“Cometose” by Kristi Allik, Robert Mulder


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Title:


    Cometose

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    Composed and Performed by Robert Mulder & Kristi Allik

    Cometose (1986) was created with the financial assistance of the Media section of the Canada Council. Conceptually the work deals with the death of Samuel Clemens during the perihelion of Halley’s Comet in April of 1910. Clemens had said during his life that he ‘came in with the comet (1835) and would go with it’. In this story his wishes come through and he is transported with house and all to the core of the comet. There he views the world, reflects his own past and the present from within the safety of ‘Stormfield’, his house. During the major part of the voyage Twain watches as many strange and frightening things appear in the windows and his beloved pool table. When he returns to the orbit of Earth in 1985 he wakes up and looks at our busy world. Alas, before he can comment upon what he has experienced, the satellite Giotto, in collision course with the comet smashes his house.

    The music for this work was created with electronic and acoustic means. Among the electronic sources were: the Casio CZ5000, Casio CZ101, Yamaha DX7 etc. The acoustic sources include Allik’s singing, narration of Clemens’ writing and the sound of simple toys. The original recorded acoustic material was processed using devices such as: the Yamaha REV-7, the Roland SL-50 digital sampler, a digital vocoder and other equipment.

    The imagery was taken from some original material of the period.Interior shots were taken at Eldon House, London Ontario. The exterior of the house and other material was photographed from Mulder’s artwork, magazine cut-outs, drawings, complex models and original period photographs. The computerized material was created on an Amiga 1000 computer using A-squared Live! digitizer and Dpaint software. The synchronizing software was written in Electrosonic ESCLAMP on an Apple computer.

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    Acknowledgments: Paul Berg, Frans de Ruiter, Stichting STEIM

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