imposition emerges from translation, a series of pieces which were developed, in turn, from overboard, our first essay in ambient poetics. imposition uses the same texts and procedures as translation. It continues an investigation of iterative, procedural removal from one text or language to another. During the performance, four passages from the source texts of imposition will be presented in any one of three shifting states: surfacing, floating or sinking. A passage will also be in one of three changing language states: German, French or English. If a passage sinks in one language it may, for example, surface in another.

imposition now distributes these states over the internet in order to enable a networked transliteral and musical performance. imposition’s main display shows the four transliterating passages on a large projection and broadcasts their states via a server on the internet. Anyone with access to a set of twelve distinct QuickTime ‘listener’ movies may download and play them on their computer. While the main movie is running, listener movies will track one of the four passages, but will do so in a single language (as selected at download time by the participant who plays the ‘listener’) while reflecting the ‘buoyancy’ of the passage to which it listens. These movies also play looping musical samples of human vocalizations which harmonize both with the main display and with other linked and listening movies. The selection and triggering of samples also reflect their linked passage’s buoyancy. For performance or installation renditions of imposition, a number of participants with laptop computers may be distributed amongst the audience. These laptops will each play their listening movie networked with the main display by wireless connection over the internet. - John Cayley

The music for imposition is ultimately generated by events arising out of the transformations that occur within the text. These are the chance operations - themselves composed through John’s programmed impositions - which govern how various predetermined features of the audio will ultimately play themselves out. More >>

Credits: John Caley (writing, concepts, text-generation, programming); Giles Perring (composition, sound design, recording, post-production); Melanie Pappenheim (vocals); and Douglas Cape (advice on visual media, additional recording)

“In 2007 I began to learn to ride a bicycle. This for me was a choice not so much determined by reasons of pleasure but as a way of manifesting my need to literally move on with my life. Around the same time, I began to read Beckett’s famous Three Novels, and was moved in particular by “Molloy.” Bicycles are a very important metaphor in this book.” Haeyoung Kim

“To escape their lack of freedom, Beckett’s characters travel, taking with them a few private possessions, which reflect their personality. Of these emblematic items, by far the most important is the bicycle: it is a moving man-powered machine made for traveling (which can be both easy and difficult, according to the conditions prevailing); and it is also a prized possession through which an owner may express his personality. In this respect the bicycle is like the plot.” Janet Menzies

I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., for Networked Music Review. It was made possible with funding from the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

BIOGRAPHY

A sound artist, composer, and audio engineer, Haeyoung Kim explores the territory of sounds in electronic music. Currently, under the name Bubblyfish, she has been creating 8-bit and experimental sound works. Haeyoung has collaborated with many respected sound and visual artists such as Malcolm McLaren, the founder of Sex Pistols, Hans Jochim Rodelius, and the Brussels based media art group, Lab[au]. Her work has been presented in art venues, clubs, festivals, and galleries internationally including The American Museum of the Moving Image, Pompidou Center, Kunsthalle Wien, MUTEK, LABoral, Lincoln Center Walter Reed Theater, and The New Museum.

So long as the user writes on paper printed with a special pattern, the smartpen transforms what is written into interactive text. For example, the pen has a recording function, called paper replay, that can record sound and connect it to what the user writes while the sounds are being recorded. Later, the user can tap the pen over what she wrote and replay the associated sounds. “We’re starting to make the whole world of printable surfaces accessible and functional,” says Livescribe CEO Jim Marggraff.” Continue reading Computing on Paper - Livescribe’s smartpen turns a sheet of paper into a computer by Erica Naone, Technology Review.

The Frotzophone hijacks a Z-Machine interpreter (a virtual machine originally designed in the 1980s for running interactive fiction on many platforms, and still used today) and extracts information relating to the map that the game is simulating. This information, along with a record of the player’s movement through the map, is used to generate music. The music follows the underlying structure of the game, revealed gradually as the player progresses through it; the branching, recursive, rhizomatic structure of the game is recapitulated in the generated sound.

Among the goals of the Frotzophone is to explore the dual meanings of the words “play” and “map.” Is “playing” an instrument the same as “playing” a game? What happens when the act of playing the game is the same act as playing the instrument? Is the “mapping” of interface to action the same as the “mapping” of a virtual space? What happens when the map of the space itself serves as the basis of the interface mapping?