sinopsis

58 stops, 50 attacks per second, 10⁷⁸ timbral possibilities. Apomixis is a generative cycle for the Klais organ at the Palacio Libertad where an autonomous system proliferates the instrument’s possibilities from within, toward the expansion of the human gesture and its reproduction in automata musical systems.

Fundamentals

From the combinatory experiments of Ramón Llull and Athanasius Kircher (14th–15th centuries), to the mechanical and choreographic investigations of Oskar Schlemmer and the player piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow in the 20th century, automata music has articulated a tradition running parallel to direct human performance.

Along this path appear instruments that materialized these ideas outside of “black box engineering”, such as the Welte-Mignon piano, possibly the first instrument that allowed composers without deep technical knowledge to explore an automata thinking of music.

Parametrization

What sonority emerges from automata music that cannot be generated any other way? The study of rhythmic thresholds, psychoacoustic illusions, perceptual shadows and extended sensory modes such as moiré, flickering, retinal persistence, acoustic persistence, and the boundaries between rhythm and unified object form the matricial basis for the composition of the cycle. Each piece proposes a different type of rhythmic and harmonic dispersion, drawing as a regular basis from the growth of plants and flowers where variation arises from somatic mutations accumulated during reproduction. Likewise, Apomixis can dispense with or extend the human component, as in some pieces the system can function as a generator of ultracopy-paste canons of real-time performances.

Biocomposition

A methodology that can be called biocomposition is applied — biomimesis applied to music — taking as its premise a biological metaphor to translate natural strategies of mutation and reproduction into compositional procedures. One of these principles is the application of known musical principles, such as the loop or timbral stratification, but at infinitesimal scales that transform post-human musical action into a generative aggregate of metamaterials. It is this level of encapsulation that most resembles the procedures occurring in nature: cellular systems, the attractor patterns of bird flight, pogos or human mass movements, or the sea. Thus, it becomes possible to conceive acoustic-musical objects with internal integration and hierarchical complexity impossible from direct human gesture. Extending a connective instrumental capacity implies broadening sensitivity.

Form

The cycle comprises 9 micropieces. Each lasts approximately 5 minutes. Each title names a compositional procedure.

Spore is dispersal without fixed destination. Gamete suspends the genetic encounter. Meiosis inverts its own reduction. Megaspore begins without prior loss. Polygonum constructs an interior space. Oosphere activates without exterior contact. Phyllotaxis emerges through iterated local inhibition. Proto-spore contains potential without direction. Microspore operates with its function suspended.

The procedures are transversal to the cycle: generative inscription in automata and random forms, massively varied transition, hyperclaridity against hypercrystallinity, canonical disproportion, multi-temporality, sound masses filtered by convolution.

1. Spore / The plant
2. Gamete / The grain
3. Meiosis / Flower
4. Megaspore / Spore
5. Polygonum / Embryo sac
6. Oosphere
7. Phyllotaxis
8. Proto-spore
9. Microspore / Pollen grain

Approximate duration: 40–50 minutes. Technical requirements:

• access to the stop chamber.
• MIDI interface and computer (provided)

The project is suited to expansion into an audiovisual staging, specifically vectorial synthesis with lasers.