Carl Testa’s Sway

Carl Testa's Sway is an interactive live processing environment designed by Testa using the SuperCollider computer music programming language. The system is inspired by interactive music systems by composers such as George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Pauline Oliveros, and Richard Teitelbaum. It builds off of Testa's previous electroacoustic works utilizing live processing including Iris (2012), Sⁿ (2014), and Ultraviolet (2015). Whereas in those pieces the electronics were controlled by Testa himself, in Sway, the electronic control is given over to the system. To accomplish this, audio analysis is conducted on each musician's signal to determine the type of processing and the exact moment-to-moment parameters of each kind of processing. Each musician's signal is analysed separately and generates a unique processing map over the course of the performance. What results is a dynamic, changing environment surrounding the music which pushes and pulls the musicians in different directions while retaining Testa's live processing aesthetic he has honed in over a decade of electroacoustic improvisation.