The Philosophy of Software by David M. Berry

Author:David M. Berry
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Figure 4.3 Jaiken-zan, each output is a combination of A and B (Miwa 2007)

With the Jaiken-zan one might immediately note the change from the base 2 numeral system (i.e. binary – bits 0 and 1) used in the previous pieces, to the base 3 numeral system (i.e. ternary or trinary-trits 0, 1 and 2). Here is perhaps the best evidence that Miwa is not working in any conventional way with binary logic circuits, and certainly not within the standard binary system used within digital computers. The Jaiken-zan now has three ‘inputs’ and three ‘outputs’ which are matched to three different sounds (or actions within performance) based on a table that Miwa (n.d.b) refers to as stone (0), scissor (1) and paper (2). The map of the structure (see Miwa n.d.b) indicates that the human compositional rules are a simplified version of the Max/MSP version that was build on the computer first.

The Jaiken-zan operation was also used to develop: (i) the piece Jaiken-beats (Miwa 2005a), a piece for hand clapping which was performed in 2006 at the Computing Music IV conference in Cologne; (ii) a silent piece, ‘Jaiken-bugaku’ (Miwa 2004b), where the performers only move around based on the logic gate operations defined in this formula and which creates a visual sense of the logic operations; (iii) screen music for a film by Shinjiro Maeda Music for ‘Hibi’ (Miwa 2005b), performed by the members of a workshop at ‘Possible Futures, Japanese postwar art and technology’ using shakers as representations of the logic outputs; (iv) and lastly, Jaiken-zan was used to develop a possible form for a game that might be played by children called Shaguma-sama (Miwa 2005c) which relies on a drum beat to set the time of the piece (analogous to the computer processor clock which organises the timing of the logic gates) and which used hopping and, hand movements and singing to represent the logic operations. With the Jaiken-zan pieces, the discretisation of musical performance is foregrounded in this compositional strategy (three ‘inputs’, three ‘outputs’ from each performer). Only certain forms of ‘dance’ are allowed and the generation of sounds is equally limited to the stone, scissor and paper types.

A final piece, ‘369’ homage for Mr. B (Miwa 2006b), created for string orchestra was also written through the use of the Jaiken-zan logic gates. Again in this piece the digital data structure was output from the computer simulation of the Jaiken-zan and transposed into score. The hermeneutic transfer of the tenary output into conventional musical score is elided in his descriptions, which seem to indicate a simple one-to-one translation, yet as we have seen through the entire analysis, the interpretative moment of the human actors is strangely backgrounded in Miwa’s pieces (see Miwa 2007). Nonetheless, it is key to an understanding of Miwa’s work that it is in ‘running’ that it is to be viewed and understood. Running code is performative in the same way and we may subject it to similar levels of close reading and analysis.

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