NOCTURNE (2022)

Graphic score with bioluminescent algae for solo tam-tam.

Published in Graphème Volume 5 (2025). Available for purchase.
Premiered on the 15th December, 2025, at Morphine Raum, Berlin. Performed by ensemble Smallest Functional Unit.

Nocturne (2022) is series of photograph-scores which are the composite of many individual frames of slow-motion videography. Pyrocystis Fusiformis is a nocturnal organism with a bioluminescent response to movement. In this work, the bioluminescent gestures are presented as musical information for the human performer to interpret. This technique situates the work within the established field of gestural music notation—that which represents the movement of the musical body through space.

Nocturne questions the role of music notation and photography in capturing ephemeralness and liveness; music performance and bioluminescence are here positioned as phenomenologically akin. “Entities are not entirely caught like algorithms in the gravitational pull of the past. There is also levity: the lightness of futurality” (Morton, 2017).