for self playing paino and multichannel electronics
The work is scored for self playing piano and spatial audio system, both orchestrated via two computers that combine notational logic, real-time audio synthesis, and algorithmic behaviours in a wireless environment. Sonically, the piece draws on a wide palette: glitched-out piano fragments, recursive Shepard-tone illusions, unstable loops, and recontextualized audience interactions. These elements blend into a hybrid between composed material and performative instability, where no two performances are alike.
Originally commissioned for the next_generation X Festival at ZKM, Mild Inconveniences was developed with an openness to emergent failure. Each of its performances take on a radically different shape, not by design, but through a willingness to integrate real-time complications, including technical malfunctions and spontaneous audience participation.
Rather than resist these interruptions, the piece treats them as collaborators.
Conceptually, the work engages with the growing complexity and interdependence of technology in performance. In an era where music and performance are increasingly intertwined with sophisticated infrastructures of software, automation, and interfaces, the line between artistic intention and technical disruption becomes an intriguing space for exploration.
Functioning somewhere between experimental composition, performance art, and systems design, the piece interrogates what it means to "control" a musical system and whether control is even desirable. It is not merely about mishaps; it is about systems failing gracefully, about listening through disorder, and about building aesthetic value from the uncomfortable, and the imperfect.