Abstract
This article is an assemblage of commentary and statements from an interview conducted in March 2005 with Pedro Rebelo, (b.1972) a Portuguese new media artist living and working in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Using the artist's sound based installation Partial Space (1998) as an example of his delivery and methodology, I will discuss the implications of Rebelo's extensive implementation of technology, research, collaboration and inter-disciplinarity in this media.

Introduction
Pedro Rebelo is a new media artist whose practice touches such diverse areas as web design, electro-acoustic music composition, digital media and installation art. His product often involves collaborative with visual artists, musicians, as well as engineers and computer scientists.1 Such collaboration models platforms for inter-disciplinarity, resulting in multifaceted work engaging audiences who share similar diverse backgrounds.2 Rebelo's interactive sound based installation environments explore issues viz., the relationship between architecture and music, the elements of interactivity, performance and improvisation, and the implications digital technology has on this medium.

Rebelo obtained a PhD in music composition from the University of Edinburgh where he currently practices art while conducting research and lecturing at the Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast. Rebelo's main interests and research lie in digital media, interactive sound, and composition.3

As well as creating collaborative enterprises with various partners, he has also formed other named collaborative projects such as "laut", which showcase the work of saxophonist Franziska Schroeder. In this project Pedro "investigates the extension of interfaces and control in interactive performance practices"4 with his collaborator and partner artist. Of interest, Rebelo has been featured in various commercially available electro-acoustic music CD compilations such as Sonic Circuits IV, Discontact III, Exploratory Music from Portugal, and ARiADA.5

Partial Space (1998)
Partial Space is a site-specific interactive sound based installation.6 Upon entering the installation (an empty room, columns and dividing walls) the user's movement "triggers sine tones of frequencies that correspond to the natural resonant modes of that architectural, physical space."7 The architectural space effectively becomes an instrument as it acts "as an acoustic amplifier to electronically produced sound."8 The inhabitant user becomes a musician triggering sounds according to movement around the room. The sound perceived by the audience in the room is a synthesis of both the pure (sine) waves produced, and the amplification of that wave by the space.9

In this piece, the room is partitioned into eight areas "which are arbitrarily mapped to the frequencies of the eight strongest partials in the spectrum of that room's resonances." The placement of the eight triggering areas is determined by the architectural space of the room itself. This piece ultimately can be staged anywhere, however certain variables must be met. Each of the eight areas should be approximately the same dimensions, however structural features of the room such as shape, pillars, and walls are permitted enabling slight variation, in architecture and resulting resonance.10

As an inhabitant moves around the room, the user's body causes a disruption of the room's spectrum, thus activating more complex sounds and what Pedro has called "beat" frequencies. The delivery of the simple tones is twofold: it permits the audience to perceive the sounds triggered by the wave as well as the synthesis/harmonies created by them. For example, the faster movement of an individual or the presence of more people in the room will ultimately change the feedback.

Partial Space uses a video tracking system as input to a real-time synthesizer. The piece runs a combination of MAX/MSP/Jitter software. Required equipment includes four loudspeakers and amplification, a four channel mixing desk, and a Macintosh G4 or higher.12

Footnotes:
1 Pedro Rebelo biography, April 12 2005, http://www.sarc.qub.ac.uk/%7Eprebelo/index/.
2 Rebelo, Pedro. Email correspondence interview March 20 2005
3 Pedro Rebelo biography, April 12 2005, .
4 ibid
5 ibid
6 Rebelo, Pedro. Email correspondence interview March 20 2005
7 Rebelo, Pedro. (2003). Performing Space. Organized Sound, 8.2, 181-186.
8 Rebelo, Pedro. Email correspondence interview March 20 2005
9 Rebelo, Pedro. (2003). Performing Space. Organized Sound, 8.2, 181-186.
10 sub_friction[in]partialspace, April 12 2005, http://www.sarc.qub.ac.uk/~prebelo/lautnet/Pages/ partialspace/index.htm
11 ibid
12 ibid