Digital Phasing

During lockdowns, digital nearness offered new opportunities for real-time music making. However, audio and visual latency (delays) caused by geographical distance, internet speeds and platforms
revealed metric quirks (e.g. delay, lag, phasing effects rather than unisons etc) challenging standardised ensemble techniques. While many sought to work around this, Digital Phasing works with latency as a non-human contributor.
Performers distributed across 9 cities (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia) maximised latency to influence performance process, content and structure. New ensemble techniques rethinking the notion of ‘ensemble unison’ are based on shifting/ unstable rhythms and individual perception: rhythmic
cells performed out-of-phase affected by latency are perceived as stable and vice versa.

Rather than creating pulseless/ indeterminate /asynchronous material, it developed new compositional techniques, performance practices, presentation modes combining human and non-human approaches
to time/rhythm:  Tempo (q = 30000/avg latency) determined by latency between performers in different locations  Rhythmic cell patterns enabled a new approach to ‘phasing’ technique developed by Reich
(1971)  Unique version heard by each performer specific to their location a creative focus: creating and playing unique composite patterns added new musical material which was further transformed