The Uncanny Valley: “Noisy, Super Hero[in(e)] and Kle[o(I)p(to)phobia” [2024]
for Saxophone and Trombone with Live Electronics
Commissioned by Duo Signal
Instrumentations: Trombone and Saxophone
World Premiere: October 2024
Duo Signal
Basel, Switzerland
Duration: Approx. 28 minutes
Concerts history
Duo Signal, October 2024 for Ausserberg, Basel, Switzerland
Duo Signal, February 2025 for Gare du Nord, Basel, Switzerland
Duo Signal, February 2025, Bern, Switzerland
Duo Signal, February 2025 for Unerhörte, Berlin, Germany
This piece is composed based on the theory of “Uncanny Valley”. In aesthetics, the “Uncanny Valley” is a hypothesized relation between an object’s degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. The concept suggests t hat humanoid objects that imperfectly resemble actual human beings provoke uncanny or strangely familiar feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers. “Valley” denotes a dip in the human observer’s affinity for the replica, a relation that otherwise increases with the replica’s human likeness. The composer approaches this theory in terms of four different hypothesized aspects; the first one is a disparate concept between actual acoustic musical contents by a performer VS the imitation of acoustic musical materials and/or distorted pre-recorded musical objects by electronics. The second one is a gap between actual physicality and gestural configuration by a performer VS unlimited musical gestures by electronics. The third one is an estrangement between the old perceptional sonic relationship, which is familiar to the listeners VS an oddly disconnected gestural configuration. The fourth one is a disparate idea between being emotion VS becoming sensation. Emotion is quite fixed and more of a concrete way of defining feeling. Sensation is like the way your body reacts OR the way that you felt when you heard it OR the environment when you heard it. Sensation is less about personal. Basically, a composer wants to deal with sound, which deserves the possibility of attaching to special emotions, without association being inherently in the sound itself. He wanted to open this piece from emotion which often associate with an old perception of sound to things outside, and not directly tied to one’s own emotions. The composer believes these relations ambivalently provoke “oddlyfamiliar feelings” to the audience. Towards the end of the piece, the audience might psychologically perceives more familiar with these odd or unfamiliar with these likeness.
Hunjoo Jung 