dissipative structures by Marcus Maeder

Marcus Maeder's latest, 'innoficial' EP on domizil deals with dissipative structures in a metaphorical-musical sense. A dissipative structure is a concept from thermodynamics and systems theory. It describes systems that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium and maintain order or structure by exchanging energy and matter with their environment. Dissipative structures create order out of chaos, so to speak - they arise through non-linear interactions that can lead to phenomena such as self-organization. Through the exchange of energy, spontaneously ordered structures can emerge - such as patterns, rhythms or complex movements. Many processes and organisms in nature - living systems - consist of dissipative structures.

Pink noise was used as the initial state of the three structures (as an analogy to chaos), which is fed through a sample & hold module and controls the parameters of a resonant filter. The source material was created on an ARP 2500 synthesizer, which was connected to a spring reverb device that produces feedback. This material was then further processed on the computer, by frequential sampling of the input signal. The timbre of the input signal was sampled at more or less regular intervals. The output signal was obtained by interpolation between the sampled timbres, which produced vast and calm soundscapes. Structure c was excluded from digital processing and recorded directly from the synthesizer. The way this works is reminiscent of a living system that organizes itself and its sound output out of chance and chaos.

Marcus Maeder is a sound artist, researcher and composer.

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