The Listening Gaze: Lissajous figures, composition and experimental instrument design

Name: The Listening Gaze: Lissajous figures, composition and experimental instrument design
Start: 2025-09-07T11:00:00+02:00
End: 2025-09-07T17:00:00+02:00
Location: Krásova 27, Praha

Schedule

Sun Sep 07 2025 at 11:00 am to 05:00 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Krásova 27, Praha | Prague, PR

~Punctum Microresidencies present~
In this workshop, object theatre maker and sound-designer Valtteri Alanen shares observations and practices based on his experiences with acoustic manipulation, experimental composition, contemporary object-theatre and new-materialist thought. We will get to know the Chladni Quartet, a new instrument-ensemble designed by Alanen, and acquaint ourselves with its basic working principles, the mechanics of forming Lissajous-figures and the practice of playing music with analog electronics and analog, extra lo-fi image. No screens here, only sand on vibrating plates.

The workshop is open to anybody interested, but it suits especially well people invested in experimental music, noise, object-theatre, and/or the relationship between physics, sound and image.The workshop is a part of artistic research conducted by Alanen for the Chladni Quartet. The Chladni Quartet is a new electro-acoustic instrument/ensemble, comprised of four chladni plates that play with a human-musician, a synthesiser, and other sources of sound, while forming geometric shapes according to natural resonances of their materials. The process was initiated while Alanen was researching and developing acoustic manipulation with the Trial & Theatre collective in Cornell University as a part of the artistic process for Nano Steps performances. The instrument itself will be finished over winter 2025-2026.
Participants are free to come and go when they want, but attending the whole workshop will of course afford the deepest participation.

Working group:
Idea, instrument design and -building, musician: Valtteri Alanen
Co-thinking, composition: Robert Ruohola
Co-production:Trial & Theatre CollectiveGrus Grus Teatteri
With support from:Tehdas Teatteri, Punctum Krasovka, Ehkä-Production, Aura of Puppets, Edea Design Oy
– – –
Valtteri Alanen
Valtteri Alanen is an object-theatre artist, sound-designer and an experimental musician. He works on uncovering the foundational puppetness of being. Not on how the human manipulates its environment, but how everything that is animates all the things that are. While formally educated in puppetry and object theatre at Turku Arts Academy and DAMU, Prague, he is also a learned-on-the-job sound engineer as well as a founding member of Trial & Theatre Collective, working and performing internationally.

Chladni Quartet
Chladni Quartet is an electro-acoustic instrument/ensemble, a do-it-yourself application indebted to scientific instruments and a feedback-loop of sight, sound and action. The instrument itself is comprised of four purpose built chladni-plates, a four-voice modular synthesiser, fine sand, some microphones, a mixing desk and a musician-technician. Valtteri Alanen is conducting the R&D phase of building the instrument with the help of composer Robert Ruohola. The concert and workshop at Punctum are a part of the development process of the instrument.
The Chladni Quartet is based on the chladni-plate, a scientific instrument developed in the 1800’s by Ernst Chladni. Initially it was used in then ground-breaking research on acoustics and physics, demonstrating for example the relationship between Lissajous-patterns and the vibration of sound. The instrument has in recent years had a small renaissance in the field of applied physics, where it is being utilised for example on the fields of micromanipulation, nanomechanics and self-assembly. Together with Trial & Theatre, Alanen has already implemented a chladni-plate in the Nano Steps performance series, acoustically manipulating microscopic particles in a puppet-theatre context. Chladni Quartet shifts the scale of action to the macro-world and naked human perception. It also tugs the context to the direction of experimental contemporary music, while not abandoning its roots in puppetry altogether.
Entrance: 200-500 CZK