PILLARS OF INTROSPECTION
Pillars of Introspection is written for the emerging medium of virtual music.
An immersive, interactive audiovisual experience, the piece is anchored around a self-reflective examination of power; of helplessness and agency. Intrusive thoughts and compulsive desires are given shape and form, immense billows of raw emotion and tumultuous expressions of sound and colour dance and menace - the very environment itself becoming a confronting mirror.
Yet as the balance of power may at times seem fatally tilted, and one’s relation to the world seem set, there come new opportunities for growth, empowerment and peace. Without the participant’s knowledge, the nature of the experience has dramatically changed: their voice now be used to interact with the space, to rebuild and to redefine it.
This discovery must be found largely unaided, no prior instruction is given and if the audience member removes the headset at this point then, for them, the first half can be viewed as a complete experience. I offer two forms of encouragement to draw out their curiosity and to help them to rediscover their sense of self: a visualization of their breath, that most intimate and essential of human actions, and a series of empowering written statements.
Written partly before, and partly in the wake of a suicide attempt, the piece's overarching structure is allegorical to my own personal journey through anxiety, compulsion, and depression and toward a rediscovery of internal agency. By looking inward and analyzing this process I came to feel that only through openness, experimentation and child-like curiosity, could I find anew my own voice and discover what it can create.
These observations formed and shaded this virtual space, which I hope can offer others a glimpse of that experience.
All audio, visuals and interactivity created by the composer.
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- French premier at the MusInfo Journées Art & Science à Bourges, June 21, 2018**
- South Korean premiere at ICMC2018, The Art Factory, Daegu, August 15, 2018**
- Australian premiere at BIFEM, The Bendigo Historic Fire Station, Bendigo, September 6, 2019
- United Kingdom premiere at Convergence Festival, De Montfort University, Leicester, September 12, 2019
- New Zealand premiere, University of Auckland, October 25, 2019
- 1st place at the Douglas Lilburn Composition Prize
- Portuguese premiere at DME-Seia, Casa Municipal da Cultura de Seia, 21, August, 2020
- South Korean premiere at the Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, November 16, 2020
- Performed at the Seeing Sound Festival, Bath, United Kingdom, December 12, 2020
- Chilean premiere at ICMC2021, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, July 5, 2021
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**The work originally premiered in France and South Korea under the title 'A Study in Virtual Music'. The work was finalised as 'Pillars of Introspection' in 2019