Swiss musician intrigues with digital sound concert

New Delhi : Deploying digital pulses and material resonance to create soundscapes, Swiss sound artist-composer Marcel Zaes presented his solo act "Pulsations" to a packed house at Oddbird Theatre here on Wednesday.

It was part of a three-month studio residency awarded by Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, his "Pulsations" uses digital sound, trash can speakers and video.

What he described as a concert experience without the use of instruments, Zaes says that instead of an instrument, he uses his "computer as a tool to assemble different sounds into a collage while altering and varying them".

Pulsations is a performance with an experimental pulse generator and tiny "trash" speakers that serve as resonating bodies for the abstract pulsations that are generated digitally.

Zaes terms this immersive environment as "techno-organic".

"What he produces are vast, and often durational 'sound worlds' that are built in an abstract way. There are atmospheric elements that seem static, rhythmic pulses that add drive and beats to form an organic entity," Pro Helvetia said in a statement.

His main artistic interest lies in articulating various concepts on the perception of space and time, for which he uses the elemental sine wave with its rough sound quality as the object of his artistic inquiry.

Zaes has created a large number of works to include concert works, installations, interdisciplinary pieces and concept works over the past 11 years.

The US-based artist says next on his agenda is a workshop in Manipur, titled "The Found Stage: Sound and Site - In and with the Landscape of Manipur".