ASCUS Goes to... Ecstatic Arc

Robbie Thomson's 'Ecstatic Arc' is a superbly executed marriage between sound design, electro-acoustic composition, sculpture, set-design and visual art to name only a few branches of the arts the project draws from. This performance is not one for the faint hearted, and is sure to divide the opinion of the audience for the remainder of its residence here at the Summerhall venue.

Image courtesy of <http://sonic-a.co.uk/ecstatic-arc/>

Composing the score in a digital audio workstation, Thomson is able to export the music as a MIDI signal, which is used as an impulse generator to trigger the light show and electrical bursts of the Tesla coil in real-time during the performance. This technique forms the crux of the performance, sparking pure blue flashes and bursts of light which cast unnerving shadows across the industrial set, formed from a collection of Thomson's contorted, animalistic kinetic sculptures.

The combination of visual effects and the intensity of the digital score is spectacular, with deafening sub-bass likely to appease even the most hardened electronic music fans in its ability to leave the variety of stage props quivering in its wake. The sporadic movements and acoustic sounds produced directly from the set's kinetic sculptures bring a more organic element to the digital soundtrack. Increasing in intensity the erratic motions and sounds build the composition from meek beginnings to a veritable full-scale sonic warfare launched upon the audience, who are left mesmerised by the dance of the Tesla coil's plasma arcs.

The Ecstatic Arc experience is rooted in its primal, visceral exploration of artistic media. Like the angular, glistening sculptures, the digital score is not rounded and 'normalised' in its form or aesthetic. From a musical perspective, whilst the composition develops linearly to a notable climax, for me the work tails-off aimlessly to meet its resolution. That said, it is balanced through Thomson's alluring rhythmic themes which develop throughout the piece's length, anchoring (somehow) the composition to the Earthly-realm with which the audience have traditionally been familiar. 

In my experience of live digital composition and sonic performance, Ecstatic Arc succeeds in achieving a sense of musicality in an artistic medium that struggles to strike a balance between the utilisation of technology and raw creativity.

The show itself mirrors the wild, semi-deranged reputation of the coil’s creator, archetypical mad scientist, Nikola Tesla. But without Tesla's creative spirit in pushing the field of electronics in technology, the Ecstatic Arc experience would not even be possible to dream of. In the same way, it is artists like Ecstatic Arc's creator, Robbie Thomson, pushing the limits on the use of sound design and digital music in intermedia arts and as a discipline to itself who probe the frontier of digital tech in art.

A stormer of a show, catch it if you can.