Weight Stranding by David Quang-Minh Nguyen published on 2019-05-20T17:41:53Z for 8 channels (stereo version) The light and the heavy The static and the wet The oblique and the reflective; The tight and the loose Precisely indecisive Weight Stranding was inspired by anamorphic art, as the piece explores exaggerated sound qualities and processes of each of the aforementioned pairs of adjectives. There are essentially two types of anamorphic art; the first is oblique where the distorted image is immovable (static) and the beholder has to change their point of view to see the real image. The second is catoptric (mirror), where the image is completely distorted and upon placing a mirror at the center the true image is revealed. The two types of anamorphic art relate to Weight Stranding by utilizing excessive manipulation of stereo imaging in a multichannel context. Through form and musical gestures the pair of contrasting adjectives describes the qualities and processes of each corresponding section of the piece, but each pair can also be used to describe every section in terms of the sound quality and/or the sound process. This results in a piece that can be heard as monolithic but still remains linear, as traditionally we listen to music from beginning to end. Each section can live on its own, but all are connected through exaggeration (precision) instead of development (indecisive) of the qualities and processes of the musical material. The qualities and processes can be heard as a metaphor: as we all carry our own personal Weight our qualities and processes become motionless, and life is Stranding us, engulfed, in the moment both figuratively and literally. Genre Acousmatic