Bret Battey – cMatrix12

“Perhaps there is something deeper to be changed in one’s life than merely shifting the dramas with which one self identifies”

A mass of flowing particles and intricate patterns of sound weave through this world. Sometimes they form scattered clouds, at other times they come together into graceful arcs of sweeping motion. Battey sees each of these patterns as a drama. We watch as these dramas grow in beauty and complexity, yet soon they fall away, just as quickly as they appeared. As they flow in and out of existence we see them for what they are: temporary expressions of an underlying process. Through ‘cMatrix12’, Battey encourages us to look beyond the brief and transient in our lives in search of something more fundamental.

Battey describes ‘cMatrix12’ as a ‘generative’ artwork. That is, the sound and visuals are created by following a set of rules, a process programmed into a computer by the artist. In the visual process individual pixels are pulled into a spinning 3D space, like a 3D spirograph. Dr. Bret Battey is a Senior Lecturer in Music, Technology and Innovation at De Montfort University. His work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, and the File Hipersonica festival, Sao Paulo, Brazil.