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Toneburst Maps and Fragments
David Tudor & Sophia Ogielska 1994 - 1996

For a long time it has been David Tudor’s desire to create a visual description of his methods of performing his electronic compositions. In a series of collaborative works David Tudor and Sophia Ogielska found a way of doing it by developing the visual language for Tudor’s compositions based on electronic circuits themselves, and by visualizing the multiplicity of ways of performing as freedom of multiple traversals of the circuit “Maps”, with details shown as colorful “Fragments”. 

Toneburst: Selected Fragments

Toneburst Fragment 1, 48 x 22 inches

Toneburst Fragment 2, 35 x 27 inches

Toneburst Fragment 3, 27 x 48 inches

Toneburst Fragment 4, 35 x 27 inches

Toneburst Fragment 7, 48 x 27 inches

Toneburst Fragment 9, 32 x 48 inches

Toneburst Fragment 10, 35 x 27 inches.

In 1994 David Tudor and Sophia Ogielska began a collaborative project to develop a graphic language to describe Tudor’s compositional process and performance methods.

The designs for their works were created using an interactive graphics program specially written for their project by their technical collaborator Andy Ogielski. The works were painted with translucent colors on a thin clear film, then electronically cut and applied on layers of transparent acrylic panels.This collaboration has been a project of  Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT).

More Information:
Toneburst: Selected Maps

Toneburst Map 1 (Version 2), 3 parts 85.5 x 29.5 inches each

Toneburst Map 1 (detail). Installation at Zilkha Gallery, 1996.

Toneburst Map 4, 96 x 96 inches
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Toneburst Map 4, 96 x 96 inches, with Ideogram Cluster Version 1 (6 parts, 16 x 96 inches each). Installation at Zilkha Gallery, 1996.

Ideogram Cluster Version 1, site-specific installation for MMCA Seoul, Korea, 2018. 6 parts 24 x 140 inches each, laminated prints on clear polycarbonate.

Ideogram Cluster Version 1, detail with shadows. Site-specific installation for MMCA Seoul, Korea, 2018.

Ideogram Cluster Version 2 (detail), 1996. 5 parts 13.7 x 96 inches each.

David Tudor, one of circuit diagrams for Untitled, 1972, pencil on paper, 12 x 9 inches.