Yehoshua Lakner. Segante

Since 1987, Zurich-based composer Yehoshua Lakner has been using his C-64 computer by Commodore to create »Audio-Visual Time-Structures« (audiovisuelle Zeit-Gestalten – AVZG – as he liked to abbreviate these newly created forms).
 
According to Lakner, the computer »challenges one to use these three dimensions, time, image and sound for the design and, under certain circumstances, for the word too. However, it best matches the medium if the time response of the audible and visible – depending on wishes – can be integrated from the very beginning. This is in contrast to the usual procedure, where »suitable« music is sought for an existing »animation« or where you are faced with the problem of what you could offer the eyes, while the primary music comes from the loudspeakers.«
 
Yehoshua Lakner's late principal work is the three-part composition »SEGANTE« for two computers, two screens, male and female speakers with the three sets »Giovanni Segantini«, »Bergvariationen« and »S + N«. It owes its creation to an assignment by Pro Helvetia, the Swiss cultural foundation, to the composer to compose a piece for the hundred-year anniversary of the death of painter Giovanni Segantini on September 29 1999.