Past Tense

Exploring Idleness and Boredom as Compositional Strategies

What if the instrument plays itself and the performer's job is to not intervene?

Past Tense is a site-specific idle game instrument. Spatially distributed stations autonomously accumulate sound from geophones, electromagnetic pickups, radio signals, and visitor contributions. Participants may briefly intervene — unlocking processing engines, releasing short sonic gestures — before the system settles back into its autonomous flow. The composition emerges through neglect: the act of not-performing as the creative gesture.

Accepted for presentation at ICMC 2026.