Prime Bolus Music, MRItrusion

A slowly changing amorphous semi-improvised audiovisual piece that is in continual development and evolution. A performance with a progressive audio collage composed of found sounds, old recordings and live sources visualised through a sound reactive tapestry of live video manipulations of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The piece is a response to the chaos of pain; how pain can throw the control away from life. Pain can be random, wild and undetermined. Sometimes it is slow and lumbers in the background and sometimes it erupts to overwhelm the senses.

The piece’s development was influenced by a series of hospital visits for the treatment of a kidney stone and a back injury. The words ‘PRIME BOLUS’ were first seen on a CADD-Prizm PCS II self-administering morphine machine and were used to indicate a dosage preparation. The two words were initially interesting, their ambiguity and further possible reinterpretation outside of their original context was intriguing and attractive.

The sounds used in the piece are derived from field recordings and found and synthesised sounds. They are further manipulated live using Ableton Live software and mixed with improvised vocals and custom-made, interactive noise generating sound sculpture.

An MRI scan to analyse the back injury provided the source material to create a series of visualisations which are manipulated live and through audio reaction.