WTC is a multimedia work in response to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York City.

The piece is in two movements, one devoted to each tower that fell. Each movement is based on a piece from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Recordings and transcripts of radio transmissions released by the FDNY on August 12, 2005 are layered into the original music score, consisting of strings and electronics.

As visitors walk through the space, their movements trigger excerpts of the radio transmissions, while transcripts are read over walkie-talkies by live performers. The walkie-talkies not only evoke the original sound of the radio transmissions, but they can pick up stray conversations on open frequencies in a two-mile range. Video footage using images of the World Trade Center, is also projected in the space and responds to the audio through custom computer software. The colors vary with changes in the sound score, and a person’s movement can also trigger changes in the video, such as cueing new images.

In the center of the space are two columns of light which recall the memorial each year at the World Trade Center site. When a person enters the light their image becomes an outline for an American flag revealed in the video projection. The movement capture in the light also serves as the focal point for triggering audio and video clips to be filtered through the computer.

In addition to the installation, live performances incorporating dance, recitations, and an ensemble of flute and strings will take place every Wednesday at 8:30PM. The ensemble will perform from WTC, as well as two other works, Lusitania and Pearl Harbor from The Great Wars. Each piece is the length of the date on which the event happened (WTC is nine minutes and eleven seconds in length, Lusitania is five minutes and seven seconds and Pearl Harbor is twelve minutes and seven seconds). For these works, instruments are processed live over a tape component, and archival recordings from the events are also projected. In the background is Woodrow Wilson's Armistice Day Speech, the oldest surviving recording of a radio broadcast. Excerpts also include a WWII war bond film and Roosevelt’s War Address on December 7, 1941.

BIOGRAPHY

Jonathan Zalben explores the intersection between interactive art and music composition. Bringing live instruments and recorded sound into a space, Zalben designs pieces where the audience is the performer and the creator is the architect. Zalben received a BA in Music from Yale University, an MA in music composition and multimedia from New York University, and has also studied violin and composition at Juilliard Pre-College.

Zalben has received grants from the Experimental TV Center through the New York State Council on the Arts, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Manhattan Community Arts Fund, US Navy, and the National Academy of Sciences. His multimedia work has been presented at the Boston Public Library during Boston Cyberarts 2005, Art Without Walls in Central Park, the Knitting Factory, PS122, HERE Art Center, the Ontological-Hysteric Theater at St. Mark's Church, and Galapagos Art Space. In 2000, he was a research fellow at the US Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory and in 2003 he was in residence at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam.

Compound Pilot, a net art collaboration with Marshall Jones, has been shown at galleries in the US, Canada, Korea, Argentina, Australia, England, and Armenia. Compound Pilot's website (http://www.compoundpilot.com) won the "Classic" Web Award in the 2006 South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival.

Zalben's music for film, theater, and television has been shown at the New York International Fringe Festival, Chicago SketchFest, and the Slamdance Film Festival. His orchestral works have been performed by the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra and the New York University Orchestra. Zalben holds a U.S. patent for a muffler design. For more information, please visit http://www.jonathanzalben.com