Latvian bogs became a live instrument at Gray Area
Pierce Warnecke and Matthew Biederman performed Phytomorphic Topologies in San Francisco on Aug. 21, playing photogrammetry and field recordings in real time.
Pierce Warnecke and Matthew Biederman performed Phytomorphic Topologies at Gray Area's Grand Theater in San Francisco on Aug. 21, 2026.
The piece is built from protected forests, bogs and nature reserves in Latvia. The artists surveyed them with photogrammetry and near-field audio recording. Botanist Liga Pentjusa of the University of Riga guided the surveys.
On stage, a custom audiovisual instrument moves through that material in real time. Biederman told Derivative the piece is built in TouchDesigner and "plays the land."
It was a seated, one-night performance. Jorge Bachmann and Andrej Hrončo were also on the bill.
The work was commissioned for Skaņu Mežs, the experimental music festival in Riga, in October 2025.
Disclosure: Gray Area is Killscreen's fiscal sponsor.
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