Listen (mp3) Performed at Issue Project Room, April 9, 2010
The Occupants is a generative composition with some aspects that can be influenced through single- or multi-user interaction. Moore has used the piece to search for answers to both profound and insipid questions, such as: What does it mean to compose a “site-specific” composition when the site is the internet? The Occupants is a long-term project that will eventually encompass multiple sub-compositional personalities. This premiere performance focused on a single personality, i.e. the first occupant, with its (mostly) monophonic voice and (mostly) agreeable disposition. A number of copies of this personality were distributed throughout Issue Project Room’s array of Hemisphere speakers and set loose to compose themselves.

Stephan Moore is a composer, performer, audio artist, and sound designer in New York City. His creative work centers around the collection and use of real-world sound, the creation and perception of sonic environments, and technological manifestations of improvisation and interactivity. Many of his performances and installation artworks make use of large, multi-channel arrays of his Hemisphere speakers. Moore performs regularly with Scott Smallwood in the electronic duo Evidence, and with a variety of musicians, live-video artists, and dancers. He has created custom music software for a number of composers and artists, and has taught college-level courses in composition, sound art and electronic music at several schools. He is currently the Sound Engineer and Music Coordinator of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and one of its core musicians.
 
The Occupants is a 2009 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. for its Turbulence website.  It was supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.