Common Ground is a short video installation premiered at the 2011 exhibition Write Now: Artists and Letterforms at the Chicago Cultural Center.

We as human beings search for meaning in our lives, focusing attention on different titles or entities as time goes on. Stacked on top of one another, these titles grow higher and higher on a common ground… as we always keep searching for truth.

Custom sound composed in Live using sound-sampled text from different texts of faith, logic, reason, and reflection.

The script words ‘Salam’ (in blue Hebrew) and ‘Shalom’ (in green Arabic) are woven together like a basket. S-L-M is the triconsonantal root of both Salām and Shalom, and has been used throughout history as a sign of peace between the two cultures.

A short microfilm produced in collaboration with Francois Robert, 3st, and Classic Color

Directed by Rick Valicenti/3st
Editing by Bud Rodecker/3st and John Pobojewski/3st
Soundscape by John Pobojewski/3st

In partnership with Hedrich Blessing.
Architecture by Studio Gang Architects.

Cinematography is by Dave Burk/Hedrich Blessing
Direction by Rick Valicenti/3st
Editing by Bud Rodecker/3st
Soundscape by John Pobojewski/3st

The editorial illustration for The New York Times Week in Review by Scott Shane takes actual text from three Wikileaks cables released from the site in Dec 2010. Secrets are blasted through the keyhole. Concept by Rick Valicenti.

This 11-minute video artwork is an intricate dance with the musical composition Metallics [1995] by renown French composer Yan Maresz. Commissioned by the Fulcrum Point New Music Project, the composition and video were performed together by trumpeter/conductor Stephen Burns at Chicago’s Cultural Center.

Written for trumpet and surround-sound electronics at IRCAM, Metallics explores the effect of various mutes on brass instruments, and how the acoustic properties of the sounds made by using those mutes can be simulated within a surround-sound electronic music “shadow.”

The animation was based around two 3D primitives as the primary ‘dancers’: the torus [the trumpet's bell] and the sphere [the mute]. Each were rendered in Processing to render the 3D, cube mapping, particle behavior, and sound analysis (using FFT). These animations were then put into After Effects to morph them into different directions.

The piece is set in ‘episodes’ or sections for the soloist, ranging from open to muted trumpet and evolving from warmer hues to harsher tones that explore many musical references—”jazzy flutters, trills, cascading licks, and forceful declamations.”

Throughout, the electronic music interplays directly with the soloist, with a range of sonic orchestrations that is quite incredible. The animation plays directly off of this interplay, at times adding humor, joy, mystery, or an unsettling feeling.

Special thanks to Karen Mozer and Rick Valicenti. All quotations are from Maresz’s linear notes with translations by Stephen Burns.

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