encoded. Image: Kathy McTavish.
1101001. Image: Kathy McTavish.
mill city requiem: for solo instrument & distance
A coin for the boatman…
Let the keening sound of mill city requiem draw you in.
Begin by logging in to millcity.io on your mobile device. Then plunge into a virtual “media orchestra” to receive sine waves, pulsed images, vector sketches, and sounds based on your distance from a live musician, artist-programmer Kathy McTavish. She is playing her “instrument,” something that calls to mind a distant organ grinder, somewhere, but where? As you approach her location, you spy three dynamic projections, constantly shifting, depending upon who else is listening in and where they are located.
mill city requiem invokes passing time, the flow of the Mississippi, mathematics, and faraway histories. Listen intently as the images and sounds on your mobile device increase in pace and intensity like a heartbeat as you draw nearer to the center of the mystery. A visceral connection thrums between you and a destination both cartographic and emotional. Navigate the surreal, digital cell phone map by touch using your own digits. This intimate navigation allows you to travel across abstract, rendered scenes adrift in an odd story-world, until you moor and enter the projected scenes.
Kathy McTavish is a cellist, composer and digital media artist who builds interactive, multichannel video and sound environments that flow seamlessly from the web to the room.
Sheila Packa, text and vocal recordings.
