Installation | Juan Hernández: “Helium Burning”

Nuclear reactions in stars create a wide variety of chemical elements, starting from hydrogen — in Carl Sagan’s words, ‘by a kind of stellar alchemy’ (Sagan, 2014, p. 231). This process is known as stellar nucleosynthesis. Helium Burning is conceived as a generative system that addresses the affordances of such astronomical processes to explore timbral plasticity through digital sound synthesis in an 8-channel sound installation. The triple-alpha process by which three helium nuclei fuse into a carbon nucleus in the core of a red giant star informs a comprehensive four-layer timbral morphing process. The sound synthesis model encompasses methods of transformation of microsounds such as granulation, transposition and time-stretching of sound files (Roads, 2003) as well as iterative re-synthesis procedures. Iteration in the successive sound synthesis stages connotes the recursion in the nucleosynthesis process. The system is devised after the three steps of the triple-alpha process:

• Two helium nuclei form an unstable beryllium nucleus
• A short-lived beryllium nucleus may be approached by another helium nucleus and fuse into an excited state of carbon called Hoyle state
• The Hoyle state decays to the ground (stable) state of carbon (Ryan and Norton, 2010, p. 105-7)

The rate at which the timbral morphing process evolves is mapped from the initial abundance ratios of the nuclei involved in the different steps of the nucleosynthesis process. As the piece progresses in time, the transmutation of timbral substances is actualised, evoking the transmutation of atomic nuclei in the core of a star. Form emerges from the timbral morphing process. The successive phases of the sound synthesis process are the building blocks of musical structure. Because of the plasticity intrinsic to their probabilistic nature, stellar nucleosynthesis processes may serve as models for open-ended forms.

The performative concept underlying sound spatialisation in the piece connotes Niels Bohr’s observation on the essential aspects of quantum mechanics, furthered and rephrased by Carlo Rovelli as ‘the unambiguous description of any phenomenon requires the inclusion of all the objects involved in the interaction in which the phenomenon manifests itself’ (Rovelli, 2021, p. 119). The fluctuating ambisonic panning of each sound grain draws attention to the significance of the interaction between the phenomenon of timbral transmutation and the listener, actualising Rovelli’s contention that ‘all phenomena are quantum phenomena’ (Rovelli, 2021, p. 119).

About the artist

Juan Hernández is a composer, performer and sound artist from Colombia. In 2024 he completed his Composition PhD at the University of Leeds, under the supervision of Dr Ewan Stefani and Dr Oliver Thurley. Juan collaborates with Ángela Hoyos Gómez in a computer music/ sound installation/ digital performance project called Ulrica Dúo. His solo work and with Ulrica Dúo has been presented in different venues and galleries in Colombia, Mexico, Sweden, UK, Greece and Portugal. His recent work explores different strategies for designing new musical frameworks based on the analysis and mapping of data from astronomical sources. Juan is currently Assistant Professor at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia.