Apollo e Marsia

Apollo e Marsia is an installation consisting of two large screens displaying performances of compositions for viola d’amore and alto flute in changing patterns of fragments. The viola sound is processed through two long tubes, the flute through two long strings as their performances modulate each other. In addition, both are constantly listening to each other and to changing sounds in the room through machine learning networks, generating new memories that may predict, remind or surprise. 

The piece is therefore a play on the nonlinearity of memory under stress; moments are recalled, replayed or intrude, but are always changing in their reconstruction. Apollo and Marsia listen to each other, trying to secondguess the other’s memory. At their root, these sonic memories all derive from two hymns to Apollo inscribed in stone at the temple dedicated to him in Delphi. Arguably the earliest remaining instances of music notation, and likewise fragmented by erasures, these hymns embody partially-lost memory that we attempt to reconstruct.