'con fus ion'

composed and performed by michel waisvisz

on the hands and a glitched handsonic

and najib cherradi voice

soundmix: joel ryan

with the support of INA/GRM paris and STEIM amsterdam

'con fus ion' grew live on stage, in the studio, various work places and rehearsal rooms. its premiere in may 2002 at the salle olivier messiaen of the french radio in paris was comissioned by the INA/GRM

'con fus ion' wasn't composed at a desktop in the traditional computing sense. it grew out of the endless playing of music, talking, listening, experimenting, constructing, deconstructing, satirising and cross breeding with our own and listeners response and instant decision-making under high tension performance circumstances.

major compositional strategies were drawn out of unintentional mutations that came into being during the process of creation.

'con fus ion' grew out of the desire to develop a sonic language not connected with roots, nationalism or other dividing ideas, neither was superficial fusion a desirable goal

we wanted to remain two individuals working together while being what we are: dangerously different and at the same time exited and aroused by the others qualities and sometimes very congruent with each other.

an ancient singing tradition confronted with new informatics technology we see as a quasi mythological challenge: the demon named Word embraced in a match of truth with the gods called Media or, in more fable like terms: the sphinx questioning the mouse.

we couldn't but discover it is nerve-wracking to navigate musically in a world that has so much high level information technology at its disposal and especially one so bent on misinforming people.

our art intentionally adds conflicting information to this silicon labyrinth: musically, culturally and contextually.

by applying the philosophy of information-overflow we joyfully dissect the state of the art: a clash of lyrical tradition with 'electronica' and melt these dissections into our freshly created mutant audio-language

and thus, we present you with our own meticulously nurtured 'con fus ion'

waisvisz, amsterdam may 2002