quartet after escher

In physics, there exists a philosophical thought experiment known as the Boltzmann Brain. According to the theory, it is fully possible through the random fluctuations in the chaos of the universe for a seemingly sentient brain to miraculously come into existence, possessing memories and experiences that feel real to itself. In quartet after escher, I found myself intrigued by this notion of emergent complexity arising from random processes and wanted to sonify this concept into an electro-acoustic work. At the same time, I found myself ruminating on my life long love of the works of M.C Escher, who managed to embed deep truths on the nature of how our minds work within his art. The most primary electronic technique used throughout this work is granular synthesis, chosen because of how it, to me, seems as the most clear analog in sound of what it would mean to randomly scatter the particles of the world into a conscious entity as Boltzmann theorized, or construct realities that feel true, yet distort in unexpected ways, as Escher did.

The first movement is inspired by M.C Escher’s now famous woodcut, Drawing Hands, due to the way that recorded granulations from earlier parts of the piece eventually come to form the structure of later sections in granulated form. The second is based off of Still Life With Spherical Mirror. As in the original print, I was interested in exploring what happens when the most simple parts of reality are stretched and distorted far beyond their original form, containing some glimmer of what it once was, but transforming as well.

quartet after escher is dedicated to the musicians of its first performance - Audrey Wang, Phoebe Liu, Tobias Liu, and Christina Young.

Full Score:

Movement 2 Performance: