film

music in the making /  by David Korchin

The composer Mathieu Lamboley prepares a manuscript. Paris, France.

I had a chance to work in Paris recently with director Eric D'Amario on a cool project documenting artificial intelligence-generated music. The assignment involved running sentiment analysis on thousands of words from the top stories in business and technology in the French Press, to learn what people are saying about subjects like Cloud, the Internet of Things, digital currencies, security, etc. From that analysis, the creative coder Hannah Davis used her Transprose algorithm to turn those sentiments into musical motifs, from which a human composer—Mathieu Lamboley (above)—built a three-movement orchestral work entitled Symphonologie. The data visualists at Rare Volume added pre-rendered visuals married to real-time input from the 52-piece orchestra at the début performance under the pyramid at Le Louvre on 20 September, 2016. 

Watch Eric's films and experience Symphonololgie: The Music of Business

The director Eric D'Amario

Oliver Imfest, Director of Photography

Composer Mathieu Lamboley

Mathieu Lamboley leads the recording of Symphonologie at Studio Davout, Paris.

The Symphonologie stage and data display, Le Louvre.

Brian Jones of Bang Music, discusses the Symphonologie project with French media.

Easter in Sicily /  by David Korchin

Procession coordinator, Trapani, Sicily.

Easter in Sicily is one of those episodes of wonderment and fervor where the spectacle of belief seems to overwhelm (even overstate) the system of faith behind it. I spent a two weeks photographing the commemorations in Marsala, Trapani, Prizzi and Palermo in 2002, and came away with a deep appreciation of devoutness, ceremony and ritual that marks the people there.

Devotees muster before a procession, Marsala, Sicily

Hooded devotees, Prizzi, Sicily

Nighttime procession, Palermo, Sicily

Huge processionals are hoisted through the streets and staged in churchs by men of every station.

Tradesmen relax in a chapel after depositing their processionals. Erice, Sicily.

The most prominent people of each city are afforded the highest perches. Marsala, Sicily.

Erice, Sicily.

Nighttime processional, Marsala, Sicily.