Pamela Z’s compositions with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video really speak to me. As a vocalist myself, and having worked with MAX MSP previously what Z has accomplished is inspiring. The compositions are complex and in some ways, the gesture-controlled MIDI instruments add a hypnotizing physical element to the Z’s performances.

I am interested in the idea that voice and language are tools of communication but can also simply be sonic elements. Z reminds her audience that even when voice is used as a sonic element with repetition and layering new meaning can arise, that is not necessarily language in the way we would traditionally expect. I am very curious about Z’s process of composition. I am also interested in how she utilizes MAX MSP in her work.

Pamela’s journey from using physical equipment to finally using MAX MSP (several patches ex. delay) is actually quite practical as it is easier for travel. In terms of Pamela’s process, I was excited to hear that she chooses broad open-ended ideas and then works on small pieces that involve multimedia work to fully explore one main topic.

I really loved that Pamela uses interviews initially when starting a project and then transforms voice and pitch to create pieces of work. This really reminds me of my own process when completing work of my own. A piece of video work that I had made in the past felt very reminiscent of Pamela’s piece Memory Trace.