HAN BAT is a multi-channel sound installation work by Carl Stone that builds from slow juxtapositions of various acoustic dimensions and spatializations that were enregistered using a special 8-channel portable recording system, The Octaphone, in 2007 and 2008. The Octaphone was developed by Carl Stone in collaboration with Professor Oizumi Kazufumi, of Chukyo University, and features 8 separate microphone capsules connected to two four-channel recorders, mounted on a specially designed transport bar that is light and small enough for portability.

In this installation version, processing and spatialization of the sounds is achieved using Max/MSP and based on algorithmic software program that proceeds largely without human intervention, In live performances, Stone intercedes and guides the processing, plus adds additional elements.

After a live performance June 30th at 6:30 p.m., the installation portion of the exhibition will continue until July 26 2008.

“Eight-Channel Field Recordings Never Sounded So Good…”

To see more details:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=52360710050

Dafna Naphtali is a sound-artist and improviser-composer from an eclectic musical background. As singer/guitarist/electronic-musician she performs and composes using custom sound processing of voice and other instruments. Besides her composing and improvised projects, she co-leads the digital chamber punk ensemble What is it Like to be a Bat? with Kitty Brazelton (http://www.whatbat.org) and has collaborated/performed with Lukas Ligeti, David First, Joshua Fried, Ras Moshe, Alexander Waterman, Kathleen Supové and Hans Tammen, among others and done sound design and programming for Jin Hi Kim, Shelley Hirsch, Pamela Z, Phoebe Legere, Fred Frith, Jim Staley, Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Chico Freeman and others. Dafna can be heard with Mechanique(s) on a forthcoming release on In-situ, and was featured vocalist on José Halac’s CD “Dance of 1000 Heads” (Tellus), as well as on her acclaimed release with What is it Like to be a Bat? on Tzadik/Oracles.

Dafna’s residency involved dynamically controlled algorithmic improvisation, using vocal cues, Morse code and Wii controllers to elicit beat frequencies, trigger and manipulate LEMUR percussion robots and shred on Guitar bot.

Andrew Schneider is a multimedia designer and performer whose work investigates human/technological interdependence. He is the co-founder and Associate Artistic Director of the Chicago-based theatre company, BigPictureGroup. His solo performance work has been seen at P.S.122, Monkeytown, The Prelude Festival, and The Tank. His multimedia devices have been featured in Art Review, Wired, TimeOut NY, Maker Faire, SIGGRAPH, Dorkbot, the Telfair Art Museum, and at the Center Pompidou in Paris. His Solar Bikini has been featured internationally and is slated to be featured in the next Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. His latest projects include Experimental Devices for Performance (.com) and Acting Stranger (.com). Andrew Holds a Masters Degree in Interactive Telecommunications from NYU. He is currently working with The Wooster Group. (http://andrewjs.com)

Doing musical theatre with robots used to be Andrew’s standard joke answer to the question “So what do you want to do with your life?” Finally, a life-long dream comes true. He plans to start with a dance number, interfacing his movements with the robots via custom-built wearable controllers.

Born in New York City, Simon Morris (US/France) is a new media artist exploring urban landscapes, new musical interfaces and skateboarding. Investigating new forms of musical expression, his work examines technology and its role as a socially engaged art practice. He has conducted live performances at Eyebeam, NYC, the Article Biennale 2006 in Stavanger, Norway, the KiasmaMuseum in Helsinki, Finland and the Barker Theatre in Turku, Finland.

Simon is planning an interactive musical performance orchestrated by the movements of three skateboards.

By subway:

Take the F/M/R to 4th Ave. and walk one block down either 9th or 10th St. to 3rd Ave. LEMURplex is on 3rd Ave. between 9th & 10th Sts. Or, take the F/G to Smith & 9th Sts. and walk two blocks up 9th. Cross and then turn right onto 3rd Ave.

The program (Pure Data) runs on a mini PC which is plugged into the aux jack of the car HiFi. Information about the drive is captured by a Wiimote controller, fixed with a suction cup inside the windshield, which continuously sends data concerning the XYZ movements of the car. The Infra Red sensor has been adapted (the filter taken out), so that it detects position and size of any luminous objects (headlamps or tail lights of other cars, areas of sunlight or shade etc).

The vibrations from the Wii are continuously written into lookup tables (one for each axis), then read as audio (wavetable oscillators). This means that while pitch (the tune) is defined algorithmically within the program, the timbre of the sounds varies according to vibrations of the motor and other movements of the car. These movements are analyzed and categorized to distinguish bends, accelerations, decelerations, bumps in the road and standstill. These events are used to trigger variations on sequences which are automatically generated whenever the car stops.

AutoSync will soon be available for sale. The version of the program demonstrated in the video (scroll down) is progressing on a daily basis to provide more and more varied sounds and compositions. In the future, other composers and artists will be invited to work on different setups for the program so that eventually the user will be able to choose between musics generated from programs by these collaborators.

Peter Sinclair is a member of the research group Locus Sonus audio in art and professor at L’Ecole Superieur d’Art d’Aix-en Provence. The idea for the project AutoSync originated in a conversation with Lydwine Van der Hulst (at that time member of Locus Sonus).

With thanks to G. H. Hovagimyan.

lgOpre (luh - GOP - ruh) is an audiovisual installation of multichannel sound and projected digital animation created with real-time software that links vintage grid pattern algorithms with vinyl record lock-groove samples. The software behind lgOpre, written by the artist, uses customized abstract image generation routines (c.1970), appropriated color schemes, and self-similar number patterns to create an animation that is also a visual controller for a modular digital sound studio. Each of the 34 grid pattern building blocks used for lgOpre is mapped to its own set of processed and unmodified lock-groove samples. The color of the underlying grid is used to select which sound will play as the basic grids from each animation frame are visually highlighted in turn for a determinate duration before advancing to the next frame. Aleatoric color scheme variants introduce a degree of chance to the sound-image mapping.

Compositionally, lgOpre first introduces each visual building block as a full-screen matrix using black and white, grayscale or a few saturated colors to create monochromes or relatively simple patterns accompanied by solo sound samples. The screen splits in half horizontally, then vertically, producing four quadrants with increasing pattern complexity. New color schemes and faster sequencing within a single animation frame trigger the look of blocky color video games or visualized computer core dumps and densely layered multichannel sound.

Locked grooves and the title of Galbraith’s 2002 video Open Research which juxtaposed animated black and white ‘big bit’ grids with human-sized inflatable sculpture from the late-1960s helped give lgOpre its name: locked groove Open research.

David Galbraith is a composer, performer and media artist who lives and works in New York. Galbraith explores the couplings between art, music, technology and the body through his sound installations, video works, custom software and performances using self-built analog electronics. In 2005 Galbraith’s Composition 2005 No. 1: Two Straight Lines Displaced, Nudged and Gently Spun was shown at Diapason and will be included in a forthcoming DVD archive of works exhibited at Diapason.

In 2006 Galbraith received a Finishing Funds grant from the Experimental Television Center/NYSCA for lgOpre, his custom software for sound and image. Galbraith enhanced lgOpre in 2007 to support analog synthesizers at STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) in Amsterdam. His compositions and performances have been presented at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Tonic, The Stone, Art in General, and free103point9, among other New York venues. Selected solo and group international performances include Erase & Reset: International Night Of Experimental & Electronic Music at Staatsbank Berlin; Garage Festival, Stralsund, Germany; and Musica Pro Nova, Bremen, Germany. Galbraith also performs with the analog synthesis collective Analogos at Diapason.

Galbraith’s visual work has been included in museum exhibitions at P.S.1/MoMA (New York), The New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), and KW Institute of Contemporary Art (Berlin). Galbraith holds an M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts (1996) and a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1988). Galbraith also participated in the studio program of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 1996-97.

Diapason gallery for sound and intermedia was founded by composer Michael J. Schumacher in 2001 and its program builds on the efforts of Schumacher’s previous sound space, Studio Five Beekman, founded in 1996. Diapason is the sole venue in New York City and one of few internationally dedicated to the presentation of multichannel sound installation where composers and sound artists can realize their work for an interested public. By providing an optimum listening environment, two high quality multi-channel sound systems, a regular audience, and a place for experimentation, Diapason seeks to engage composers and the public in dialogue about the place of contemporary music and sound practice in a broader cultural context. Diapason is supported by NYSCA, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Phaedrus Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, The Trust for Mutual Understanding, Kirk Radke, and by generous individuals. Diapason is a 501(c)3 organization.

Recomputing Space is a sound installation which employs field recordings as a psychogeographic study of urban sound. “Following the commands and rhythm imposed by an algorithm, two persons walk around in chosen locations in the city, recording a mix of noise, language, music and the sound of their own steps. The chosen locations are public places, such as public squares, parks, tram stations etc.

The algorithm they follow is composed of a number of simple commands (left, right, forward, back, stop) and a metronome. It is rendered into sound and received on headphones. It tells the two microphone operators how to walk and provides the walking rhythm which structures their recordings. Both recorded soundtracks are later played back at the soundscape-installation, which consists of 30 loudspeakers ordered in a 5×6 matrix, placed on the floor approximately 2 meters from each other. The sounds “move” from speaker to speaker, reconstructing the paths of the microphone operators at the time of the recording.” [posted by Garrett on Network Research]

The Special Player is an interactive performance in the context of transmediale 08 - conspire. Involving a sophisticated responsive motion tracking environment, four contemporary dancers and its visitors, The Special Player explores a massively disquieting conspirative narration.

In the performance, the ambient digital environment provides the dancers with a complex ‘Digital Aura’, which reveals the network behind the obvious. Relaying to the ancient human fears, The Special Player throws its visitors right in the center of a sinister conspiration. Using a secret motion analysis algorithm, The Special Player selects single visitors and equips them with overwhelming power.

February 1, 2008; 9:00 pm - The Special Player (interactive live temple show) - Presentation, performance and party
February 1, 2008; midnight - The Shaidon Effect DJ Set
February 2, 2008; 5:00 pm - The Special Player (interactive live set)
February 3, 2008; 5:00 pm - The Special Player (interactive live set)

I Am You: The Special Player - The Special Player is a result of an interdisciplinary cooperation project between international choreographers, contemporary dancers, the interactive live set group 02L > Outside Standing Level, the Berlin-based Picamotics/ATTOMAAKU-Platform and libavg, an open-source high-level multimedia platform with a focus on interactive installations.

Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman have created the ABSOLUT QUARTET, a large-scale electromechanical sculpture consisting of three instruments and thousands of parts, working together to create one piece of music.

The main timbre is a marimba played by balls shot from a robotic cannon. Other components include a series of wineglasses played by little robotic fingers and an array of robotic percussive instruments. Online users first provide a melody theme, which is heard over a speaker near the machine. The machine interprets the melody and then comes up with its own version, which it starts playing. It also matches the user-generated melody with a composition from its algorithmic music library. As the machine plays, the user can interact and inspire the machine to play in different ways. The result is a complex robotically generated song, co-produced by man and machine - and performed live by the “Quartet”.

Teenage Engineering has constructed the ABSOLUT CHOIR, an architectural installation with an advanced framework of speech synthesizers and artificial intelligence software at the back end. A multi-channel robotic choir made up by 10 singing characters of various shapes and sizes, each of the men, women, tenors and sopranos has a unique and synthetically produced voice. The mother character holds a master clock - and each character contains a small, embedded Linux device, a DA converter and a speaker, making it possible to distribute sounds and to virtually conduct the members of the choir.

As the Choir starts singing, the user may input words to the machine. As the machine receives the words, it immediately uses them to generate a musical composition and lyrics. The robotic choir follows the lead of its human partner, and with the help of generative algorithms, the machine engenders a melody, tempo, dynamics, timbre and lyrics inspired by the user-generated input. The composition is also infused with the machine’s current mood and from the most recently analyzed words input by previous users. A lot of short words with many consonants may result in a fast arpeggio-like song, while softer words may result in a slower composition. As a result of co-production between man and machine, ABSOLUT CHOIR creates a harmonic, yet surrealistic sound palette.

As there are only a limited number of time slots available, you will need to sign up for a pass to ensure you get a chance to interact with the machines.

Born from the fusion of works by two experimental electronic musicians — Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi — U.S.O.’s sound spans highly abstract digital music, to electroacoustic music. U.S.O. develops through the exploration of elementary particles arranged and organized in clouds of discrete and punctiform events, until they compose structures of extensive polymorphic and spatial complexity.

The Aural Streaming of the Performance defines a bi-directional vector where space and time become elastic variables subjected to generative and structural contingencies of every single “Event”, where every phenomenon re-arranges itself through a form of algorithmic interdependence “ab originem”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrzJNHfLtyY
U.S.O. Project @ Giardino Sonoro, Florence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm-ZiF5CSzg
U.S.O. Project - Prelude Of Noises

By exploring U.S.O., listeners will have the chance to submerge themselves in a real-time generative course, where the contingency of the experience will dynamically vary from infinitesimal to immense. Travelling through the reference Vector, they will observe both simple and complex phenomena, which consequently define wider portions of known and unknown perceptible universe. U.S.O. is undergoing a continuous evolution. More here [PDF]

Lifton’s computer interactive environments were exhibited throughout the UK and Europe, and were used in electronic music performances. He was also a member of the experimental music group Naked Software during this period. In 1976, Lifton collaborated with Richard Lowenberg, Jim Wiseman, and Tom Zahuranec on the feature film The Secret Life of Plants. One sequence documented Lifton’s Green Music (which had previously been exhibited at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1975). According to Lowenberg, Christopher Bird, co-author of the book, The Secret Life of Plants offered his help and his basement lab facilities. Ultimately, the film only included a very small section of Green Music, which has been described as follows:

Over the course of four days in June 1976, while open to the public, six large plants in the center of the glass Plant Conservatory in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, produced an audible, live digital music score, based on bio-electric sensing of their responses to light, temperature, movement and other physio-environmental factors (using gold needle electrodes at the base of the stem and root). Amid the ‘tropical garden’ stood a five foot high rack of audio and digital processing systems, including the just purchased, Altair 8800, which John was constantly (re)programming in Machine Language.

From 1974 to 1977 Lifton taught graduate students at the Royal College of Art in London, in both the departments of Environmental Media and Design Research. He moved to Telluride, Colorado in 1977 where he currently lives and works. He co-directed Other Minds with Charles Amirkhanian from 1988 to 1991. Lifton is a founder of the Telluride Institute and is currently developing the Center for the Future in Slavonice, Czech Republic.

Both Green Music and The Secret Life of Plants were part of Psychobotany: Revolutionary Breakthroughs in Human/Plant Communication, an exhibition at Machine Project, LA (2007). Read this prescient interview - Composing in the information age - by Chris Meyer, Whole Earth Review, Fall, 1992. [Thanks to Paul Brown]

Related projects: Akousmaflore and Pieces for Plants.