'Genealogy Of Loss' is a composition that transforms the names of mass shooting casualties, their families, and their friends into musical notes. With each mass shooting event the composition grows. The piece creates harmony from violence, represents interconnectedness, and raises awareness around large and important concepts like loss, community, grief, and continuance.
Artist Statement 'In this composition, I honor the victims of mass shootings in America by using their names, along with those of their surviving loved ones, to construct family trees symbolizing the profound and generally unarticulated web of loss. These family trees are translated into a computer program where each name corresponds to a musical note, creating an ever-evolving and harmonious generative composition. As new names are added with each tragic event, the composition continues to grow, serving as a perpetual tribute to the lives affected by mass shootings. I want to bring awareness to the enduring impact of mass shootings, creating a harmonious memorial that resonates with the interconnected stories of those affected by these senseless acts of violence. I want to create a musical, audial representation of interconnectedness so that we might better understand consequence, grief, and community. 'Genealogy Of Loss' is a composition that transforms the names of mass shooting casualties, their families, and their friends into musical notes. With each mass shooting event the composition grows. The piece creates harmony from violence, represents interconnectedness, and raises awareness around large concepts like loss, community, grief, and continuance.'
Will has created a unique compositional process that serves as a poignant reflection on the tragic events of American mass shootings. The methodology involves a unique fusion of analog and digital techniques, blending traditional diagrammatic representations with cutting-edge music software.
The process begins on a physical canvas. The artist draws a family tree-like diagram with the central focus on the name of a casualty from a mass shooting. Extending from this central point are lines connecting to the names of the casualty's family and friends, referred to as "circle 1 victims," visually capturing the web of relationships affected by these tragic events.
Transitioning to the digital sphere, the artist transposes this diagram into the composition software Midinous. Within Midinous, a vast blank canvas allows for the placement of nodes in an infinite field. These nodes replace the names from the original diagram. Each node is meticulously assigned a unique musical pitch accompanied by a variance range that introduces an element of randomness to the pitch each time the node sounds. This ensures a dynamic auditory experience with each iteration of the composition.
To represent the familial connections and relationships, the artist utilizes "strings" within the Midinous software. These strings act as pathways for virtual beats, represented by luminous balls of light. These beats are created at regular intervals based on the global tempo setting of the project, adding a structured rhythmic element to the ever-evolving composition. As the beats encounter each node along their path, the corresponding musical pitch is triggered, resulting in harmonies that dynamically evolve over time.
The artist introduces an element of unpredictability by randomizing the direction of the beat pathways, ensuring a continuous, ever-changing musical landscape. Chords naturally emerge as the beats travel various distances along the network of nodes, creating a rich tapestry of sound.
The geometric structure of the composition not only serves as a visual representation of the interconnected relationships but also gives rise to natural phasing, harmonies, synchronicities, and rhythmic patterns contributing to a deeply immersive and emotionally resonant auditory experience. In essence, this generative composition becomes a living, breathing memorial, honoring the lives lost in mass shootings.
HEARTBEAT 2020 During the height of the BLM protests in Los Angeles in 2020, Will built a stethoscopic microphone that he brought with him to one of the marches. He sampled the heartbeats of 12 protestors, each with different political identities and backgrounds, all of whom were there to advocate for solidarity in the face of grief related to violence. He then set these heartbeats to a field recording of the march. The heartbeats sound often times like drums, accompanying the chants.
Artist Statement 'Not only does the heartbeat represent the interior, invisible dimension of life, but it also represents the organ most associated with grief and emotion. It does not possess, in the socio-political mind, the same political identity as the body's exterior. One cannot tell, from listening to the heartbeat, what the person's exterior looks like. An insight (maybe) into the experience of interconnectedness!'
A series of musical compositions featuring marine animal sounds captured during expeditions in partnership with Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Will's hydrophones, built by himself, contribute unique entries to the marine sound library, fostering a deeper appreciation for marine life. Oceiana is not merely a musical project but an exploration of the interconnectedness between art, science, and the natural world.
Artist Statement I learned to swim in the ocean, at a place called Children's Pool in San Diego, CA. The Pool is a protected cove, and because of the shelter it provides, it's home to a diaspora of beautiful oceanic flora and fauna. I remember learning to float and hold my breath looking down at the blurry shocks of bright orange Garibaldi. I remember feeling the soft and slippery kelp and sea mosses, the algae on the rocks in the shallows, the sea anemones the color of neon artichoke hearts. I remember getting a little bit older and snorkeling in the kelp beds and in the Cove. I still get excited every year when it's Leopard Shark spawning season. I am in constant wonder and completely at home in the ocean. It is the most sacred space I've ever known.
Through this project the ocean, seemingly silent, is revealed to be noisy, to be full of singing creatures, prodigious percussionists, and transcendent gaiaphones. The inconceivable boundary that holds all this music in is broken in these pieces.
While recording the shrimp for 'Shrimp Symphony' I witnessed a feeding frenzy. There were just two of us, Dave from Scripps Institution and myself in the Cetacean department boat. We were in the middle of this frenzy, and I had my mic in the water. I was watching all the darting porpoises, dolphins, fish, birds, and I was hearing them below the water. Each pelican's dive was like timpani. The dolphins were singing with enormous range and seemingly laughing in arpeggios. It is the most incredible experience of wilderness I have ever had, and perhaps will-ever-have, in my life! I hope to make more ocean music in the future.