the PortRait series

The program:          

This is the first series I explored in depth, and as such, probably the least inter-related. The titles are a reference to Joseph Heller's Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man, which title is of course itself a reference to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The connection to these novels is very loose, I just liked the idea of a third person self-portrait. The first of these pieces PortRait of the ArTist,**NYC2001 was written during a fairly depressed and introspective year in my life, so hopefully the navel-gazing can be at least partly excused. I'm really not at all sure whether later entries in the series are even particularly auto-biographical, or indeed what exactly an auto-biographic piece would entail. The series is more defined by instrumentation than anything else.

The weird capitalizations and unnecessary characters in these titles are the first manifestations—later explored more fully in the Palimpsest series—of a strange fascination I have with programming languages and the somewhat related world of L33t 5p33k or "leet-speak." I suppose that this is ultimately just another version of my more general fascination with the symbols we use to communicate, which I discuss quite a bit more in the program section of the page on the BABEL pieces.

The structure:          

Pieces in this series:          

PortRait of the ArTist,**NYC2001
Solo Cello and Recorded Electronics
Summer '01

more info

Note: There is not currently a third or a sixth PortRait piece, but the ideas I've had for them are good enough that I've reserved the names. In particular, I hope to finally get around to PortRait_3 soon.

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