Constellations (Nick Payne) is a romance between a beekeeper and a quantum physicist which takes place in the multiverse. Each scene is seen from many different angles as the universe shifts unpredictably - the gestural transition sounds from this mixdown are from these changes.

We find out that Marianne, the scientist, gets a tumour in her frontal lobe which renders her unable to speak. These passages happen against the chronology of the multiverse scenes, in a highly stylised staging and form to counter the naturalist narrative of the others. During these points, I created a reactive, interactive, learning system within programming environment Max/MSP which captures her struggling words and throws them back at her, distorted and reversed. As the tumour builds, the meaning gets more and more subsumed.

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Just as in the chronology of the performance, this mix-down centres around these stylised sections, Marianne's words starting as recognisable with some processing, but ending up as deafening indistinguishable noise. This made use of a procedural feedback system designed within the programming which means each subsequent sound creates more distortion. The beekeeper's voice, though largely unaffected, serves to drive this spatial and textural movement by routing these algorithms back into itself.

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The sound design then disrupts itself - a reflection of what Nick Payne achieves in structure through the destabilisation of narrative.