LIGHTNING ON SATURN is a collaboration between composer David Hahn and video artist Andreas Karaoulanis. The musical composition includes electric guitar, Moog synthesizer, and real sounds of Saturn recorded by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft which explored the planet for many years beginning in 2004.
This abstract piece considers Saturn as Solaris, a “mind-world” planet that is maybe talking to us, maybe wondering, or maybe just being friendly to our insignificance in its own gigantic passage through time.
APOCALYPSE COW is an audio collage which was assembled from files of two speeches of US President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld along with some other sounds--planes, bombs, cows (of course) and sex to signify both the lust for war and the pornographic greed and arrogance which characterized the regime. I wanted to educe art from the tragic political state of the US.
The video was created by Victor Ingrassia.
I composed CORPORATE COITUS while working as an audio technician at a company which produced background music for businesses. When the company CEO was interviewed by the on-line business journal WallStreetReporter.com, I used the audio portion of the interview as source material. I extracted the extra-verbal sounds—the “ahs” and “ums” and intakes of breath—for use in the piece. The title of Corporate Coitus came about as I feel that sex and business are always somehow connected. I heard the piece as an imaginary sex act gathering intensity to a climax followed by a gradual de-tumescence. This track can be found on my GIRAFFES! CD.
The video was created by Andreas Karaoulanis.
KINDERGARTEN WORD RING consists of a reading of words and sounds by two conveniently available kindergarten age students. I have also included some of their infectious laughter as well as the crunching of a pretzel. My intention was to create a quick-moving Scherzo movement which would present these spoken words and phonemes traveling through space with very little electronic processing. I created this video.
BIG DONUT While sitting in a cafe at 8:30 am, I noticed a mother and her 3-year-old daughter. The girl happily wore a whipped cream mustache from the hot chocolate she was drinking. Realizing, however, that the offered donut was nor of adequate size, she began to complain. Her dissatisfaction quickly escalated into a full-blown kicking-and-screaming tantrum, while her mother--scratched and fully distressed--had to make a hasty exit.
The video was created by Tin Ilakovac.