The Dudion Levers is the fruit of the collaboration
between the Michael Portnoy and Oliver Sudden—engineer, tinkerer, and former opera singer, as well
as the nephew of the writer Boris Vian. A long time admirer of Boris Vian, fascinated
by Vian's visionary imagery, and his activities within the College of Pataphysics,
Portnoy began to exchange thoughts and comments with Sudden on his uncle's inventions
after meeting in 2007. Oliver Sudden discovered in Vian's archives sketches for
a vocal "power tool" that would transform the voice into a massive
orchestral unisound, which is then imprinted upon or inscribed on objects, or
in some cases transforms or forms objects in the vicinity. The "brain" of
this instrument was "the dudion levers", a constellation of resonating
glyphs. Sudden, once a famous tenor in the 70's (under a different name) before
a rare throat condition ended his career, has lived in anonymity and seclusion
in Brittany, running a small shop which repairs analog synthesizers, and studying
mollusks. He constructed an interpretation of THE INSTRUMENT and asked Portnoy
to give it his voice and to contribute in modernizing the instrument's sound,
functionality and physical design.
THE INSTRUMENT has two parts -- The Microphone, and The Cooker. Portnoy chooses
three objects and places them in The Cooker. He then conceives an art project
involving these objects and sings a song about it into The Microphone. THE
INSTRUMENT transforms Portnoy's voice into a shifting combination of orchestral
instruments,
synthesizers, drums, guitars, etc. (based on his pitch, intonation and many
other variables) and this song is inscribed upon the assemblage of objects
in mother-of-pearl graphic notation.
Oliver Sudden is a specialist in the first generation of analog synthesizers
(Synket, Buchla, Moog, Synthi 100, ARP 2600, Putney, ElectroComp 400, Aries
300, etc.) His shop in Brittany is one of the few in the region that is equipped
to
upkeep and repair these machines. Sudden has developed a series of "perversions" of
these models for his personal use. He is a skilled welder, electrical engineer,
and self-taught malacologist and has invented several spat racks and a maturation
tank for the cultivation of oysters.