You Have a New Hyper-Memory for amplified Violin, Cello, Bass, Percussions & Electronics
"You Have a New Hyper-Memory" is about Hyperreality manifest in the form of digital memory and the way in which memory is transferred, transformed, and modified through virtual space. It seeks to imagine the sounds of a cybernetically mutated digital fragment of the past that has taken on a ghost-like life of its own. A digital memory that can be reduced to a file or hyperlink takes on an uncanny quality giving an illusory sense that it is autonomous and immortal. Its continuous life exists as a constantly-changing entity, in a ceaseless state of re contextualization and re-definition. This can result in the uncanny experience of reliving 'digital memory ghosts' that are almost familiar, yet unsettlingly alien. The top Billboard hit in 1940 ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’ by Ruth Lowe is a song about memory itself. In this piece, the standard functions as a sort of metaphor for the way the past moves through digital devices and is deconstructed and decontextualized as it is distributed through virtual spheres.
Ilana Waniuk - violin
Michael Jones - percussions
Robbie Bui - cello
Matthew Henson - double bass
Recorded and mixed by the composer
Mastered by Nikolas Solem
You Have a New Hyper-Memory Score by Steven Whiteley on Scribd
First premiered live by Ensemble Palimsest on 4/20/22 at the Experimental Theatre at UC San Diego by:
Steve Schick - conductor
IIlana Waniuk - violin
Michael Jones and Yongyun Zhang - percussions
Robbie Bui - cello
Matthew Henson - double bass