THE CLOUD HARP IN PITTSBURGH
April
to July 2004
THE
WOOD STREET GALLERIES
The Wood Street Galleries, one of
the many cultural organisms of the Pittsburgh
Cultural Trust, have invited the Cloud Harp to play in Pittsburgh during
the spring of 2004. It is installed at the corner of Penn Ave. and 7th Street,
close to the O'Reilly theatre, in the heart of the cultural district.
Though a guest of the Wood Street Galleries, the Cloud Harp has been playing during the Three Rivers Art festival, a major artistic event in the city, during which we were very proud to be present.
A
REFURBISHED STRUCTURE
The architectonic structure housing
the installation has been designed and built from the Season of Quebec in
New York, in 2001. The opening date was September 12th, but most of the artistic
events planned for this occasion were cancelled due to 9/11. The structure,
which was rather close to the twin towers, was damaged. It was refurbished
in Montreal during the winter of 2004, before being transported to Pittsburgh
for this event. The most badly damaged parts were changed. Many of the original
pieces were kept. They can be easily identified by their darker color.
A
NEW SET OF TOOLS
The
Pittsburgh Cloud Harp marks a major step in the evolution of the instrument.
New control softwares have been implemented, which allow the Harp to create
its own timbres, tones and tonalities directly from the cloud profile. This
new set of contols, called "Minuit-Lidar" (French translation of
"Midnight-Lidar"), is extremely powerful. It has been developed
from the Pure
Data programming environment, by Miller
Puckette at UCSD, an amazing tool for implementing real-time interacitve
multimedia applications.
Since this new set of tools is used for the first time for the Harp, many precautions have been taken to ensure its monitoring, adjustment and maintenance. It is monitored from Montreal via a high-speed internet line, which allows a fast resolution of almost any software problem.
For informations, comments or if you suspect any dysfunction, do not hesitate to contact the NXI GESTATIO Design Lab at reeves.nicolas@uqam.ca.
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