Cristián Vogel’s MOdARK -
The Operator Guide
OdARK is an instrument of decay. It began its existence in music
space long before it encountered any note. It’s many forms are
derived from crudely reduced or fabricated acoustical data, shaped
into speculative modal worlds built up both sonically and visually.
The soundscape
from a MOdARK bank,
therefore, is never the result of
randomness (with the exception of the
Operator’s unpredictable intentions). Rather, we
hear the result of an energetic gesture haunting a
parametrically defined ruin. The complexity of that structure
determines how excitations decay through it. Each specified
mode in the bank owns an amplitude, a start phase, a position,
and a decay time. All these characteristics re-animate on
excitation, contributing to a mass of lingering, ghostly signals.
MOdARK is a haunted instrument.
MOdARK is ambiguous. It has many shapes and grammars.
Consonance, dissonance, diffusion, simulation - the sound
of acoustic identities decaying. As a music generating
instrument, it is deceptively deterministic. With
some virtuosity from the Operator, MOdARK
can be aesthetically reliable, as well as being
a little obstinate at times.
A MOdARK resonator bank by this definition, itself becomes a resonance;
the energetic trace of certain physical properties, roughly reduced to a set
of captured measurements. Even though precise frequency and amplitude
details were in the tuning literature, she knew better than to think of it as a
precision model. Better to consider it as a vibrational imprint, a leaky
mould, a phase-dependent architecture. MOdARK was originally designed
to be an inhabitable instrument, an instrument of shapes and structure. Its
reliance on extinct, decaying, or synthetic dependencies meant it quickly
became a haunted instrument. Fluid and shape shifting under the poise
and control of The Operator—she who is Master Exciter, Master Executor.
he Operator, exciters in hand, entered MOdARK. All was nothing for a
moment—empty, silent, unlit. Then, in the space of a breath, a fresh
modal bank assembled in front of her, and the scene was set. There,
swaying slightly, it stood harp-like and tall, a field of brightly coloured modal
points, superstrings, long trails decaying into the distance. She recognised
this bank—an Aurora, maybe four thousand modes, ordered from low to high,
loud to quiet modelled on the body of a once-sounding thing.
She chose an exciter with which to strike the most prominent mode in the
bank. Such high-amplitude, confident modes stood proud and tall. They had
loud, deep tones when they resonated, yet she did not consider them more
special than the rest, just easier to identify. Littered between those proud
ones, all over the (noise) floor, were the lesser certainties, fine clusters of
quietly sympathetic partials.
The struck mode rang out, vibration visible along its decay trail. The action
also caused the emergence of a MOdARK glyph, the first of its kind.
The excitation energy coupled with many other modes, invoking parallel decay
lines throughout the bank’s current shape and structure. The architecture of
every MOdARK bank had a different audible characteristic.
In Aurora banks, the activated resonators were long and dense, forming
a non-material of interwoven resonators born from the same event
but decaying independently, each on its own rate of decay.
Haunting.
Haunted.
Howling.
Hushed.
Mass.
Mask.
Moth.
Moon.
Masts.
Hark!
Ark!
