marta beauchamp

TTFL part2
(2024)

installation & sound performance

cello, electronics, pingpong ball percussion, 2 paper tubes, 2 fabric flags, 2 sticks with balls, ping pong ball belt, ping pong balls

Photos © Clemens Mairhofer

TTFL part 2 is an installation and performance for cello, resonating tubes, fabrics, MIDI-triggered automates and ping pong balls.
The composition explores the phenomenon of entertainment of the transcription-translation feedback loop (TTFL).
The faculty to produce an internal estimate of time, referred to in the literature as the biological clock, results from a self-generating cellular process which has evolved to compromise between maintaining stability while adjusting to external temporal cues. Possessing a biological clock allows organisms to anticipate, rather than react to, rhythmical cycles in their environment and to hence be in a favourable temporal relationship with their outside world.
Besides producing rhythmical pulses, a biological clock can detect external time cues, ones which are relevant to predicting time, and hence to lock its rhythmicity to the rhythmicity of its environment; moreover, it possesses a degree of flexibility that allows it to react to changes. In chronobiology, the clock’s ability to adjust its oscillations to external driving forces is termed entrainment.

Read Sam Bunn's text about the performance here


Thank you to: Xaver Fuchs for providing his custom-built midi machine for this project and for technical advice, Gabriela Gordillo for faciliting the process and for her insightful comments, Sebastian Six for generous support during the rehearsals and assistance as sound technician, Clemens Mairhofer for the photographs and the rest of bb15 for their encouraging support.