PC requirements:
Windows 7 or higher, Direct X
Mac requirements:
Mac OS Mojave (10.14) or higher
"Four Movements" is a music album by NYC-based artist Woody Sullender constructed in video game space. The project consists of several navigable environments (an empty club, a loft residence, an 'open world' intersected with a modernist grid, etc.) where the virtual participant can perform listening.
As life under COVID-19 has largely been defined by our reliance on virtual rooms to supplant our empty social spaces, "Four Movements" creatively embodies this disjuncture.
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Considering the history of the music album as a medium, the ‘record’ shifted from being a recording of an event to a construction of that performance (ie. “Sgt Pepper”). A huge portion of the ‘recording’ is the presentation of sonic events in a fabricated space (plate reverbs, convolution reverbs, stereo ‘imaging’, etc.). This interweaving of the real and the media construction largely defines our contemporary condition. "Four Movements" is a continuation of this trajectory of artists building artificial spatialized ’soundstages’ for sonic experiences.
Initially conceived as the media distribution of Sullender’s previous installation/performance “Furniture Music”, "Four Movements" evolved into something more complex, picking up on numerous themes including modern isolation as computer media supplants human interaction (further highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic).
Frequently, for the mediated music work, the audio has commonly only been a component of the larger complete artwork. The reliance on the image has spanned decades from the gatefold sleeve, to the MTV era, to the age of YouTube. “Four Movements” is differentiated from other albums not by its heavy usage of the visual, but by how it requires the viewer/listener to perform listening.
On a PC, "Four Movements" requires at least Windows 7 as well as Direct X.
On a Mac, "Four Movements" requires at least Mojave (10.14). Most Macs have lame graphics cards, so you may want to go to the Settings menu and drop the quality settings.
"Four Movements" is free or pay-what-you-wish. You can name your price on itch.io
You may get some security warnings when running, especially on a Mac. Check the included readme file if these warnings are keeping you from running "Four Movements".
In short, because the application is not 'signed', your computer may consider it a threat. Fear not, the project was built with Unreal Engine and poses no security risk.
This project is made possible, in part, with funds from the Media Arts Assistance Fund, a regrant partnership of the New York State Council on the Arts Electronic Media and Film Program and Wave Farm, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Some content developed at Pioneer Works.
Four Movements uses the Unreal® Engine. Unreal® is a trademark or registered trademark of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. Unreal® Engine, Copyright 1998 –2020, Epic Games, Inc. All rights reserved.
