Hiway 70
Duration: 11 min.
A number of years ago, I had the privilege of working with computer animation pioneer John Whitney, and we had planned visual and music composition software that would put into practice his ideas on the complementarity of sound and vision. Unfortunately, he died in 1995, just as I had found the funds to begin to realize this vision. Hiway 70 is the first piece I've done which makes use of this computer animation software, and in the work I've tried to create a vision inspired by long night drives on lonely Texas highways. The soundtrack was realized in Csound computer music language and utilizes computer modifications of traffic sounds, as well as electric guitars and other sources. The so-called "free style" just intonation in this work exploits Csound's ability to freely modulate without needing the compromises of an instrument with a limited number of keys. Many of the images of the video were used as a visual analogue to the harmonic relationships of Just Intonation, a relationship also inspired by Whitney.