New Music By Karlheinz Essl

ON FIRE is a sonic intervention by Karlheinz Essl for the space-filling installation ONLY FIRE by the Venezian artist Fabrizio Plessi. It was presented at the Essl Museum between 28.11.2001 and 17.02.2002. The sound of a fire blaze which is permanently filling the space is enriched with sonic gestures that are generated in real time by a special version of Karlheinz Essl's sound scape generator fLOW. The sound material on which it is based focusses on several aspects that are related with fire: steam and engine, heat and power, comfort and destruction. Taking advantage of algorithmic models and chance operations - Karlheinz Essl's field of interest since the mid 1980ies - the sound structures emerge in realtime in an unpredictable and surprising manner. Instead of being a reproducible work, ON FIRE is an infinite process that develops like the uncontrollable power of fire. The two sound sources for this installation are spatially distributed and separated: the constant sound of burning fire which was suppl