Tom De Cock’s micro-percussion setup disappears here, as it were, into a landscape of round percussion instruments. These frame drums and cymbals are controlled by small transducers that transform the instruments into speakers, the sound of which in turn controls a feedback loop through a microphone. This installation forms a spectral-harmonic sound carpet that responds to every small change that takes place in the space in which it is located. The instruments automatically adapt to each other, until the moment when a single small intervention can shake up all the harmonies…

At the heart of this feedback installation is Autophagy III, a work co-created by Andrea Mancianti and Tom De Cock on behalf of Center Henri Pousseur Liège, following a research project funded by FRArt, and was further followed up in Tom’s research at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. The work combines the same feedback loops from the installation with polyrhythmic clouds, percussive outbursts and electronically transformed percussion clusters.

Autophagy III is a contemporary reflection on the compositional technique of Iannis Xenakis in the most important works for percussion from the 20th century.