Singaporean Crosswalk was inspired by my trip to Singapore in 2010. The sound of the traffic light in the city was quite different from that of the United States and Korea.
It was fun, effective, and musically intriguing. During the day, this sound was a theme song for the people in a metropolis. During the night, the traffic lights became part of a flora and fauna surrounding the city. I thank SPLICE Ensemble for commissioning and premiering this piece. I also thank Oberlin College’s Center for Information and Technology for renting me multiple computers.
Singaporean Crosswalk requires four laptops and four players. It uses the internal speaker and microphone of the laptop, so there is no additional equipment needed. The essence of the piece is in the creation of unique spatialization through physical movement of the laptop players on and off the stage.
The piece has a few updates and news since its release on the summer of 2016.
1. The patch has been updated. The new version has a ‘stop’ button. The sync is now done manually (everybody presses the ‘start’ button at the same time). The wi-fi sync function is still available in the old version (OldVersion.zip).
2. The piece was presented in Muncie (IN) and Philadelphia (PA) this week. At Muncie, the piece in f Ball State University’s E|M concert series on September 20th. It was performed by Ball State Laptop Ensemble (Lucas Baughman, Daniel Sitler, Carter Rice, and Chad Powers).
On September 23rd, Temple’s BEEP Electronic Ensemble did a surprise concert at Temple University. It was the first time the piece was performed in an outdoor environment.
BEEP — Temple Homecoming Invasion 2016 from BEEP on Vimeo.
I am quite inspired by these performances, and I want to expand the current quartet version into an octet or larger.
3. Singaporean Crosswalk was performed at Singapore in last October !!! This was a dream-come-true moment for me, and I am grateful for Yong Siew Toh Conservatory’s Listeners’ Present Symposium.
4. Studio version of the piece is now available as a part of Modulationist album.