Portfolio

Damian Marhulets Koenigstrasse 46 30175 Hanover tel. +49-17665591938 email: marhulets@gmail.com

_Portfolio

Damian Marhulets || composer, media-artist, sound-feishist || www.displaced-meanings.com

// Displaced Meanings: 8 1/2 Bits 2009 - 2010, A/V performance for turntables, electronic and live-visuals In 2009 Damian Marhulets wrote his graduation thesis titled „From play back machine to music instrument: Studies on the history of composing with the turntable“. Shortly afterwards he began his solo project Displaced Meanings, in which he occupied himself with the possibilities of the turntable at various levels. His major interest lie particularly in the new kinds of possibilities offered by digital technology. Thus he uses for instance the Time Control Vinly System „Ms. Pinky“, which enables communication between the vinyl and audio software Max/MSP, thereby opening up space for sound manipulation.

In place of a typical DJ setup with two turntables Damian Marhulets works only with one turntable extended, however, through other electronic instruments or effect machines and self programmed instruments.

The turntable is considered here as a musical instrument, with which one can concentrate on hidden details in trusted musical objects and through which new structural formations and possibilities for meaning can be formed.

The current piece “Displaced Meanings: 8 ½ Bits” treats 8 bit games from Atari playing consoles. The Atari ROM's are read by emulation programmes, the run of the game and extreme glitches – like transformations of played-back music are controlled in real-time.

The music itself is based on various improvisation structures and plays either with appropriate associations or suddenly takes on a quite different direction and in this way attempts to produce totally new directions and associations with the games. One can understand it as a constant experiment with the shifting of the content from one form into another – as the taking place live of a semantic remix of the raw material. A juggling with form and content.

// Audio Examples: http://soundcloud.com/displaced-meanings/sets/steim-test-files/ // Video, Live-Performances: http://vimeo.com/29751273 || http://vimeo.com/20743859

Damian Marhulets || composer, media-artist, sound-feishist || www.displaced-meanings.com

// Strange Beauty of Second Use 2010, composition-tool, card-deck. for voice, turntables, synthesizer and e-guitar Strange Beauty of Second Use studies the border areas between music and visual art as well as the communication process between a composer, musicians and an audience. In its core, this piece puts emphasis on a dialog between an object and its ever changing virtual circuit of meanings and references. Strange Beauty of Second Use is first of all an art-object. It consists of a set of 48 cards which take a role of a music score. They are filled out with different graphic object and texts, which are rooted explicit in a popular culture – video game protagonists, comic figures, newspaper cutouts... they all interact with each other disregarding any historical context.

Beside of graphic symbols and abstract shapes, the cards for the voice are making use of short poems by such writers as Richard Brautigan, Ron Paget, Bill Knott and Charles Bukowski. Even though the score may be considered as very unorthodox, there are no explanations regarding how the symbols should be translated into the music actions and sound events. Every performer may find a personal way of dealing with his cards – there are no limitations. You can think of it as a composition tool, which may be used in any possible way to create a personal structure of musical performance. // Full Score: http://issuu.com/damianmarhulets/docs/strange_beauty_score // Video, Live-Performance: http://vimeo.com/18753963 // Audio Example: http://soundcloud.com/displaced-meanings/the-strange-beauty-ofsecond-use-quartett-7-cards

Damian Marhulets || composer, media-artist, sound-feishist || www.displaced-meanings.com

// FN0RD - fabulous noises 2011, electronic tape-piece (stereo or multichannel) The word Fnord is the typographic representation of irrelivant information or desinformation. It was coined as a nonsensical term in the Discordian text “Principia Discordia” (1975) and popularized by satirical conspiracy fiction novels, as well as underground computer circles, where it's been often used as a metasyntactic variable. In short, Fnord is an intersection between satire, popular culture, radical absurdity and pataphysics. It's a fabulous noise inside every communication channel.

FN0RD (fabulous noises) is an audio puzzle inspired by pathological science, fictional elements, and discredited substances. Every of 22 parts the piece consist of, has been composed in close relation to choosen element or phenomena. In doing so, all the borders between real and fictional were dispised. So the physical elements from the Futurama or Discworld universes (just to name a few) meet superseded and pathological scientific theories.

The 22 Parts are: “Habafropzipulops” // “Mindprobes” // “Electromatter” // “Jumbonium” // “Collapsed Matter” // “Miasma” // “Minovski Particles” // “Boing!” // “Nintendium” // “Phlogiston” // “Tachyon” // “Bombastium” // “2, 4, 5 Trioxin” // “Bolonium” // “Chemical X” // “Erototoxins” // “Kryptonite” // “E-Z Doze It Sleeping Pills” // “Cavorite” // “Coronium” // “Solarbonite” // “Narrativium” //

// Full Ducumentation: http://issuu.com/damianmarhulets/docs/fnord_documentation // Audio Examples: http://soundcloud.com/displaced-meanings/sets/fn0rd-fabulousnoises/

Damian Marhulets || composer, media-artist, sound-feishist || www.displaced-meanings.com

// Playful Things 2009 - 2010, series of one-channel video instalations, without sound All works from the Playful Things series are based on vintage porn and erotic movies coming from 1920-1930. Besides semantic remix and context transformation, the works put an emphasis on playing with various levels of abstraction. In this particular case the abstraction can be regarded as a means of altering the initial material and its significance.

As a result of constantly variable level of abstraction, a new dimension comes into being an imaginary level that exists into the screen. The tension that emerges between these two dimensions enables the initial material to function in a new context.

These works are purely visual, with no sound whatsoever. Nevertheless, the aspect of sound does play a certain role though. In each work silence is being purposely formed in multiple ways by visual means, which also constitutes an important topic of those works.

Video Examples: http://vimeo.com/5477707 || http://vimeo.com/18501328

Damian Marhulets || composer, media-artist, sound-feishist || www.displaced-meanings.com