Beyond Handpan explores what happens when an analog acoustic instrument meets electronic sound, generative systems and fractal imagery... creating immersive experiences for expanded states of awareness.
Process
I begin with the handpan, but the music develops through a continuous exchange with the electronics. I play, stop and listen to what the system has become, then respond. That response is transformed again, giving me something new to react to. Somewhere inside that loop, the electronics stop feeling like effects and start feeling like collaborators.
The Instrument
The rig is designed as a network of parallel paths... acoustic and electronic sources moving through different chains of transformation before returning to the mix.
Inner / Outer
I’ve become fascinated by the resemblance between the motion of generative fractal imagery and the molecular activity inside living cells. The same rapid, intricate, almost restless movement appears at radically different scales... one mathematical and imagined, the other biological and alive.
My friend Drew Berry’s molecular animations have profoundly influenced how I see this connection.
The fractals that I produce using JWildfire Swan aren't simulations of biology, but the visual resonance between these two worlds has affected me deeply. When this imagery combines with the music, something else emerges... an experience that neither the sound nor the image seems capable of producing alone.
Gary Yost
Gary Yost is an artist, filmmaker, musician and inventor whose work has long explored the intersection of creativity and emerging tools. He was the leader of the team that created Autodesk 3ds Max and later turned toward filmmaking, immersive media and music... much of it inspired by his decades-long relationship with Mt. Tamalpais in Northern California. Beyond Handpan brings those threads together in a new form.