(Many many BIG ups and thanks to both Nathaniel Kornet and Ben Durfee from the Periphery.)

"Music For Goldfish" is an experiential experiment which investigates the individual listener’s subjective cognition, memory, attention span and relativity. The content of this piece is comprised of 78 9 second sinetone triads. 78 is the number of all possible triads between low C and high C on a standard MIDI keyboard. The length of the 78 triad drones is inspired by the hypothesised span of an ordinary goldfish’s memory and attention span. This tongue in cheek experiment, whether it proves to be valid or not, was initially inspired by the urban myth that goldfish have a 9 second attention span and that the average human, in the contemporary attention economy and digital age, has roughly 8.25 seconds of proverbial awareness.

The album itself is an absurdist concept based on aleatoric music in the digital age. When played in order, the length of this piece is just short of 12 minutes. However, if the piece is shuffled via a media player of your choosing, the piece becomes immeasurably larger than life. The randomised piece results in 1.132428e+115 possible outcomes.

There is a

1

in 

1,132,428,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000 

chance that you will hear the same sequence twice.

Statistically speaking, every sequence that you are about to hear has never been heard before.

Conceptually, this piece actively decentralises the human listening experience and offers a larger than life (and individuated memory/ attention span) selection of algorithmic aleatoric options of musical outcome. As listeners unable to recall which exact sequences we have witnessed, we become proverbial goldfish as the randomised sequences unfold, gradually sifting through and ticking off each possible sequence of tones.

As well as being a downloadable album, courtesy of the record label the Periphery, this composition is also available as an installation.

Selected Exhibitions: