For amplified clock, performer with galvanic skin response sensor, and digital delay system; Alvin Lucier, performer; recorded by Nicolas Collins
Through the means of a galvanic skin response sensor driving a digital delay on a miked clock, Lucier creates the illusions of time expanding and contracting, and of a room that is changing in size.
Another classic Lucier catalog item, a 45-minute recording made in 1991 of this piece that he first conceived in 1978. The piece is for: amplified clock, performer with galvanic skin response sensor and digital delay system. The sounds that emanate are beautifully shifting patterns of tock-collage that reveal dramatic sonic detailings. "I wanted to make a work in which a performer could speed up and slow down time, stopping it, if possible, simply by thinking. I bought a Westclox Silver Bell Monogram in a local store and ordered a galvanic skin response sensor through the Edmund Scientific Catalogue. A GSR is designed to measure differences in skin resistance caused by changes in emotional state. A small current is sent through the body, the response to which is amplified, producing an output voltage which can be used to control various devices...later I added a bank of fixed delays which, as they splay out from the voltage controlled delay, create multiple reflections that almost convince the listener that the room is changing size."
—from Forced Exposure
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1019
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