Polish, Edinburgh-based composer and researcher Marcin Pietruszewski is engaged in sound synthesis and composition with computers, exploring specific formal developments in the tradition of electroacoustic music and sound art. He works across composition, pluriphonic installations, and radio productions. Recurring interests of his practice include synthetic sound, algorithmic systems, and the integration of scientific formalisms as compositional materials. Marcin Pietruszewski has collaborated extensively with musicians and composers such as Marcus Schmickler, Tristan Clutterbuck, Jules Rawlinson and Lauren Sarah Hayes. Recent projects include a collaboration with Florian Hecker and a graphic design company NORM from Zurich, a philosopher Chris Schambaugh, choreographer and dancer Agnes Cebere, the Laboria Cubonics Collective (the authors of Xenofeminist Manifesto).

A newly commissioned audio piece for a multichannel audio system premiered at the festival is based on the material of soon-to-be-released second album of artist’s exploration of the pulsar synthesis, an experimental sound generation technique described and popularised by the composer Curtis Roads. The music has been generated with The New Pulsar Generator (nuPg), a self-built interactive program for sound synthesis. The technique of pulsar synthesis generates a complex hybrid of sounds across the perceptual time span between infrasonic pulsations and audio frequencies, giving rise to a broad family of musical structures: singular impulses, sequences, continuous tones, time-varying phrases, and beating textures. Pietruszewski’s creative approach offers a unique vision of how contemporary computer music could sound like.

Commissioned by A4 as part of New Perspectives for Action, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union and supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council and Bratislava City Foundation.