Fleeting Images

About

Fleeting Images uses the POD system for computer synthesis and composition developed by Barry Truax at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and was composed in 1985.

Environmental sound images based on real recorded experiences develop during the piece. The active, rhythmic textures are suggestive of the dynamism of nature - birds, insects and the bubbling energy of geothermal activity while the long sustained sounds evoke images of waves crashing on rocky coastlines mixed with the humming of telephone wires across vast open plains.

Such extra-musical aspects are stimuli for the composer's imagination and these ideas are articulated in a wide variety of textures. The contrast of noise-like with pure timbres is evident as is the "joie de vivre" aspect of the piece heard in the energetic rhythmic sections the pitches and durations of which were chosen by controlled random procedures afforded by the versatile POD system.

Fleeting Images was awarded the International Electroacoustic Studios Prize (ex aequo) in 1986.