‘Collision’ is a piece that revolves around a machine conductor that directs the players and their improvisations. The conductor decides when and how to ‘collide’ the players together, forcing them to play at the same moment in the same way. This is the driving force of the piece: players can improvise in and out of the collisions, but they are never allowed to stray too far from one another.

The instrument used is Napsynth, my early research into multi-touch control that eventually became TC-11. The trackpads gather the multi-touch data using a program called Tongseng. Then Processing and Pd are used to analyze and distribute the control data for synthesis. The visuals also feed from that data, and are drawn using OpenFrameworks.

David Collins joined me for this performance at the Unruly Music Festival at Vogel Hall in 2011. Collins is a Milwaukee native, composer, and performer.

Collision (2011) at the Unruly Music Festival from Kevin Schlei on Vimeo.