Third State is a visual music composition for three lasers by Mike Cassidy [student, Concordia University] and Kristian North [student member, Concordia University], who perform together as Augurs Wand. It was composed during a residency at Hexagram in January 2025 and premiered at La Grande Nuit in March.
The piece employs an extended technique of ‘vector synthesis’ (Holzer, 2019), whereby laser image and sound are produced by the same analogue signals, forming a unified audiovisual instrument that is programmatic rather than merely associative or autopoietic. The title of the work refers to a newly identified biological state where cellular systems retain responsiveness beyond the boundaries of clinical life and death. Third State interprets this liminal space as a perceptual flux between light and darkness, past and present, or form and abstraction, which never truly settles into form constancy.
Third State: Visual Music for Three Lasers
Laser Synthesis
A laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) operates through optical resonance and feedback. Light waves oscillate between mirrors in a resonant cavity, selectively amplifying only the wavelengths that match the cavity’s resonance conditions until a coherent, phase-aligned beam emerges. The dominant wavelength determines the laser’s colour, analogous to how acoustic resonance amplifies particular frequencies to create sustained harmonic vibrations.
Laser synthesis flowchart
In a laser projector, beams of red, green, and blue light converge at a prism before reflecting onto two small mirrors, each controlled by voltage-responsive galvanometer motors. These ‘galvos’ rapidly tilt the mirrors, steering the laser point across an XY plane at speeds that surpass the threshold of visual persistence, producing the illusion of a continuous two-dimensional image. The performance of galvos is typically measured in kilopoints per second (KPPS), a standard for image fidelity, yet they are capable of operating at frequencies well into the audio spectrum. This makes it possible to sonify the same control voltages that modulate XY position and RGB intensity.
Composing the Instrument
In modular synthesis practice, it is possible to articulate a distinction between modules, with isolated but indeterminate functions, and the purposeful instruments that emerge from their assembly. Similarly, in collaboration Augurs Wand create composition-specific instruments using Phosphene, a modular laser synthesiser developed by Mike Cassidy for VCV Rack. Comprising source, modulation, and utility modules, Phosphene generates audio-rate signals for shape, colour, and sound, all synchronised to a single phasor ramp, the temporal ‘source of truth’. These digital signals are converted to analogue control voltage for image and colour, and transduced into sound.
The Phosphene VCV Rack plugin
Cerberus is one such instrument built upon this foundation, eponymously derived from the three-headed guard dog at the gate of the underworld, the third state between life and death. Cerberus refers to both the three-laser diffusion system and its instrumental assemblage, together composing visual music for three lasers, as a compositional structuring of Phosphene oriented towards this specific function.
The Cerberus laser system at UQAM’s Agora du Coeur des sciences
Critically, this instrument did not precede the creation of Third State as a finalised tool. Instead, the collaborative workflow of Augurs Wand is a reciprocal dialogue between composition (Third State) and instrument design (Cerberus) that collectively inform, and are informed by, core programming architectures (Phosphene). For example, the cross-laser delay motif that defines Third State’s final section originated from the compositional intent to aggregate all three lasers as a single polyphonic voice, informing systemic changes to lower level module design to accommodate flexibility in signal architecture.
Symbology, Entering the Third State
For artists working with laser synthesis, the question of how to enter the work is a guiding concern. This entry may be sensorial: Alberto Novello, for instance, describes his laser practice as ‘visual listening’, framing real-time imagery as articulation cues for conscious listening (2021). However, a creative priority in working with Cerberus is to avoid hierarchical privileging of audio or visual content, shifting focus towards more integrated modes of engagement.
In Third State, the primary point of entrance is symbolism: audiovisual forms are taken not only as topological objects but meaning-charged signs with archetypal, cultural, and structural connotations. More specifically, the work is composed around two symbols, the triskelion and the torus knot, which also function as oscillators within the synthesis system. This compositional process diverges from related laser synthesis practices in that materials are selected for their signification before they are encoded as signals, with sonic or visual qualities emerging as subsequent phenomena. In this framework, the triskelion and the torus knot act as compound ideograms, shaping how form behaves over time and inscribing a mythic arc into the piece.
The first and final movements of Third State are motivic expositions of the triskelion and torus knot respectively, followed by their musical development. The central movement explores their fusion using audio-rate multichannel signal blending (XY, RGB), to shape a process of interplay, tension, and growth.
Stills from the first (Top), second (Bottom Left), and third (Bottom Right) movements of Third State
The Triskelion
The most prominent symbol in the work is the triskelion, an ancient three-armed figure whose earliest-known example was found carved into the Neolithic monument of Newgrange in Ireland. Symbolically, the triskelion’s rotational symmetry and triadic form is associated with motion, balance, and recurrence in the top-down organisation of systems.
Two appearances of the triskelion in Third State
In Third State, this form functions simultaneously as a voice and a compositional cosmogram mapping the score. As a recurrent overworld its three inspirals correspond to the three movements of the work, in turn composed as cycles or journeys. This metanarrative aligns the work with themes related to origins or primordialism through a geomythological framework that suggests transient natural phenomena, including lightning and other plasma events, might represent the basis of human traditions, myths, and religions.
As a design strategy, the triskelion’s configuration aligns with Buckminster Fuller’s definition of the tetrahedron as a minimal structural system of three spatially connected points, here conceived as three proportionate spirals emanating from a common centre (1982). This principle informs fundamental aspects of the work: the three lasers; RGB colour generation; the perceptual fusion of sound, colour, and image; the three movements of the piece; among others.
The Torus Knot
The torus knot is a common form in low-dimensional topology, characterised by geometric stability arising from harmonic ratios. When sonified, these harmonic relationships create dyads and extend Phosphene’s overall polyphony and therefore musical potential.
A green torus knot T (3, 8) produced by Phosphene (L) and its appearance in Third State (R)
Significant developments in topology emerged around the turn of the 20th century, aligning the torus knot figure symbolically with notions of modernity, contrasting the primordial triskelion. Topology helped redefine how form could be conceptualised, not just as a fixed or hierarchical structure but as dynamic, metastable systems. In psychoanalytic theory for instance, Jacques Lacan turned to knot theory to formalise the relational structure of subjectivity, shifting from a Freudian topographical model where the psyche is divided into discrete regions to a topological one defined by continuous entanglement (Blum & Secor, 2011). From a broader perspective, the torus knot symbolises the subjective experience preoccupying both thinkers, and emblematic of modernist discourse.
Through a linear progression from the triskelion to the torus knot, punctuated by a central morphogenetic transformation, the composition addresses this cultural paradigm shift from the universal to the subjective, and arrives at a third state between concrete form and pure abstraction, emphasising both collective and individual perceptual experience as its true source.
The Role of Colour
Colour, though present in the image, is not inherent to Cerberus’ unified architecture. Where sound and form were integrated, colour lacks this direct derivation and requires additional conceptual mappings. For the majority of Third State, each of the three lasers are restricted to one monochromatic beam (red, green, or blue) to establish an elementary visual language. Its syntax defines each core colour along an ordinal axis, representing an ascending series: red as one, green as two, blue as three. This sequence follows a spectral hierarchy shared by sound and light where frequency and wavelength are inversely related, shaping both colour, hue, and pitch. For instance, red, with its longer wavelength and lower frequency, is associated with bass, and blue, with its shorter wavelength and higher frequency, with treble. This sequential mapping echoes cross-cultural studies in colour term development where red tends to appear in languages before green, and green before blue, suggesting universal stages of perceptual categorisation (Berlin & Kay, 1969).
Audio-rate crossfading of a triskelion into a torus knot, including colour signals
The Role of Space
Third State is the first fixed composition created with Phosphene, but the system’s modularity enables endless reconfiguration for live performance. Critically the work can only be experienced in evental time—laser synthesis is vampirical; it thrives in darkness and cannot be accurately photographed or filmed.
This highlights not only the unique perceptual experience of laser light but the many ways the work engages with the spaces in which it is situated. Acoustics, ambient light level, surface reflectivity characteristics, and architectural features are inseparable from the sound and imagery produced, creating boundary conditions that dictate wave propagation or movement. From this perspective laser synthesis, as a kinetic art, exceeds the audiovisual; it is a felt event, not just situated in space but becoming space.
During the Hexagram residency, the Agora du Coeur des sciences granted the laser a sculptural, volumetric presence
Mike Cassidy is an artist + engineer primarily working with sound and light, drawn to the complexity of natural systems. With a background in music therapy, acoustic ecology, and software engineering, his work explores interaction as an invitation to alternative ways of sensing and relating to the world. He holds a B.A. in Psychology, a B.F.A in Electroacoustic Studies, and is pursuing an M.A. in Indivisualised Research at Concordia University.
Kristian North is a genre-agnostic songwriter, musician, and composer living in Tio’tia:ke/Montréal. Active since ~2003, he has written and performed original music as a solo artist and band member, touring widely across North America and Europe. This background informs a compositional practice rooted in chance, live performance, and collaboration. His soundscape composition Remiges won the 2023 Hildegard Westerkamp Prize (JTTP), and Mirror Life was a finalist at Totem Électroacoustique 2025. Recently, his creative scope has expanded into digital arts and multimedia, where he focuses on generative systems and analogue technologies, including visual music for lasers with collaborator Mike Cassidy. He holds a BFA in Electroacoustic Composition from Concordia University and is pursuing an MA in transdisciplinary research-creation.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the teams at Hexagram and GRMS/La Grande Nuit for their support during the creation and debut of Third State, Debora and Jason Bernagozzi at Signal Culture for their support and input in the development of Phosphene and Cerberus during our 2024 residency, Ricardo Dal Farra for his continued support of the work, our original laser mentor Alberto Novello, and Annabelle Fournier and Aidan McMahon for creating the promotional video.
Sources
Berlin, B., & Kay, P. (1969).Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution. University of California Press.
Blum, V., & Secor, A. (2011). Psychotopologies: Closing the circuit between psychic and material space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 29(6), 1030–1047.https://doi.org/10.1068/d11910
Fuller, R. B., Applewhite, E. J., & Loeb, A. L. (1982).Synergetics: Explorations in the geometry of thinking (1st Macmillan paperbacks ed.). Macmillan.
