Things Hoped For, Things Unseen

Abstract

<italic>Things Hoped For, Things Unseen</italic> is a new-media performance for amplified harp, electronic music, and projected video. It was commissioned by the principle harpist of the National Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan, Shannon Chieh, for her concert "La Vie sans Frontières", which was held to evoke attention toward the issue of the death penalty. Currently, this issue has caused numerous discussions and arguments in Taiwan. The ultimate goal, however, is to gain unanimous support for human rights as well as respect for life. This process, changing from debate to concurrence, serves as the main spirit of this piece, in which the harp and the electronic music encounter, communicate, settle, and move together towards the same direction sonically. For the electronic music, most materials are drawn from the live recordings of harp performance by Megan Bledsoe to be processed in programming language "SuperCollider". Additionally, through ATS (Analysis, Transformation and Synthesis), the constituents of the recording samples can be further separated and then synthesized. The video component for this work is a visual-instrument to interact with the music. In a formal sense, the images are simple and meant to subtly color the performance, and the video exists in a software mechanism that listens and responds to the musical composition. Through the confusion of a tangled forest, the darkness of the underworld, and then ultimately finding a realm of peace and calm, the scenes try to present the human spirit of hope and faith. In cooperation with the visual artist Martin Jarmick, <italic>Things Hoped For, Things Unseen</italic> was premiered by harpist Shannon Chieh on April 2<super>nd</super>, 2012 at the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan.