Anderson

Christine AndersonTechnische Universität BerlinHackerstraße 11, 12163 Berlin, Germanychristine_anderson@gmx.de

Dynamic Networks of SonicInteractions: An Interviewwith Agostino Di Scipio

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The Italian composer Agostino Di Scipio (see Figure1) is one of the most interesting European personali-ties today working in the space between computermusic and sound art. In his recent work, he createspurely sonic interactions between a source, real-time digital signal processors, and the room hostingthe performance. The network of interactions isconceived as a dynamic, self-organizing system,symbiotically connected with the surrounding envi-ronment. The following interview addresses suchissues and provides an overview of the theoreticaland technological background behind them. It alsotouches 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 involvedin the performance of such works. A list of his com-positions is given in Table 1, and a list of recordingsis provided in Table 2.

Born in Naples in 1962, Mr. Di Scipio first ap-proached composition as a self-taught musician,and later he pursued more formal studies at theConservatory of L’Aquila and the University ofPadua. A former visiting composer in several insti-tutions, including Simon Fraser University (Burn-aby, British Columbia, 1993) and the SibeliusAcademy (Helsinki, 1995), he is today Professor ofElectronic Music at the Conservatory of Naples andinstructor in live electronics at Centre de CréationMusicale Iannis Xenakis (CCMIX) in Paris. In 2004,Mr. Di Scipio lectured at the University of Illinois,Urbana-Champaign, and at Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz. A portrait compact disc, in-cluding some of the works recalled in the interview,will soon be released by Edition RZ, Berlin. He isalso greatly interested in issues of music theory in-volving the relationship between art and technol-ogy, and he has published numerous articles andessays in international publications devoted tosuch issues.

In 2004–2005, he lived in Berlin as a guest artist of

Computer Music Journal, 29:3, pp. 11–28, Fall 2005© 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

the DAAD Künstlerprogramm. This interview tookplace on 28 November 2004 in his apartment.

Chaos vs. Noise

Anderson: What is the main focus of your workthese days?

Di Scipio: I’m working on a live-electronics solo,Background Noise Study (see Figures 2 and 3). Theonly sound material it explores is any backgroundnoise in the room where the performance takesplace. It’s the third work in a series called AudibleEcosystemics. I will extend it into BackgroundNoise Study, with Mouth Performer, focusing oninvoluntary sounds arising from inside the mouthand body of a performer and other tiny sounds ofthe glottis, the tongue, and the facial muscles.

Anderson: Is that in the same line of your workwith chaos and numerical models of complex sys-tems? There, too, noise had a central role.

Di Scipio: In a sense it builds on previous work,yes, yet it’s very different. We should make a dis-tinction between chaos and noise, words often usedas synonyms. In contemporary science, just like inancient mythology, chaos stands for a highly dy-namic situation, an ongoing and complex wave ofturbulence between order and disorder, with severalnuances in between. It’s a dynamical process thatmay 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, col-lected under the heading of a theory of deterministicchaos. One night during Spring 1989, in my studentroom in L’Aquila, I implemented one such simpleprocess, iterating a nonlinear transfer function. Itried it first as a tool for algorithmic composition,assigning the numerical output to entry time, dura-tion, pitch, and intensity values of instrumental ges-tures. The next night, I moved to a greatly reduced

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time scale, letting the process drive the variables ofgranular synthesis methods that I was programmingon 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 auseful 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). Alittle 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 nonlinearmaps as a front-end control structure (Di Scipio andTisato 1993). With that, and with my own stand-alone applications for the 80286, I made the tape ofPlex (for double bass and four-channel tape, pre-miered by Stefano Scodanibbio in Rome duringNovember 1991).

Anderson: Did you know of previous approaches togranular synthesis?

Di Scipio: I was aware of Xenakis’s pioneering ex-periments with granular synthesis, of course, aswell as of the early computer implementations ofgranular synthesis—Curtis Roads, Barry Truax.However, the statistical perspective taken in theseapproaches, based on probability distribution func-tions, was for me just one way to compose grains to-gether, not necessarily the only way. With a singlemodel of dynamic systems, I could exploit a largerpalette of grain arrangements, ranging from random

Figure 1. Agostino DiScipio.

to more patterned textures, across a variety of otherbehaviors (Di Scipio 1994a).

I used that in transformation of existing sound,too. I was not aware of the efforts that other com-posers like Horacio Vaggione were pursuing withmicro-time transformations of instrumental soundmaterials. In 1993, during a residency at SimonFraser University, working with Barry Truax’sPOD system, I composed a tape piece—Essai duVide. Schweigen—mostly made by “recursive”granulation, i.e., granulating some material (a harpsound and a kettledrum sound) and feeding backthe output into the granulation process severaltimes, every iteration leading to finer and finersound particles.

Anderson: So it was a kind of algorithmic process inthe creation of granular textures, linking a formal-ized approach with more empirical sound design.

Di Scipio: Yes. The motivation behind that was asystemic one. The question for me was, “How canyou create a micro-level system or process such thata higher-level Gestalt can emerge and develop intime?” It’s the kind of question you ask when em-bracing micro-sound composition (Di Scipio 1994b;Roads 2001, pp. 75 and 331). However, it addresses abroader theoretical issue, too, concerning how par-tial elements get together and eventually disappearas such—only to let a coherent whole or form ap-pear. And form is, in this case, the form of sound,the array of emergent properties of sound we usu-ally call timbre.

More in general, I guess I was simply consideringsound 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 andGreek.) The Greek word “syn-thesis” and the Latin“com-posing” are equivalent; obviously, they bothmean “putting together.” Chaos and the dynamicsof complex systems, as accessible with iterated nu-merical processes, represented for me a way to com-pose small sonic units such that a higher-levelsonority would manifest itself in the process.

Anderson: However, chaos and noise have a broaderconceptual meaning to them.

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what these latter musicians seem to be about is of-ten just a cheap, nihilistic notion of noise, a gestureof aesthetic fetishism (no surprise they often quote,as a historical precedent to their work, the Italianfuturists’ Art of Noise from the 1920s, which itselfentailed a fetishistic “aesthetization” of modernlifestyles that was rooted in fascist ideology).

In a broader perspective, I believe we are today ina position to better ponder the noise that music isin today’s society. It’s not just that music usesnoise 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 JacquesAttali; see Attali 1985). Rather, music can reallygenerate noise, liberate it, and be disruptive evenwhen it stays completely silent or keeps itself ex-tremely quiet. (Noise does not necessarily implyextreme loudness.) You have probably read thatlittle essay of mine translated into German someyears ago, “The Composer as Noise Generator”(Di Scipio 2002).

Anderson: Noise reflects a tendency not to abstractfrom reality, and instead to witness it in a more di-rect way.

Di Scipio: A heightened sensitivity to the materialand intellectual conditions that are given or sociallyallowed, such that we take responsibility over thechanges we implement into those given conditions.No composer (not I, for one) can be granted that theend result of the labor can be called “music” insteadof, say, “abominable confusion.” It’s the struggle—the sweat and thought one puts into the making ofthe noise—that turns the latter into a chance forcommunication between human beings.

Interactivity

Anderson: Your recent compositions reflect a verypersonal notion of interactivity. Could you describeit? How did you come to it?

Di Scipio: As a student (mid 1980s), I spent quitesome time in writing microcode for real-time syn-thesis and processing, but only later (mid 1990s) did

Di Scipio: Of course, yes. Chaos can be understoodas 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 naturaland the humanly devised, as part of a harmonic,well-proportioned design? Can the music we maketoday be understood still as part of the Pythagoreanand Keplerian music of the spheres? The world welive in is caught in a perpetual exchange betweenenergetic forces whose interactions sometimes re-veal the dispersive and destructive, sometimes theconstructive and coherent. We should only be happyto be part of a process within which harmony andorder might happen, albeit only as temporary, tran-sient phenomena.

Noise refers to a more experiential level. In myown and in other composers’ efforts, noise movesfrom the periphery to the center of musical percep-tion. Maybe that’s not particularly original—I don’tknow—it’s a question of according our attention tothat which is normally considered marginal andhence discarded—that which we usually filter outand deliberately avoid taking into account. In theAudible Ecosystemics pieces, noise is crucial, aswithout it, the real-time process that they imple-ment would have nothing to chew on, so to speak.Noise is systemically functional; it’s necessary forliving organisms to grow, develop, and maintainthemselves, until the moment when they are notable anymore to incorporate it.

In music scored for traditional musical instru-ments, I often focus on the exploration of extendedplaying techniques, which for me represent anotherway 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 irrelevantsound in the world.

Di Scipio: He’s right. Cage held a similar position,although not identical. The earlier Xenakis workshave been described by philosopher Michel Serres aspurposefully designed bruits de fond (Serres 1967).And, as you know, many younger musicians find itvery trendy to label their own music “noise.” Alas,

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 allforms of human-computer interaction that nowa-days seem obvious and normal.

My first move was strategic and a little paradoxi-cal: I tried a performance set-up where I would getrid of any planned interaction, and that would letme see if any residual interaction would still occurand in what particular dimensions of the perfor-mance it would occur. That’s the strategy behindthe 1994 composition 7 Small Variations on theCold, for trumpet and a digital signal processingunit. Every variation is announced by a taped voice(“uno,” “due,”. . .), with a very detached tone. Thetrumpet player has a kind of improvisation schema,

totally independent of the computer, requiring onlythe production of hisses, blowing sounds, every-thing extremely soft (“ppp”), and percussive effectson the mouthpiece and tube. The computer, on theother hand, runs on itself and processes the trumpetsound based on a thoroughly deterministic schedul-ing of time-domain signal processing transforma-tions, totally independent of the instrumental part.

Anderson: You were not leaning on any auditoryexchange 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 onone side and few DSP algorithms following a deter-ministic plan on the other.

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Figure 2. Signal flow forBackground Noise Study,illustrating a network ofcontrol signals generatedin real time.

Anderson

Of course it was a failure (in a sense, it had to be afailure), as some interaction did take place on thepart of the trumpet player, in the performances Ihad (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). Now, this residual interactionthat I noticed was a question of auditory perception,yes, 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 ittravels through the room. I repeated the experiencewith 4 Variations on the Rhythm of the Wind(1995), for double-bass recorder and digital signalprocessing, composed for the exceptionalrecorderist 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 ofseveral Motorola processors. I enjoyed working withit so much, it then became for me a rather stablecomputer 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 triedto accordingly revise a work I had sketched one ortwo years before, Texture-Multiple for small en-semble and live electronics. I wanted to shape outthe relationships among performance components,the audible interconnection among all the actorsinvolved. I would ask myself several questions:

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Figure 3. From the score toBackground Noise Study,with Mouth Performer.

How might the instrumental sound affect thecomputer process? How might the computer’s out-put sound affect the instrumentalist(s)? What re-sponse might the sound elicit from the roomwhere the performance takes place, and howmight that response itself drive the computer pro-cess and/or suggest changes in the instrumentalperformance? 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. Ina sense, it’s a view closer to system theory and tobiocybernetics. And it’s an anti-reductionist view:you cannot remove any component without alsosubstantially changing (or even killing) the wholeitself.

Anderson: From your writings, I see that you de-scribe this approach, too, 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 abroader cybernetic principle (von Förster 1993). In-teraction is too often understood as a determinatemachine reaction to a planned human action. I likemuch more the way Heinz von Förster used to putit, when he said (I am paraphrasing him here), “In-teraction is when you see yourself with the eyes ofthe other.” For some interaction to happen betweentwo systems, two organisms or processes, either oneshould be able to welcome the other’s viewpoint inits own view and actions.

You don’t have to imply that feedback is audiofeedback. Yes, some works of mine are indeed basedon audio feedback and use the Larsen Effect as theonly sound source, but at the beginning I wasmainly interested in sub-audio feedback, that is,feedback in control signals. I would employ feature-extraction methods to track sonic properties in thesound source, instrumental or otherwise, and thenturn 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 akind of feedback loop in the low-frequency domain,or rhythm domain.

Anderson: The room space is also involved in thisloop, isn’t it?

Di Scipio: In some works of mine, the room is partof the network of performance components. Somesound source elicits the room resonances, which areanalyzed by the computer, and the analysis data isused to drive the computer transformations of thesound source itself. What is implemented is a recur-sive relationship between human performer(s), ma-chine(s), and the surrounding environment. Eachaction or reaction in any of these three elements hasshort- or long-term consequences on the whole, de-pending on the particular connections I design. Be-cause it’s a recursive process, and because therecursive mapping of information from one elementto another is far from being linear and void of noise,the overall process actually materializes a dynamicsystem. Let’s say it at least gets complex enough toblur any sense of a stable, recurrent input-outputrelationship.

That’s the strategy taken in Texture-Multiple,whose initial project dates from 1993. The live partof Natura allo specchio also works that way. In thestring quartet with electronics, 5 difference-sensitive circular interactions, the transformationsof the quartet sound are controlled by the numericaldifference between the total sound in the room andthe sound of the bridge of the string instruments.The difference-signal represents the room responseto the string sound when the computer is quiet; itrepresents the response of all the sound transform-ers (room plus signal processing) to the string soundwhen the computer does make some sound. Thewhole interaction depends on that, which explainsthe rather complicated title.

Anderson: The use of musical instruments ispeculiar.

Di Scipio: Well, musical instruments are devicesusually meant to deliver sounds, but I like to alsouse them as devices to exert controls over the digi-tal transformations of the sounds they themselvesdeliver. I do that with any other sound source, evenin composing for the so-called tape medium, forthat matter: I let the signal processing automati-cally change its internal configuration uponchanges in the input sound.

In other words, in this line of research, sound setsthe conditions and boundaries for its own transfor-

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Anderson

mations. I call it sound-specific signal processing, oradaptive DSP. When “sound” includes the room’sresonances, then it becomes room-specific, or room-dependent signal processing.

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 anyone of them?

Di Scipio: Let’s consider the Feedback Study. Thesound source is Larsen tones that the person incharge of the electronics deliberately causes in theroom. The computer, running some DSP transfor-mations, processes this feedback material. The loud-speakers are used both to create the Larsen tonesand to make the computer transformations audible.A few microphones are standing in the room, someof which create the Larsen tones, while others routethe room sound back into the computer.

Because the computer output is also heard in theroom, it actually interferes with the Larsen Effectitself, causing changes in frequency and other by-products. The computer also executes a variety offeature-extraction methods, using the extracteddata for internal self-regulation. For example, ittraces the input amplitude of the feedback eventsand scales the output amplitude down by an in-versely proportional factor. It’s a kind of “self-gating,” useful to avoid saturation and to ensurethat a more balanced situation is eventually re-stored whenever louder feedback events or somethicker 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 (much) earlierevents. It’s a sign of the system’s sensitivity to theexternal conditions and reflects the fact that thesound we hear at any given time is the outcome ofthe whole history of the system’s process. The sys-

tem thus implemented has a memory, but not asymbolic one. That’s important for large-scale de-velopments in a performance and directly affectsthe overall musical form.

Anderson: The role of the microphones is decisive,as well as that of the room acoustics.

Di Scipio: The microphones are used as interfacebetween room and machine. Their placement is cru-cial, perhaps even more so than their technical char-acteristics. The variety of sounding results dependson the room’s acoustical properties, but also on howwell the microphones capture these properties.

As to the room acoustics, I must say, there’s nogood or bad acoustics to the Audible Ecosystemicspieces. 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 inprinciple should yield more varied sound results. Ina space with walls and other surfaces made of sev-eral materials (wood, glass, concrete, textile materi-als, etc.), it is relatively easier to exploit a variety ofsonic 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 theroom, for example, looking for places with differentgeometrical shapes. Also, I would place some mi-crophones far removed from the loudspeakers, andothers closer to them. Just like the microphone, theloudspeaker is not an element foreign to the pro-cess; it’s part of it, something used to generate themusic, not to play it back.

In the Impulse Response Study, synthetic im-pulse material elicits the room’s resonances, andthe computer transforms these into control signalsdriving audio transformations of the impulse mate-rial itself (Di Scipio 2003). In the Background NoiseStudy, 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, in thelast case? Does the performer bring it into the mouth?

Di Scipio: Yes. The performer holds a very smallmicrophone with the fingers and brings it well intothe mouth, avoiding audible contacts with themouth 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 allsorts of small movements (and sounds) that arephysiologically necessary every now and then. Thecomputer transforms these mouth sounds, but in sodoing it is driven by properties in the sound itself,mainly amplitude, density of events (i.e., how fre-quently these tiny events are delivered), and somespectral properties. The analysis data then drivessimple filters and granular transformations of themouth sound. When the performer changes themouth posture, the resonances of the vocal tractcavities change, and the computer adapts to thenew situation.

Anderson: Isn’t the performance of such works al-ways at risk, so to say, of breaking down?

Di Scipio: Indeed, it is. [laughs]. The overall infra-structure depends on so many details and fortuitouscircumstances—it’s literally fragile—you’re right,there’s a sense that at any time the whole thing maycollapse and crash; not the equipment itself (hope-fully not!), but the dynamic process.

You know, I accept that risk and even try to makeit tangibly present to the listeners. Facing criticalcircumstances, I may adjust things on the mixer andin the computer, yet the essential concept to theseworks is that the real-time process should be capableof self-regulation even in unforeseen circumstances.The performance instructions for BackgroundNoise Study, with Mouth Performer include a sepa-rate section on “Emergency Situations and SecurityMeasures.” It describes how the performer, bychanging the mouth posture or delivering some spe-cial sounds, might handle the situation where elec-tronic transformations seem to take over and leadthe overall process adrift.

In some of my pieces with solo instrument andelectronics, one can clearly hear that, were the in-strumentalist to refrain from delivering some sound,the whole fabric of polyphonic sound the computercreates from it may vanish immediately. On thistopic, there were some questions in the seminar [re-ferring to a lecture delivered in the ElektronischesStudio of the Technische Universität Berlin]. Oneperson observed, correctly, that this fragility is anelement that livens up the performance, and that

instrumentalists may be more profoundly involvedand made attentive by this risk of imminent failure.

Sonic Dust

Anderson: Sometimes you use the term “sonicdust,” and I wonder if it is related to this thin lineseparating an effective performance from failure.

Di Scipio: Maybe. I never thought about it. “Sonicdust” is a loose definition for the by-products of anetwork of sonic interactions, a shortcut term forthin, noisy artifacts, finely grained textures, maybecloser to a sand—dispersive systems and processesthat leave light but audible traces behind (Di Scipioin press).

As you know, Herbert Brün used to say that onething is composing, and another is the music. Thelatter is the traces left by the former—a residue, ifyou like. That was especially in his Sawdust com-puter music project. My efforts are very different,but the conceptual separation of composition (or,responsibility on premises and conditions, in mywording) and music (sonic features arising frompremises and conditions) perhaps attests to a sharedperspective. The implication is that sound is theepiphenomenon of a lower-level process: you designa low-level process, and the interactions and inter-ferences among particle components taking part inthe process are heard as a dynamic shape of sound, aprocess of sonological emergence.

We touch here on a music-theoretical issue thatbecame clear to me when studying Xenakis’s pio-neering electronic and computer music efforts (DiScipio 1997). Taking a broader music-theoreticalperspective, in essence all music that is primarilyconcerned with timbre involves to some extent aphenomenon of sonological emergence. I’m not aprofessional music theorist, but I have occasionallywritten on the subject (Di Scipio 1994b).

On Performance

Anderson: Is the performance of your works withlive electronics bound to your presence or supervi-

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Anderson

sion? Today it is difficult or even impossible toperform some important electroacoustic composi-tions from the 1950s and 1960s owing to a lack ofdocumentation.

Di Scipio: Do you refer to the Audible Ecosys-temics pieces? I perform them myself, yes, butsometimes I have other people do it. The ImpulseResponse Study has been set up by two differentlive-electronic performers besides myself (KurtHebel, for the premiere, in Keele, 2002, and AlviseVidolin, for the Italian premiere, Florence, 2003). Iprovided them with instructions as to all that isnecessary. The Background Noise Study, too, is pre-cisely documented. I am far behind with the docu-mentation for the Feedback Study, though.

Yet, I believe that the problems raised in live per-formance of electronic music are not really over-come with the simple availability of precisetechnical descriptions. Some amount of “oral tradi-tion” is always needed. Surely, composers should dotheir best to provide a good technical documenta-tion, but some implicit knowledge is necessary, es-pecially when musical endeavors are able to renewthemselves, opening technical and musical ideasthat did not exist before.

Anderson: With works like Texture-Multiple, couldone say that each performance has the status of aversion? Not only do works like this involve a vari-able number of musicians; they consist of a processinvolving 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 asmany versions as rooms where it has been played. Iwas thinking rather of multiple versions, owing tothe variable number of performers (three to six),which of course determines a very different systemdynamics. In the score, the timing is also very flexi-ble, and from what I learned, it roughly depends onthe room’s size. There have been longer and shorterperformances, depending on how big or small theroom is.

In 6 studi (piano and adaptive DSP), not only thetempi, but also the intensities are entirely flexible

(no dynamics marks are found in the score). In fivepassages, the computer processes the piano sound,stretches its duration, and eventually pulverizes thesound by extremely de-correlating the grain signal.These transformations are driven by the speed andamplitude of the piano performance. In turn, the pi-anist changes intensity and tempi upon perception ofthe density and thickness of the computer-processedsound. A chain of causes and effects is created thatregulates itself and manifests itself primarily insound and in the way it is articulated in time.

In such works, the computer creates strands oftextural material or gestural events of various types.Sometimes the sonority is neat and clean, some-times dirty—a kind of powder of sound of variablethinness, a sound artifact very dear to me. Sound iscentral in my work, but it is not an end in itself; I domy best to let it take on a functional role in the per-formance. In Texture-Multiple, the qualities of thesonic texture arising from the computer are for theinstrumentalists like a direct auditory display ofthe current balance between their playing, the com-puter transformations, and the room resonances.The same criterion applies in large passages of thestring quartet, 5 circular interactions.

Anderson: Properly speaking, there is no score toTexture-Multiple, but separate musical materials,rules for using those materials, and instructions forthe live electronics.

Di Scipio: You’re right, I said “score,” meaning thewritten musical materials and the accompanyingrules. The musical materials consist of six indepen-dent musical parts, identical except for small detailsand for the specifics of each particular instrument.In the percussion part of Natura allo specchio, thereis one only musical line: the first percussionist playsfrom this line, and the second (using the same set ofpercussion as the first) follows, quickly imitatingthe first, independent of the notated materials.When more than two percussionists are involved,each subsequent percussionist imitates the previousone. I don’t know what to call it—maybe “algorith-mic performance”—anyway, such an arrangementis not at all without consequences on the very qual-ity of sound! It’s a system of performance rules, butit 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 earlywork, for example), and more with the way they re-act to the computer sound, i.e., their own sound ei-ther slightly altered or completely transfigured by afew DSP transformations. The instrumentalists’sactions are mediated by the electronic setup, butprecisely how the latter transforms their sounds andinfluences the further actions of the electronics isin turn mediated by the room’s acoustics. Depend-ing on the sonic features of the total sound in theroom, the instrumentalists make real-time deci-sions regarding their own playing. For example,they may speed up if the sound gets denser or slowdown if it gets sparser. One may refrain from deliv-ering new material and take a longer rest, if a lot ofone’s own sound is heard in the computer output.Or one may, instead, intervene as soon as possible,were the computer to predominantly feature mate-rial of another instrument. When all performersshare similar intentions, they comprise an ensem-ble, a group, a small community. When they mani-fest different or incompatible intentions, thecommunity tears apart.

The oscillation between “many individuals”(mass) and “one whole” (community) is structural.The community is more likely to arise in later pas-sages, as the instrumentalists’s relationship to thetotal 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 roomsound, and some simple spectral distinctions, likebright versus dark, or narrowband versus broadband.

Anderson: Pitch is not included. It seems to me thatin all of your work, pitch is not a primary element.

Di Scipio: No. For me usually pitch is not the maindimension of musical structure. I know, this soundslike 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. Somefrequency-related properties are of course relevantto me, and they certainly have some relationship topitch, but musical pitch as notated is not very im-portant in my work. I don’t want the computer andthe electronics to deliver notes. And even in the wayI use musical instruments, I try to minimize anysense that the way pitches are organized is the musi-cal structure per se. My attention is more focused ontimbral, textural constructs, noise transients, etc.The instrumental parts of Texture-Multiple involvebasically two pitches: one very high (a shared note,F-sharp), one very low (the lowest available on eachparticular instrument), and only occasionally somenotes in the middle; same with many other pieces.

In works without instruments, there is no precisepitch at all, no notes. Or, if there is anything resem-bling a note, that is a local feature, a “singularity” ifyou like, of the system dynamics particular to thatpiece, not something I prescriptively wanted to bethere. The Feedback Study is indeed rich in pitchedsounds, all of which are a manifestation of the roomacoustics 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 ofwork involving no direct interaction with thespace—at least not of the kind we have discussed sofar. The performer plays some woodblocks and anywooden surface available in the concert place, pro-vided it features some basic characteristics describedin the score. That’s the only direct connection tothe room.

The percussion part consists of tremolos andsimple rhythmic patterns. It not only provides thesound material, but also acts as a program code, astream of binary instructions (hit = 1, pause = 0)that sets the internal state of the computer, whichin turn transforms the percussion material itself. Insome passages, the percussionist can modify his orher reading through the score, depending on thecomputer output. The computer, in its turn, hasways to cope with improperly delivered binary in-structions, prompting the performer with specialaudible signals.

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I’d like to extend this project to also work onglass, on metal—maybe on paper too. But I don’tknow 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 ofFlute Dynamics (flutes and electronics), which is apiece played mostly by hitting the keys, and only inpassing blowing into the mouthpiece. The com-puter turns the tiny key noises into a polyphonicsound structure, and the particular way it does so is,again, 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 itsounds 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 isreally important is their systemic function in theperformance. 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 granularprocessing. The output sound could be very distantfrom the original input material, yet it preserves acoherent internal articulation if you properly controlthe 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 asignal chopper (yielding separate clicks and blips,making impossible to understand their soundsource). 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 dependson 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 toone or more other variables. This means that, whenyou change, say, the grain duration, the texture den-sity also changes; when you change the density, thetotal loudness also changes. You can hardly separate

the perceptual meaning of any one variable fromthat of others. (This was already clear in DennisGabor’s ground-breaking theoretical work in the1940s, which he in fact presented as a theory ofhearing; 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. Onthe contrary, for me that is a perceptually signifi-cant connection among sonic features.

As “operator of homogeneity,” I often resort tosimple sampling-and-playback. You may still comeup with some transformations (changing playbackrate, reversing or otherwise controlling the memoryread pointers, inverting or otherwise shifting thephase, etc.), but except in extreme cases, the natureof the input sound is preserved.

So, when it comes to audio signal processing, Idon’t do things more complicated than that. But Ido a lot of control-signal processing, though, to cre-ate an array of control signals out of the feature-extraction data, using delay units, filters, transferfunctions, etc. The output sound is not just a ques-tion of what audio signal processing is involved, be-cause it also reflects—more than we usually mayconsider—the very controls exerted over the audiosignal processing.

Anderson: There’s no filtering, though, no vocoders,no reverb.

Di Scipio: I use simple dynamically controlledband-pass filters, but not too often. In the AudibleEcosystemics project, and also in sound installa-tions, it’s the room itself that acts like a filter or anarray of filters. (That’s probably where these effortsof mine come closer to Alvin Lucier’s work, how-ever different it may be.) Actually, the infrastructureof 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 soundsource acts as the exciter, the room acts as theresonator, and the computer acts as the couplingbetween the former two.

Sometimes, the feedback loop between micro-phones and loudspeakers itself becomes a delayline, and the process translates into a kind of reverb

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unit. That happens in passages of Pulse Code, forexample. However, that remains just one of manybyproducts of the underlying dynamic process, not agoal of the process.

Anderson: In a sense, the Audible Ecosystemicsproject abhors artificial reverb, as it is rather meantto elicit the real room reflections.

Di Scipio: Yes. But that is also the case with sometape compositions of mine, like 5 piccoli ritmi(1996), Intermittence (1997), or 3 Untitled (soundsynthesis, October 2001) (2001). They also abhor ar-tificial reverberation. The piece 3 Untitled (madewith iterated nonlinear functions as a direct soundsynthesis technique) presents the listener with abra-sive sound textures that largely take on the spectralcoloration of the loudspeakers used to listen tothem. In this sense, it points the listener to the non-neutrality of loudspeaker technology, turning aproblem in high-fidelity engineering into an ele-ment of musical experience. Other composers haveworks with similar implications (among others, theU.S. composer Michael Hamman). Such works tryto 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 withother composers?

Di Scipio: Well, I travel frequently, so I meet withmany people, often with younger composers andstudents, too. I can’t think of any special relation-ship, but surely some of these exchanges had a sig-nificant impact on me. I would often discusstechnical and compositional issues with my formerteacher, Michelangelo Lupone, who is so talentedboth technologically and musically. But today Imeet him only rarely.

First Steps

Anderson: How were your days as a student withhim, in L’Aquila?

Di Scipio: Oh, we were deep into programmingreal-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, Rome), and I learned programming as-sembly code for the Texas Instruments 32010 chipthat was incorporated into it, doing simple formsof real-time synthesis. In the mid 1980s, real-timesynthesis and processing was quite a difficult chal-lenge, especially outside of mainstream computer-music institutions. I made my first tape piece, Puntidi tempo (1987), by programming an 8086 processorto control 16 analog oscillators in real time, achiev-ing a very rough form of granular synthesis.

At that time, I had classes in Padova, too, withJames Dashow and Roberto Doati, and I learnedMusic360 and Music V. At some point, Tisato and Icompiled a Csound version including new synthesisopcodes 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 bugsuntil three o’clock in the morning, but always withthe 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 onthe same path as Franco Evangelisti (who hadtaught Electronic Music in L’Aquila in the late1970s). Evangelisti had already died—I never methim—but his early intuitions about technology andsociety, as well as about hearing and the environ-ment, were and still are significant (Evangelisti1991). Walter Branchi had been a student and col-laborator of Evangelisti, and I was interested in hiswork, although I met him only much later.

Social Relevance

Anderson: Do you see, in your approach to compo-sition, any implication or metaphor as to the socialimpact and role of music and art?

Di Scipio: Yes, I usually refrain from addressingthis aspect directly, because I want it to rise fromwithin the auditory experience, not as a kind ofmanifesto or a set of ideological assumptions. Thisaspect should be clear in the idea itself that everycomponent in the performance—human beings,equipment, the room—has an influence on all

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other components and on the behavior of thewhole system. Our discussion of Texture-Multiplehas already illustrated this point, I think. In theBackground Noise Study, with Mouth Performer,the performer must literally face the consequencesof their own muscular movements, voluntary andinvoluntary, once the latter are amplified andprocessed by the electronics. In a recent work, 4Esquisses de Surveillance et de Contrôle, for instru-ments and electronics, each performer has an indi-vidual “surveillance policy” for guarding off whatthe 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 particularpoint in history—establish a desirable and honestrelationship to the technology we live in. I person-ally don’t view computers as an aid to make musicbetter, but as a technology with its own specificlimitations and possibilities. Different from othertechnologies, however, digital technologies and me-dia have the power—whose power?—to enframeother technologies. Surely computers have openedup enormous musical possibilities, but these possi-bilities are relevant for me only to the extent thatthey cannot be reduced to a commodity that makesit easier for artists to materialize their own imagi-nations. That would reflect a purely instrumentalnotion of technology, an oversimplification of anartist’s relationship to the tools of their trade. Itwould reflect, too, the computational paradigm of“problem solving,” and, to tell you the truth, I amskeptical that artistic endeavors are “problem-solving” activities. Art is made less by solving prob-lems and more by raising (a lot of new) problems—orat least by articulating unseen problems.

Anderson: Therefore, addressing the technologicalelement of composition is a way to deal withbroader social-cultural issues.

Di Scipio: Oh yes, it is. We live in an overly “tech-nologized” world. We can either try to establishsome relationship to this thoroughly technical envi-ronment (Heidegger’s Gestell), or presume to get ridof it altogether (a romantic reaction) (Heidegger1953). Avoiding technology is impossible; such anattempt would be crazy. But it would be just as

crazy to simply let it go and enjoy the commoditieswith which it provides us. As artists, we’d betterknow the technology we live in and work with, atleast well enough to bend it to our purposes. I thinkit was Adorno who said that, by struggling with thematerials and the techniques of one’s labor, an artiststruggles with society (Adorno 1970).

If you just think about it, all art is made by mak-ing, in the first place, the tools themselves neededfor it to be made (Di Scipio 1998). Today, we asartists should be in principle designers of our owntools, more than mere users of “high-tech” com-modities designed by others. But of course no one isin the position to control the complete range oftools and means one employs.

We all face a number of contradictions in ourdaily life owing to the heavy expropriation of alltools and means and things with which we live. Thefact that we own them doesn’t mean that we knowand appropriate them. I am not very optimistic, onthis point. As an example, today too much electro-acoustic music is more precisely defined as “ProTools music.”

Still, I believe that an effort in the appropriationof technology is necessary to disclose a margin ofmaneuver within which we may then compose ourtools and our music, not letting the software, for ex-ample, compose our music. The freedom musicianstake in creatively dealing with their working toolsand means could be an important sign to convey tolisteners.

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 andbrings forth one’s artifacts, designs, proposals to thisworld. The fact is, all too often we address the artis-tic qualities of an art work, and we appreciate itsaesthetic content, disregarding that the work itselfcomes out of social mediations and negotiationsembodied in the technologies by which it is made.Artistic achievements are traces of artists’ aware-ness of the technological processes involved in theirwork. My personal opinion is that this awareness iscaptured in sound—it somehow can be heard. Mu-sic always bears audible traces of the composer’srelationship to society.

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Anderson: Is it important for you to be indepen-dent of large studios and electroacoustic musicinstitutions?

Di Scipio: Well, you know, the possibility of work-ing in my own studio (which includes very fewpieces of equipment) is a prerequisite for being mu-sically independent. It allows me to pursue effortsand experiments I feel are necessary to do, regard-less of academic expectations. And it allows me torespond to institutional invitations based on myown ideas of what must be done.

A certain degree of independence from large stu-dio facilities is not uncommon today, but pursuing akind of personal research agenda and related experi-ments—that is indeed a privilege, one for which Ihad and still have to strive. It’s not easy to holdsuch a position, considering that I was not born intoa wealthy family.

Anderson: The emphasis on noise, on the room—that too has social resonances.

Di Scipio: Sure, it fosters a direct experience ofsound 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’twant to take the listeners to a distant, inexistentspace-time, and then put them back into theirchairs after a nice, but illusory, journey. I’d preferwork 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 Icould visit (here in Berlin) are interesting. I have aspecial interest for all endeavors where sound, in-cluding the sound of architectural spaces, is the onlyor primary medium of communication. As should beclear from earlier answers, I refrain from using visualinterfaces, MIDI controllers, heat sensors, photocells,etc., and keep myself to sound as the only interfaceamong humans, machines, and environments. Thisis a bit ideological, maybe, as after all we use all of

our senses to get in touch with the environmentand with things we encounter in the environment.But, when it comes to the art called music, or to anyform of sound art, that’s my way into it.

(Not) Thinking About Form

Anderson: You describe yourself as a composer ofsounds. How about musical form?

Di Scipio: Oh, that’s a difficult point to tackle. Idon’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 theshape itself that eventually appears. All I can say isthat 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; Idon’t know. I myself ask what they mean. I don’tthink I am in a position to answer. Being somehownaturally able to shape up an overall coherent ges-ture, I mainly focus on things that I’m not able todo and that need more experimentation from me.

Once I was told that Natura allo specchio has avery clear overall form. Probably so, but I had al-ways thought of it in terms of a rather magmaticsonic matter that only in a couple of passages ac-quires some direction owing to speaking voicesclearly heard on top of it.

Musical Theater

Anderson: Natura allo specchio is a work largelybased on iterated nonlinear functions of the kindyou mentioned at the beginning. Like other similarworks, it is part of a larger-scale composition,Sound & Fury.

Di Scipio: Yes, Sound & Fury consists of five sec-tions predominantly made with iterated functions

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as a synthesis engine (Di Scipio and Prignano 1996),some of which can be played separately, as is thecase with the first section (Natura allo specchio)and with the third (Intermittence). The completestaging of Sound & Fury calls for two reciters, twopercussionists, eight-channel tape, live sound syn-thesis, and computer-controlled slide projection.There is a libretto, based on selected lines fromShakespeare’s The Tempest.

Anderson: What brings iterated nonlinear functionsand Shakespeare together?

Di Scipio: The Tempest asks questions as to what isNature and what is Artifact. Prospero stages a pow-erful thunderstorm by sole means of his arts ofmagic. The other personae believe it is a natural—albeit extraordinary—meteorological event.

In its own way, Sound & Fury also addressesquestions as to the relationship between Nature andArtifact. At the beginning, the sound is overtly syn-thetic, but it somehow bears enigmatic traces ofhidden natural agencies. By the end, the sound is al-most entirely natural, but bears traces of a mechani-cal element to it, something unnatural hidingbeyond the surface.

Relevant in The Tempest is also the relationshipbetween Prospero and Caliban, the colonizer andthe colonized. At the end of the play, Prosperoleaves the island he had colonized and sets the na-tive Caliban free again. In Sound & Fury (followingpoet W. H. Auden’s interpretation of this point),Caliban is incapable of enjoying his freedom any-more, and he is not able to properly speak his ownlanguage. Of course, colonization is not just a ques-tion of geographical occupation; it’s a cultural pro-cess. Today, 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 Icould 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 conveythem to listeners. I needed a framework to do so,and the plot of The Tempest revealed a useful frame-work. 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 Shakespeareanexcerpts?

Di Scipio: In the simplest way possible. The text isspoken by two reciters (and by taped voices, too), in aplain and comprehensible way. I use the original En-glish text, partly overlapping with its Italian trans-lation and with the translation in the native languageof the reciters. (For example, in Portugal, five yearsago, we had this three-part language counterpoint.)

I must recall that, beside the Shakespeare mate-rial, the libretto to Sound & Fury also includessome lines from Auden’s commentary to The Tem-pest and few lines by Eugenio Tescione, an Italianpoet and friend I have known since high school. Iasked 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 whereCaliban stands still, watching the horizon, afterProspero’s departure. Taking Caliban’s viewpoint, inthe concert we first watch a red sun setting down atthe horizon, beyond the sea. Then, following thesunset, we watch the sea surface, and finally theground under our feet. First, wave ripples creatingabstract images in the sand, then a dryer sand andgrayish stones.

We didn’t want anything more complicated. Thesunset adds a symbolic meaning to the work. TheTempest deals with issues that were of the highestrelevance at the time when it was written, a timewhen the Western Modern world started to beforged, and when the West Indies (later baptized“America”) were colonized. As you know, the Latinword occidente [west] stands for the place where thesun sets, and in many modern languages we callourselves occidental [Western]. Our world is onethat, while increasingly raising up based on an ide-

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ology of progress, it’s also going down—to use anEscherian image.

Teaching

Anderson: You are a professor in Electronic Music,in Naples. How is teaching there?

Di Scipio: Naples is a very, very complicatedtown—messy and lively. I was born there, I love it,yet I prefer to live in L’Aquila, a small and quietmountain town, not far from Rome.

The students I have are very committed, and, al-though in Naples there’s little echo of the interna-tional scenario of electroacoustic and computermusic, they pursue interesting experiments. One ofour long-term projects addresses the overlap be-tween early music and folk musical instruments onthe one hand, and computers and other modernequipment on the other. It’s like staging the en-counter or clash of deeply different cultural ratio-nales, which mirrors broader cultural processestaking place in Naples and other parts of SouthernItaly nowadays.

The problem is, except for my classes and theconcerts we happen to do around there, there’s littlecontext in Naples to what the students do. Thereare good researchers in the local university, butthey have scarce interest in music. On the otherhand, many composers and professors in the Con-servatory have not even the slightest idea of whatelectroacoustic and computer music is. The divideis extreme.

That said, teaching is for me a very rewarding ex-perience. It keeps me in contact with younger musi-cians and with musical trends and technologicalpractices that by myself I would not be able to getto know.

References

Adorno, T. W. 1970. Ästhetische Theorie. Frankfurt:Suhrkamp.

Attali, J. 1985. Noise: The Political Economy of Music.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Di Scipio, A. 1990. “Composition by Exploration of Non-linear Dynamical Systems.” Proceedings of the 1990International Computer Music Conference. San Fran-cisco: International Computer Music Association,pp. 324–327.

Di Scipio, A. 1994a. “Micro-Time Sonic Design and theFormation of Timbre.” Contemporary Music Review10(2):135–148.

Di Scipio, A. 1994b. “Formal Processes of Timbre Compo-sition. Challenging the Dualistic Paradigm of Com-puter Music.” Proceedings of the 1994 InternationalComputer Music Conference. San Francisco: Interna-tional Computer Music Association, pp. 202–208.

Di Scipio, A. 1997. “The Problem of 2nd-Order Sonoritiesin 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-ties 3(2):31–40.

Di Scipio, A. 2002. “Der Komponist als Rauschgenera-tor.” Inventionen Festival 2002 Katalog. Berlin: Pfau-Verlag, pp. 36–51.

Di Scipio, A. 2003. “Sound is the Interface: From Interac-tive to Ecosystemic Signal Processing.” OrganisedSound 8(3):269–277.

Di Scipio, A. In Press “Klangstaub.” Positionen.Di Scipio, A., and I. 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., and G. Tisato. 1993. “Granular Synthesiswith 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 MondoSonoro. Rome: Semar.

Gabor, D. 1947. “Acoustical Quanta and the Theory ofHearing.” Nature 159:591–594.

Heidegger, M. 1954. “Die Frage nach der Technik.” InVorträge und Aufsätze. Pfullingen: Neske. (Trans. byW. Lovitt in M. Heidegger. 1977. The Question Con-cerning Technology and Other Essays. New York:Harper and Row.)

Roads, C. 2001. Microsound. Cambridge, Massachusetts:MIT Press.

Serres, M. 1967. “Musique et bruit de fond.” Critique261:12–25.

von Förster, H. 1993. KybernEthik. Berlin: Merve Verlag.

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Table 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: Rome. Cantor Set. In cooperation with Michael RüsenbergNo. 2: Berlin. Bad SamplingNo. 3: Paris. La Robotique des Lumiéres (IMEB Bourges)No. 4: New York. Background Media Noises (IMEB Bourges)

3 Untitled (sound synthesis, October 2001) (2001, 6-channel)2 Remixes (2002, in cooperation with Fred Szymanski)30 seconds piece (2003, 5.0-channel DVD)

Instrumentaln/phasis (1989) for percussion (1 player), keyboard with pedal, and low-pitched reed instrumentIndex (1990) for 4 percussionists (4 timpani)Ektopos (1997) for guitar solo (or many guitars in unison)3 pezzi (2003–2005) for amplified string quartet

Instrument and TapeFractus (1990, CSC Padova) for viola and tapePlex (1991, CSC Padova) for double bass and 4-channel tapeKairos (1992) for soprano saxophone and tapeSome strings (1993, Simon Fraser University) for harp and tape

Instrument(s) and Live ElectronicsEvent (1990) for flute, clarinet, 4-channel tape, and digital signal processingTexture-Multiple (1993, rev. 2000) for 3–6 instruments and room-dependent digital signal processing7 piccole variazioni sul freddo (1994–1995) for trumpet and digital signal processing4 variazioni sul ritmo del vento (1995) for double bass recorder and digital signal processing6 studi ‘dalla muta distesa delle cose’ (1996–1997) for piano and adaptive digital signal processing5 interazioni cicliche alle differenze sensibili (1997–1998, Istituto Gramma, L’Aquila) for string quartet and room-

dependent digital signal processingBook of flute dynamics (2001) for flute and adaptive digital signal processingOs, oris (2002) for trombone and adaptive digital signal processing2 di 1 (2003) for violin, piccolo recorder, and adaptive digital signal processing (Note: 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 processing4 Esquisses de Surveillance et de Contrôle (2003–2004) for string quartet, bassoon, sub-contrabass recorder, and digital

signal processing

Live-Electronics SoloCraquelure (2 pezzi silenziosi, a Giuliano) (2002) for sound synthesis and adaptive multichannel diffusionAudible Ecosystemics (2002–2005)

No. 1: Impulse Response Study (CCMIX, Paris)No. 2: Feedback Study (Istituto Gramma, L’Aquila)No. 3a: Background Noise StudyNo. 3b: Background Noise Study, with Mouth Performer

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Table 1 (continued).

Sound InstallationsSuoni e colori dal mare (1996, in cooperation with Manilio Prignano)Feedback Study, with Vocal Resonances (2003–2004), an installation visited by two or more performersUntitled (2004) pulse feedback voices, July ’04Untitled (2005) small reverberant room, June ’05

Special ProjectsSound & Fury (1995–1998) for 2 reciters, 2 percussionists, 8-channel tape, sound synthesis, and room-dependent digital

signal processingNo. 1: Natura allo specchioNo. 2: L’isola (SACMUS, Helsinki)No. 3: Intermittence (see also tape works listed above)No. 4: Caliban, to the (future) audienceNo. 5: Specchio alla natura

Tiresia (2000–2001, in cooperation with Giuliano Mesa), a poetry reading (1 or 2 reciters) with electronics

All works were produced in the composer’s studio unless otherwise indicated.

Table 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. Berlin: Edition RZ.5 interazioni cicliche alle differenze sensibili. Audio compact disc. Recorded on Cemat, C001, Rome; ICMC 2000 Au-

dio Compact Disc; and PanAroma, San Paulo.Rome. Cantor Set. (Paysage Historique No. 1). Audio compact disc. Cologne: NoteWork 5101-2.Tiresia (two excerpts). Audio compact disc. New York: Capstone CPS 8693.Natura allo specchio. Audio compact disc. Melbourne: Bug Records BUG108. Also recorded on the Computer Music

Journal 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, France: Chrysopee Electronique. (See www.imeb.net/EDITIONS/

chrysopee.html.)Hörbare Ökosysteme. Berlin: Edition RZ. (See www.edition-rz.de.) Includes Audible Ecosystemics, Texture-Multiple

(version with six instruments), 5 interazioni, and Craquelure.