbulences,
intermittence phenomena, and other peculiar arti-
facts—but so unique, I could not see how to convey
them to listeners. I needed a framework to do so,
and the plot of The Tempest revealed a useful frame-
trabajar. It was an exception, for me. I usually avoid
setting existing poetry to music; I more enjoy col-
laborating with living poets (as I did in Tiresia, co-
composed with poet Giuliano Mesa).
anderson: How did you use the Shakespearean
excerpts?
Di Scipio: In the simplest way possible. The text is
spoken by two reciters (and by taped voices, también), en un
plain and comprehensible way. I use the original En-
glish text, partly overlapping with its Italian trans-
lation and with the translation in the native language
of the reciters. (Por ejemplo, in Portugal, five years
atrás, we had this three-part language counterpoint.)
I must recall that, beside the Shakespeare mate-
rial, the libretto to Sound & Fury also includes
some lines from Auden’s commentary to The Tem-
pest and few lines by Eugenio Tescione, an Italian
poet and friend I have known since high school. I
asked Eugenio to re-write in his own way what Au-
den had himself written in his own way as a com-
mentary to Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
anderson: How about the visual element?
Di Scipio: It’s mainly naturalistic images, eventu-
ally becoming quite abstract to the viewer’s eyes.
The photographer I worked with, Manilio Prignano,
took close-up photos of details of a seashore, in Net-
tuno, not far from Rome. The seashore is where
Caliban stands still, watching the horizon, después
Prospero’s departure. Taking Caliban’s viewpoint, en
the concert we first watch a red sun setting down at
the horizon, beyond the sea. Entonces, following the
sunset, we watch the sea surface, and finally the
ground under our feet. Primero, wave ripples creating
abstract images in the sand, then a dryer sand and
grayish stones.
We didn’t want anything more complicated. El
sunset adds a symbolic meaning to the work. El
Tempest deals with issues that were of the highest
relevance at the time when it was written, un momento
when the Western Modern world started to be
forged, and when the West Indies (later baptized
“America”) were colonized. As you know, the Latin
word occidente [west] stands for the place where the
sun sets, and in many modern languages we call
ourselves occidental [Western]. Our world is one
eso, while increasingly raising up based on an ide-
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ology of progress, it’s also going down—to use an
Escherian image.
Teaching
anderson: You are a professor in Electronic Music,
in Naples. How is teaching there?
Di Scipio: Naples is a very, very complicated
town—messy and lively. I was born there, I love it,
yet I prefer to live in L’Aquila, a small and quiet
mountain town, not far from Rome.
The students I have are very committed, y, Alabama-
though in Naples there’s little echo of the interna-
tional scenario of electroacoustic and computer
música, they pursue interesting experiments. Uno de
our long-term projects addresses the overlap be-
tween early music and folk musical instruments on
la una mano, and computers and other modern
equipment on the other. It’s like staging the en-
counter or clash of deeply different cultural ratio-
nales, which mirrors broader cultural processes
taking place in Naples and other parts of Southern
Italy nowadays.
The problem is, except for my classes and the
concerts we happen to do around there, there’s little
context in Naples to what the students do. Allá
are good researchers in the local university, pero
they have scarce interest in music. En el otro
mano, many composers and professors in the Con-
servatory have not even the slightest idea of what
electroacoustic and computer music is. The divide
is extreme.
dicho eso, teaching is for me a very rewarding ex-
experiencia. It keeps me in contact with younger musi-
cians and with musical trends and technological
practices that by myself I would not be able to get
to know.
Referencias
Attali, j. 1985. Noise: The Political Economy of Music.
Mineápolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Di Scipio, A. 1990. “Composition by Exploration of Non-
linear Dynamical Systems.” Proceedings of the 1990
International Computer Music Conference. San Fran-
cisco: International Computer Music Association,
páginas. 324–327.
Di Scipio, A. 1994a. “Micro-Time Sonic Design and the
Formation of Timbre.” Contemporary Music Review
10(2):135–148.
Di Scipio, A. 1994b. “Formal Processes of Timbre Compo-
posición. Challenging the Dualistic Paradigm of Com-
puter Music.” Proceedings of the 1994 Internacional
Computer Music Conference. San Francisco: interna-
tional Computer Music Association, páginas. 202–208.
Di Scipio, A. 1997. “The Problem of 2nd-Order Sonorities
in Xenakis’ Electroacoustic and Computer Music.” Or-
ganised Sound 2(3):165–178.
Di Scipio, A. 1998. “Questions Concerning Music Tech-
nology.” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humani-
corbatas 3(2):31–40.
Di Scipio, A. 2002. “Der Komponist als Rauschgenera-
tor.” Inventionen Festival 2002 Katalog. Berlina: Pfau-
Verlag, páginas. 36–51.
Di Scipio, A. 2003. “Sound is the Interface: From Interac-
tive to Ecosystemic Signal Processing.” Organised
Sound 8(3):269–277.
Di Scipio, A. In Press “Klangstaub.” Positionen.
Di Scipio, A., y yo. Prignano. 1996. “Synthesis by Func-
tional Iteration: A Revitalization of Nonstandard Syn-
thesis.” Journal of New Music Research 25(1):31–46.
Di Scipio, A., y G. Tisato. 1993. “Granular Synthesis
with the Interactive Computer Music System.” Pro-
ceedings of the Colloquio di Informatica Musicale.
Milan: AIMI/LIM, University of Milan.
Evangelisti, F. 1991. Dal Silenzio a un Nuovo Mondo
Sonoro. Roma: Semar.
Gabor, D. 1947. “Acoustical Quanta and the Theory of
Hearing.” Nature 159:591–594.
Heidegger, METRO. 1954. “Die Frage nach der Technik.” In
Vorträge und Aufsätze. Pfullingen: Neske. (Trans. por
W.. Lovitt in M. Heidegger. 1977. The Question Con-
cerning Technology and Other Essays. Nueva York:
Harper and Row.)
Roads, C. 2001. Microsound. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
CON prensa.
Serres, METRO. 1967. “Musique et bruit de fond.” Critique
Adorno, t. W.. 1970. Ästhetische Theorie. Frankfurt:
261:12–25.
Suhrkamp.
von Förster, h. 1993. KybernEthik. Berlina: Merve Verlag.
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Mesa 1. List of Compositions
Tape (stereo, unless otherwise indicated)
Punti di tempo (1987–1988)
Estensioni (CSC Padova, 1988)
Essai du Vide. Schweigen (Simon Fraser University, 1993)
5 piccoli ritmi (1996)
Intermittence (1997)
Paysages Historiques (1998–2005) 2-, 8-, and 16-channel tape materials
No. 1: Roma. Cantor Set. In cooperation with Michael Rüsenberg
No. 2: Berlina. Bad Sampling
No. 3: París. La Robotique des Lumiéres (IMEB Bourges)
No. 4: Nueva York. Background Media Noises (IMEB Bourges)
3 Untitled (sound synthesis, Octubre 2001) (2001, 6-channel)
2 Remixes (2002, in cooperation with Fred Szymanski)
30 seconds piece (2003, 5.0-channel DVD)
Instrumental
n/phasis (1989) for percussion (1 player), keyboard with pedal, and low-pitched reed instrument
Index (1990) para 4 percussionists (4 timpani)
Ektopos (1997) for guitar solo (or many guitars in unison)
3 pezzi (2003–2005) for amplified string quartet
Instrument and Tape
Fractus (1990, CSC Padova) for viola and tape
Plex (1991, CSC Padova) for double bass and 4-channel tape
Kairos (1992) for soprano saxophone and tape
Some strings (1993, Simon Fraser University) for harp and tape
Instrument(s) and Live Electronics
Event (1990) for flute, clarinet, 4-channel tape, and digital signal processing
Texture-Multiple (1993, rev. 2000) for 3–6 instruments and room-dependent digital signal processing
7 piccole variazioni sul freddo (1994–1995) for trumpet and digital signal processing
4 variazioni sul ritmo del vento (1995) for double bass recorder and digital signal processing
6 studi ‘dalla muta distesa delle cose’ (1996–1997) for piano and adaptive digital signal processing
5 interazioni cicliche alle differenze sensibili (1997–1998, Istituto Gramma, L’Aquila) for string quartet and room-
dependent digital signal processing
Book of flute dynamics (2001) for flute and adaptive digital signal processing
Os, oris (2002) for trombone and adaptive digital signal processing
2 di 1 (2003) for violin, piccolo recorder, and adaptive digital signal processing (Nota: two more versions are available
for one instrument and adaptive digital signal processing)
Pulse Code (on wood) (2002–2004) for wooden objects and adaptive digital signal processing
4 Esquisses de Surveillance et de Contrôle (2003–2004) for string quartet, bassoon, sub-contrabass recorder, and digital
signal processing
Live-Electronics Solo
Craquelure (2 pezzi silenziosi, a Giuliano) (2002) for sound synthesis and adaptive multichannel diffusion
Audible Ecosystemics (2002–2005)
No. 1: Impulse Response Study (CCMIX, París)
No. 2: Feedback Study (Istituto Gramma, L’Aquila)
No. 3a: Background Noise Study
No. 3b: Background Noise Study, with Mouth Performer
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Mesa 1 (continued).
Sound Installations
Suoni e colori dal mare (1996, in cooperation with Manilio Prignano)
Feedback Study, with Vocal Resonances (2003–2004), an installation visited by two or more performers
Untitled (2004) pulse feedback voices, July ’04
Untitled (2005) small reverberant room, June ’05
Special Projects
Sound & Fury (1995–1998) para 2 reciters, 2 percussionists, 8-channel tape, sound synthesis, and room-dependent digital
signal processing
No. 1: Natura allo specchio
No. 2: L’isola (SACMUS, Helsinki)
No. 3: Intermittence (see also tape works listed above)
No. 4: Caliban, to the (future) audience
No. 5: Specchio alla natura
Tiresia (2000–2001, in cooperation with Giuliano Mesa), a poetry reading (1 o 2 reciters) with electronics
All works were produced in the composer’s studio unless otherwise indicated.
Mesa 2. List of Recordings
7 piccole variazioni sul freddo. Audio compact disc. Graz: ArsElectronica ORF pae95.
5 piccoli ritmi. Audio compact disc. Acton, Massachusetts: Neuma 450-93.
6 studi. Audio compact disc. Recorded on Limen, Milan LM322-12 and Hörbare Ökosysteme. Berlina: Edition RZ.
5 interazioni cicliche alle differenze sensibili. Audio compact disc. Recorded on Cemat, C001, Roma; ICMC 2000 Au-
dio Compact Disc; and PanAroma, San Paulo.
Roma. Cantor Set. (Paysage Historique No. 1). Audio compact disc. Cologne: NoteWork 5101-2.
Tiresia (two excerpts). Audio compact disc. Nueva York: Capstone CPS 8693.
Natura allo specchio. Audio compact disc. Melbourne: Bug Records BUG108. Also recorded on the Computer Music
Diario 2002 Audio Compact Disc Compilation.
Natura allo specchio. DVD. toronto: 12th root DVD RA01. (See www.twelfthroot.com/ra01.)
Paysages Historiques. Audio compact disc. Bourges, Francia: Chrysopee Electronique. (See www.imeb.net/EDITIONS/
chrysopee.html.)
Hörbare Ökosysteme. Berlina: Edition RZ. (See www.edition-rz.de.) Includes Audible Ecosystemics, Texture-Multiple
(version with six instruments), 5 interazioni, and Craquelure.
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1
4
8
9
2
6
0
5
4
7
9
8
1
4
2
pag
d
.
F
b
y
gramo
tu
mi
s
t
t
oh
norte
0
8
S
mi
pag
mi
metro
b
mi
r
2
0
2
3
