Bill Alves: resonant halls of memory performed by Maggie Parkins

Performed by Maggie Parkins, Presented by Pomona College

The sounds in resonant halls of memory are entirely computer modifications of the live performer—there are no prerecorded sounds. Specifically, the sounds are stretched out in time at different rates, and this video shows the stretching visually. This effect creates what in the Middle Ages was called a mensuration canon, that is, a melody played with itself at different tempos. Because those tempos are related by integers, the same numbers that determine the retuning of the cello strings, the melodies converge and diverge as they repeat, creating points of resonance in which time lines up like a field of memories that sometimes comes into focus.