GENEALOGY
'Genealogy Of Loss' is the performance of 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.'
Compositional Process
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.
