Because We Are All Falling Down. Physics, Gestures and Relative Realities

Relative Realities, a media installation by Volkmar Klien, realized in co-operation with Thomas Grill investigates how movement and its perception relates across different media, modes and spaces. The installation’s sonic aspects are generated in real-time in accordance to the installation’s physical movement. This generative music engine is conceptualized and based on physical movement rather than established ‘musical’ parameters. Using a virtual physics (e.g. gaming) engine, physical interaction between objects, a flow of energy is created, which is then wired dynamically to sonic parameters on high (structural) as well low (timbral) temporal levels. Physical modeling in this context is applied not to synthesize sound but objects’ behavior, to create and control flows of energy. Even though the following article describes an artistic approach to the issues at stake we hope that it will allow for cross-pollination between analysis and practice in the sonic arts.1