My Items
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Music
Check out my soundcloud for some of my music compositions from 2008 and prior
https://soundcloud.com/zachkurthnelson
Synergy
Generative video and filtered sound created in After Effects and Sonar respectively. Multiple layers of noise, both sonic and visual, develop in independent temporal dimensions, saturating the attention of the viewer. Relentlessly narrative, the chaos of the noise is juxtaposed with an unnatural calmness.
Created with After Effects
Hexy
This virtual musical instrument organizes pitched sound in a hexagonal grid. WIth a computer mouse, users can activate the instrument by clicking with the grid. A circle of light appears, colored based on the hexagon that was clicked, and sounding the appropriate pitch associated with that gridspace. The longer the mouse is held down, the larger the circle grows, encompassing more and more hexagons. The more light that is in a hexagon's space, the louder it plays its sound.
Created with Max/MSP/Jitter.
Modes of Destruction
Modes of Destruction is the first joint project between Paul Naughton (sound), and Zach Duer (video). Collaborating over the internet, they set out with no more than the loose guideline of using found audio and found video samples pertaining to disasters.
Created with After Effects.
Relentless Spasms of Restrained Serenity
Relentless Spasms of Restrained Serenity is a multimedia collage of found sound and found video. In my collages, I meld samples together to create new and unique entities - gestalts. Hundreds of sound and video clips are churned together, each providing their own distinct identity. The exact quality of every recording - the hiss, the static, the color - is kept intact. The samples represent exactly themselves, snippets of recorded media, no more and no less. A video sample is not a direct reference to the subject material. It contains within it the subject material, but it also contains all of the minutia of recording - the perspective (physical and cultural) of the author, the equipment, and the uniqueness of the conditions of the recording, with the arm positioned exactly thus, or the singer holding the note for an extra 1/100th of a second. All of these details comprise the character of the sample, and the amalgamation of these characters can be startling and beautiful. Yet, at the same time, they also often overwhelm me with nostalgia that I have trouble explaining.
Created with After Effects and Sonar
Bye Bye Baby
To create a music video for the already-completed song, I appropriated a source-video of a 1970's TV commercial for "Ideal Dolls," which can be found in its original form here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-9lBGU7Ark
The pernicious evil of the dolls distorts the screen, revealing the true nature of the dolls and transforming their girl play-things into demons, dancing a frenetic dervish in an attempt to exorcise the doll-spirits.
Created with Max/MSP/Jitter