benjamin thigpen

         
       
               
 
compositions
  paths 2011
  turn 2010
  still 2009
  shift 2009
  head transplant experiment 2008
  malfunction30931 2007
  undertow 2006
  brief candle 2005
  0.95652173913 2005
  incandescence 2003
  espoir 2003
  balagan 2001
  not even the rain 2000
  step,under 1998
  dust 1997
  ashes,ashes 1996
  h 1995
  appel 1995
  dédale 1994
  études au mouvant, 2e livre 1994
performance  
CDs  
           
     
 
step,under
      1998
       
for 8-channel electromagnetic media
duration : 13'55
   
     
 

(excerpt 0'00-3'05) 
   
         
     

Brightnesshunger – with it
I walked up the bread-
step, under
the blindness-
bell

it, water-
clear,
claps itself over
the freedom that climbed with
me, that with me climbed
too high, on which
one of the heavens gorged itself,
that I let vault above
the worddrenched
image orbit, blood orbit.

– Paul Celan
 

step,under is an exploration of the polyphony and heterophony of time.

What do I mean. Time is multiple. And not just because it is passing in a certain way now and will pass differently tomorrow (Bergson). Time is always already passing differently, time is always already other – non-identical, differing from itself. And music cuts it open like a knife, passing into its organs, arriving at its tiniest particles – shimmering, vibrating, shifting – flying along rapidly and motionless...

Composed at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales [Paris] using the M.A.R.S. workstation and Pro Tools; spatialized in eight channels by my program Octopode.

Commissioned by Ina-GRM, 1998.

step,under was awarded a mention in the contest Métamorphoses 2000.