VIA Festival presented by vitaminwater

Partitura is a collaboration between Abstract Birds and Quayola

The VIA Festival is the US premiere of Partitura, and forms the basis of this unique live collaboration with Four Tet. An ongoing collaboration between Abstract Birds and Quayola, Partitura is a system for translating sound into visual forms. Inspired by the studies of artists such as Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oscar Fischinger and Norman McLaren, the images generated are based on a precise and coherent system of relationships between geometries.

Partitura is a custom software to generate realtime graphics aimed at visualising sound using vvvv. The term “Partitura” (score) implies a connection with music, and this metaphor is the main focus of the project. Partitura aims to create a new system for translating sound into visual forms. The main characteristic of this system is its horizontal linear structure, like that of a musical score. Partitura creates endless ever-evolving abstract landscapes that can respond to musical structures, audio analysis and manual gestural inputs. It is an instrument that visualises sound with both the freedom of spontaneous personal interpretation / improvisation and at the same time maintaining the automations and triggers of mathematical precision.

Partitura creates worlds that expand from a single dot to multiple galaxies, from minimalism to complexity, from rigid to elastic, from solid to liquid, from angular to smoothness, from tentative to boldness, from calm to agitation, from slow to fast, from desaturated to saturation, from dark to lightness, from predictable to unpredictability. Literally ‘everything’ and its opposite… just like a musical flow.