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pisquare
Sound environment for pictures and objects by Monika Drobeck

Circles and spheres are central elements recurring in Monika Drobeck's object-art.
On the occasion of the synaesthetic festival Ohrenblicke, which took place at the Stanzwerk in Bochum in May 2008, the idea arose to create a sound environment for her works exhibited there.

Easily identifiable when listening are sounds that come from circular or spherical instruments and objects (ping-pong balls, flummi balls or gongs etc.); they are accompanied by sounds of sine waves.

A sine wave is a uniform circular motion projected on the time axis, and a fundamental law of oscillation says that any oscillation can be understood as a sum of sine oscillations. This means nothing else but that we live in a world of moving circles and spheres.

When it comes to the mathematical description of circles and spheres (often as the process of projection), the number π (pi) comes in, that transcendental number representing the ratio of a circle's circumference and diameter: 3,1415926535 . . . –  to mention only the first 10 of the infinite and never repeating series of digits after the decimal point.

pisquare uses the number π as a time and material generator:
cue distances, sound durations, reverberation times, volumes, frequencies of sine tones, number of tones per chord, selection of sound objects, etc. – all are determined by the sequence of the decimal digits of π. This also means, in the last consequence, that – provided one went through the effort to program a corresponding generator – the piece could last infinitely long without being periodic.

For this performance, however, a different option was chosen: 360 events form a loop lasting about 20 minutes, which is repeated constantly – a way to create circular (i. e. canonical) movement in music.


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