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Eve Egoyan

 
CANADA – Toronto, Ontario

Artist Snapshots 1 – 03.27.2023
8am PT / 11am ET / 5pm GMT

 
 

Eve Egoyan is an internationally celebrated artist whose medium is the piano. She continually re-invents her relationship with her instrument through the creation and commissioning of new works.

PIANO NEXT includes collaborations with media artist David Rokeby and a series of works Eve created for herself which delve into the space between “what a piano can do” and “what I wish a piano could do” combining acoustic piano with new technologies.

 
 

Artist Snapshot:

 

PIANO NEXT/
Surface Tension

PIANO NEXT/Surface Tension is a collaborative interdisciplinary work for computer-interfaced acoustic piano and interactive video created by pianist Eve Egoyan and artist David Rokeby. Except for the change of software programs between movements, all visual activity on the screen is directly responsive to Eve. The result is an extraordinary integration of sound and image in which neither of these elements dominate the other.

In her own works for augmented/acoustic piano, Eve uses a physical modelling synthesizer that allows her to manipulate all the physical variables that determine the sound character of an acoustic piano but also for extending the character of the sound of the piano outside its normal range. By using the acoustic piano to trigger the modelled piano, and then mixing the acoustic and modelled sounds together, Eve augments and extends the sound range in totally new ways.

In PIANO NEXT/Surface Tension, Eve’s performance is transformed and interpreted by a computer into live visual images projected onto a screen rising from the body of the piano. The visuals respond to a variety of performance parameters including dynamics, pitch, the harmonic relation between pitches, the use of the sustain pedal, and the duration of individual notes extending the piano into a visual instrument.

Much of the visual material is based on simulations of natural processes such as the swarming behaviours of insects. Eve’s performance triggers and modulates aspects of these simulations; the visual representations respond to Eve, but also have a sort of life of their own, becoming in a sense a partner in the performance.

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