Title: Samsara (electroacoustic music with video) 《輪迴》
Date: finished on August 12, 2004
Duration: ca. 6 min.
Program Notes:
Samsara means “cycle of existence” (cycle of life and death) in Buddhism and Hinduism, where life is nothing but an illusion (maya), and the material world is a place fragmented and constantly changing through the repeated process of formation, existence, destruction, and emptiness.
In the accompanying video, the same footage of flowers is repeatedly used through the distortion, reposition, and rotation of the pixels sampled from the original images. This helps to achieve visual coherence. The different scenes are arranged in a special order to represent the repeated life and death of flowers, symbolizing the endless cycle of birth, age, illness, and the death of all creatures.
In the music, sound samples of water drops, the traditional Chinese bamboo flute, and the Chinese zither are used mainly through the techniques of convolution and granular synthesis to create a dreamy ambiance and to symbolize the fleeting and illusionary life. Besides, pentatonic scales are also intentionally applied to create the mysterious impression of oriental religion and philosophical thinking.
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