risk information

risk information examines the weight of a decision and the uneasy tension between action and observation, conceptually focusing on the resurgence of political violence in the U.S. The piece explores the impulse to witness the consequences of others’ decisions from afar, positioning the listener within the general public’s voyeuristic gaze and ethical ambiguity. Written for solo bassoon and televisions, risk info investigates their sonic similarities with an emphasis on timbral convergence. The bassoon’s sound and image are obscured and fragmented in the live analog video feed projected through the TVs, visually and sonically evoking the shape and sudden presence of a gun, reinforcing the intersection of threat, mediation, and perception.

Diving more deeply into the piece’s technical details, the TVs are playing samples of themselves, with the individual samples triggered by the location of Makayla's hands within the four screens. The pitch material for the piece was developed by spectrally analyzing the samples I'd taken, as well as simply listening to the pitches that stood out to me. Formally, the piece hides how the bassoonist and TVs interact, gradually revealing to the audience what triggers the sample playback by speeding up the rate at which they're changed.