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CHRONOVARIATIONS is a composition and sound installation by Heli Hartikainen in which I collaborated as a performer and software programmer developing the live-electronics and the installation patch In Max MSP.

It was premiered as Hartikainen’s master’s concert at the Sibelius Academy (Uniarts Helsinki) and then performed at FLOW FESTIVAL 2022. 

You can read more information about CHRONOVARIATIONS and Heli Hartikainen in here. 

“CHRONOVARIATIONS visualizes the resonance of sound waves and takes the experiencer on a meditative journey to the origins of sound. In the sound installation, electromagnetic vibrating transducers transform the industrial scrap metal salvaged from a Helsinki scrap yard and the storm flaps familiar from the percussion line of an opera orchestra into resonating speakers. Every sound in the piece, which makes extensive use of state-of-the-art electronics, originally comes from the acoustic tenor saxophone played by Hartikainen. Electronic and acoustic overlap in the scraps hanging from the ceiling, when the algorithm Hartikainen developed for the installation draws a lottery, which of his 20-voice compositions will be played and in what order. Thanks to the system, the installation can thus have up to 1,950 different sounding results, from a noisy hiss to a rhythmic ripple and from rolling masses of sound to delicate melodies. The whole is always changing, immersive and arresting.

The name of the work CHRONOVARIATIONS goes back to the concept of time and transformation; to timelessness, loss of sense of time, decay of memory and repetition. The concert part of the work opens and deepens the sound material of the installation and offers a 17-channel cathartic 'spatial sound bath'…”