Georgia Kalodiki, Afterimage (acousmatic) (2014)

Afterimage (acousmatic) (2014) 14'
is an acousmatic piece based on recorded sounds of strings. The piece exist also in its electroacoustic version for violin, viola, cello, tape and live electronics. The basic idea of the work is the afterimage phenomenon which is a type of optical illusion in which an image continues to appear briefly even after exposure to the actual image has ended. There are two major types of afterimages: positive afterimages and negative afterimages. ‘An afterimage can retain the colors of the original stimulus (positive afterimage,) or the colors might be reverse in the afterimage, like a photographic negative (negative afterimage). The conditions favoring the production of afterimages are either brief exposures to intense or very bright stimuli, in otherwise dark conditions (a quick glance at the setting sun), or prolonged exposures to colored stimuli in well-lighted conditions (fixating steadily on a colored object for 60 sec and then averting the eyes to a gray or white background).’ (Gustav Levine & Stanley Parkinson, Experimental Methods in Psychology, 1994) My idea was to transfer this optical illusion to the realm of electronic signal processing in order to ‘play’ with the idea of dialectical exposure to a sound event and its interaction with time.
Performed on Monday 15/9/2014, at Onassis Cultural Center in the frame of ICMC-SMC 2014 (https://www.icmc14-smc14.net/).