frostbYte-chalk outline (2015) – Daniel Blinkhorn (Australia)
For Piano, Video and Electroacoustics
[Commissioned by Zubin Kanga]
A work for piano, Arctic video footage, Arctic and electroacoustic sounds
chalk outline is electroECOustic and videophonic in nature, using the Svalbard coastline (and the idea of an outline in a more generalised sense) as a metaphorical reference to the (antiquated) forensic technique of drawing a chalk outline around the deceased. The piece is an example of how I often integrate the differing disciplines of sound and image to
create a sense of advocacy about the importance of places and spaces mediated via technology, sonification and visualisation.
Central to the piece are location- based field recordings I made whilst on expedition throughout the Arctic region of Spitsbergen | Svalbard.
Positioned at 81° north, 10° East, the archipelago of Spitsbergen | Svalbard is a truly remarkable part of the world that continues to inspire awe and fascination, and is often at the heart of our collective consciousness for its ecological and climatic sensitivity.
The region is renown for its visual and cinematic beauty, however it should be no surprise to find that sound plays an integral and vital role in the uniqueness of the region. From the smallest sounds of popping and hissing as snow and ice melt, to the raucous thundering of glacial ice calving, sound is bonded to each and every ecosystem in the archipelago.
Ann adds: I find the combination of piano, electro-acoustics, and video really powerful in this piece. There are moments of utter beauty and moments of sheer terror.
Daniel Blinkhorn is a multi-international award winning composer, sound and digital media artist whose music gravitates around a synchronicity of frequency, texture, gesture, space, location and motion, all of which form (often metaphorical) frameworks within a given piece. Although often working in the electroacoustic, video-phonic and eco-acoustic domains, Blinkhorn’s output includes chamber, symphonic and wind orchestra works, sound installations, music for film, dance, radiophonic composition and various hybrid/ intermedia environments.
The piece ‘red sound’ from the frostbYte suite has been described as ’a true masterpiece, that captures and presents poetically the essence of human fascination with a timeless natural landscape’ (International Computer Music Association Jury, 2013).
Blinkhorn’s works are increasingly performed, exhibited and presented internationally, and his compositions have received over 40 international and national composition awards at prestigious compeitions.
He is the 2010 ABC Radio National Media Arts Fellow, and a 2011 Churchill Fellow, has worked in a wide variety of creative, academic, research and performative contexts, and has been a visiting scholar and artist at the University of Virginia, Music Department, the Conservatory of Music, University of Kansas City Missouri, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver and faculty member for ‘Ecosono Alaska’, a joint initiative between Ecosono Institute and Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.
Whilst entirely autodidactic in electroacoustic music and digital media, he has formally studied at a number of Australian universities including, COFA – UNSW and the University of Wollongong where his doctoral degree in composition was recommended for special commendation. Recent academic activities include completion of the ‘Leading Teams’ program administered by the University of Sydney Business School.
Ann DuHamel 