Satie in the Mushroom Kingdom
Eric Heep and Liam Mooney took the stage for a performance of Eric Satie’s highly influential oeuvre for The Wulf’s Open Source series. Only the stage was the video streaming platform Twitch and their primary instrument was Mario Maker 2, a game that lets its players make and play their own Mario levels. Utilizing the novel approach of game level design-as-orchestration, when the player correctly navigates the space, the resulting sound effects of bouncing blocks, falling monsters, warping pipes, create a wry output of Satie’s works. The performers jumped, fell, floated, ricocheted, died, and restarted the levels/scores as Twitch chat cheered these non-professional games players on, punctuated by suggestions or emote collages. (There were other guests, including noted games-music composer Isaac Schankler and machine-maker Stephanie Smith, but those projects deserve their own entry.) This performative orchestration modality links together the way interpretation is a core part of music and playing games in a way that resonates with the long lineage of aleatoric (chance) and ludic experimental music. While there is a degree of warm irony in Satie in the Mushroom Kingdom—such as the clever connection of “furniture music” to “block music”—it is hardly a parody, paying close homage to the durational, spatial, and “ambient” qualities of Satie, exposing the ways they are relevant in our virtual spaces.
Artists: Eric Heep and Liam Mooney
Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/the-wulf/open-source-satie-in-the-mushroom-kingdom/637618377094610/
Connections:
John Cage and Marcel Duchamp - Reunion
Mieko Shiomi - As It Were Floating Granules