This electroacoustic improvisation with audio reactive visuals is assembled from video and field recordings captured in Rome and Tuscany, with an emphasis on the Island of Argentario. The building of suspense reflects the escape and voyage of Baroque painter, Michelangelo Caravaggio, who spent his final months, in 1610, running from authorities and organized crime groups who sought recompense for his many crimes. His life was in particular danger after the passing of Pope Clement VIII, who died before he was able to pardon Caravaggio. In one segment of the work, the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major is featured. It is here that Pope Clement VIII was buried. Other scenes were captured on a train from Rome to a small town in the Chianti region of Tuscany, and finally, the Island of Argentario where Caravaggio died in a suspected murder on July 18th, 1610. Throughout the piece, images of Caravaggio’s oil on canvas work, Basket of Fruit (1610) are flashed. In this work, the artist paints a subtly decaying still life of fruit, believed to be a foreshadowing of Caravaggio himself’s eventual spoiling. The penultimate scene of the work features the only foley not captured on scene in Italy, the sounds of fruits being mutilated. Along with an improvisatory drum solo, they act as an abstract re-dramatization of Caravaggio’s suspected capturing. These final scenes are left open for interpretation as are the findings on the cause of Caravaggio's death.

Quietus explores the notion that monumental events attach themselves to spaces like a sticky residue that still lingers in the sound scape.

Materials: field recordings (stereo lavs) video, drum set, crotales, fruit, Ableton Live, VideoSync, Sensory Percussion, Roland SPD-SX