Tristan Perich
sound installation
NYC
tristanperich.com

In all his creative activities, Tristan Perich is inspired by the aesthetics of math and physics, and works with simple forms and complex systems. The challenge of elegance provokes his work in acoustic and electronic music, and physical and digital art. The WIRE Magazine describes his compositions as “an austere meeting of electronic and organic.” His works for soloist, ensemble and orchestra have been performed internationally by ensembles including Bang on a Can (2008 People’s Commissioning Fund), counter)induction, Calder Quartet, New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Hunter- Gatherer and Ensemble Pamplemousse at venues from the Whitney Museum, P.S.1, Merkin Hall, the Stone, Joe’s Pub and Issue Project Room to Los Angeles’ Zipper Hall.

In 2004 he began work on 1-Bit Music to experiment with the foundations of electronic sound, culminating in a physical “album,” a music-generating circuit packaged inside a standard CD jewel case, which has been released by Cantaloupe Music. The Village Voice calls the device “technology and aesthetic rolled into one” and Surface Magazine calls the 1-Bit Music boxes “profound throwbacks to the traditional album, a response to the intangibility of iTunes and mp3s in the form hand-held artwork.” Working with 1-bit music profoundly influenced his music for acoustic ensembles, resulting in dual compositions for musicians with 1-bit music accompaniment, pairing the performers with on-stage speakers. His new circuit album, 1-Bit Symphony (due in April on Cantaloupe Music), is a long-form electronic composition in five movements. Its music explores the intricate, polyphonic potential of 1-bit audio, uniting simple with complex and celebrating the virtuosity of electricity.

As a visual artist, Perich has had solo exhibitions at bitforms gallery (NYC) in 2009 and Mikrogalleriet (Copenhagen) in 2010. His Machine Drawings, pen-on-paper drawings executed by machine, were featured in the 2005 book, “Makers” and described as “elegantly delicate” by BOMB Magazine. Expressing digital processes in traditional media, these drawings explore order and randomness within compositional frameworks, delicately executed by the minimal drawing machine. His work with 1-bit video, including Eighteen Linear Constructions on continuous view at Issue Project Room, employs binary electrical pulses to create images on cathode ray televisions. His artwork has been shown in group shows at LABoral, MCLA’s Gallery 51, Dactyl Foundation, ABC No Rio, the Philoctetes Center, and Greylock Arts.

His experimental music group, the Loud Objects (with Kunal Gupta and Katie Shima), perform electronic music by soldering their own noise-making circuits, live, from scratch in front of the audience, often on top of an old overhead projector to render transparent the meaning of their physical gestures. They have performed and exhibited in Germany (Art and Music with the Overhead Projector), Japan, Italy (Screen Music 2), Norway (Piksel), England (Evolution), Iceland (Pikslaverk), Sweden (Art of the Overhead), Denmark and the USA (including at the NIME, Bent and Blip festivals). They received a 2009 commission from Turbulence.org to create a networked noise toy development tool for open experimentation in hardware audio programming.

In 2009, Austria’s Prix Ars Electronica awarded him the Award of Distinction for his composition Active Field (for ten violins and ten-channel 1-bit music). Rhizome awarded him a 2010 commission for an audio installation with 1,500 speakers. Perich attended the first Bang on a Can Summer Institute in 2002, where his music was performed in the galleries at Mass MoCA. He was artist in residence at Issue Project Room during Fall, 2008 and in 2010 he will be artist in residence at Mikrogalleriet in Copenhagen and the Addison Gallery in Andover, MA. He has spoken about his work and taught workshops around the world.

Perich studied math, music and computer science at Columbia University after attending Philips Academy, Andover. More recently, he studied art, music and electronics at Interactive Telecommunications Program at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.