Flocking III is a graphic score that explores the dynamics of emergent systems, in which individual actors together express a singular group dynamic. Nature offers many spectacular examples of this type of
behaviour, of which perhaps the most beautiful is the flocking of birds in flight.
Of all the birds found in this world, the starling flock is considered to be the most impressive in terms of number and reaction time, and so perhaps for this reason it is given the most beautiful of names – a murmuration. Starling murmurations are also the subject of the most scientific research for these very same reasons; flocks can number greater than 100,000 individual birds and their reaction time whilst in flight as little as 0.026 seconds.
My work on the Flocking Series was informed by the research of computer scientist Dr. Pavlos Antoniou of the University of Cyprus and mathematical biologists Luke Coburn and Dr. Iain Couzin of CouzinLabs in Princeton University. As source material for Flocking I-II, data derived from bird flocking simulators (using the ‘Boids’ algorithm) and their x,y and z coordinates in space was translated into the musical values of pitch, attack frequency and dynamic.
Flocking III is a new type of score, expressing the fact that humans also display emergent patterning in our group behaviour. In fact, we do this every day of our lives, whether walking in a crowd or listening and responding in the language of music.
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£15.00
