Features: March 25, 2002

Prague Artist Creates Electronic Music Installation in Troy

The campus is invited to experience Czech Republic artist Martin Janicek's electronic arts presentation that combines natural acoustic sounds with amplified and manipulated sounds of contemporary technology.

Janicek's demonstration will take place Wednesday, April 3, at 8 p.m. at a studio located at 623 River St. in Troy, where Janicek will be living and working during his March 18-April 3 residency at Rensselaer. The performance is $8 per person, $3 for area college students with ID, and free for Rensselaer students with ID.

Janicek, assistant professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, specializes in combining visual and sonic components to create interactive art installations.

His project will feature various metal pieces of different sizes and shapes mostly suspended from the ceiling with wire. The materials are chosen based on their acoustic quality.

Janicek will create various sounds by chiming the metal objects with wooden sticks. The vibrations of the wires will be captured by a computer processor and then projected through loudspeakers.

The loudspeakers and the resulting computer sounds from the wires will allow him to amplify and manipulate the vibrations with a processor at the same time he is creating natural acoustic sounds from the metal pieces in the installation. The vibrating wires will be captured by two video cameras and projected onto a screen.

Janicek's work is supported by Rensselaer's Arts Department and the New York State Council of the Arts.