I am delighted to report the release of Professor Eduardo Miranda’s latest musical composition, which includes an essay written by me on the future of music. Eduardo’s work operates at the intersection of art, science and music and my essay considers how musical compositions may be made in the future.
While at the #braingear conference last week, an art installation was presented by Dutch artist Lambert Rozema. He took a few snaps while I was inside the apparatus. The experience reminded me a little of Maurice Agis’ Dreamspace, but this was an altogether more intense, intimate, and reflective experience. Here’s some more info about the work along with the pictures from my experience.
Yvonne Spielmann seminar
6 December 2007
Japan research
Aesthetics
- hybridity
-
Cultural studies
- modernity, colonial, Stuart Hall
- closing down of debate
- Romly back to syncrhotism
Common ground between themes?
Blind spots:
Media people specify different types of convergence tend to say that analogue media reality – each photo camera, chemical, electronic – say hat none of them apply anymore, since area of simulation; they call this digitl and hybrid, since no physical reality; if combine, then hybrid
This is often neutral to outside world, but not debate of different cultural influences. Now q over global.
In CS, always vague specification of media
Lack of understanding of the media’s specificities
Including evol of genre, technology, etc
So this is a bigger blind spot, though political understanding of hybridity politics
- nationalism, etc
eastern western compositions
how specific thought processes have been reworked
Fiona Tan
- Indonesian artist, raised in Netherlands, photographer
- Represn of modernity within media in 20th century
- Also with performativity of medium
- Transgress
- Comment on content, but also specific apparatus of the medium
- Creating dynamics and possibilities of change
- Film and video used to rework other
Art Historians
- auber XXXX
- ar
- human size scale installation
interested in exemplary
plurality, postmodern,
image in a dynamic
hybrid, because in between
projected film of photograph of people standing still
used to classify people and society
she brings an external
- sarah ahmed – familiarity
western socialization of 20th century media
then, she travels to japan and does video installation in temple in souther Kyoto
‘Saint Sebastian’
- arrow being shot.
- Target not the focus
- Refers to Christian mythology, but there would show tortured body
- She takes position of san Sebastian, shooting back from camera, victim position captured by film maker, also a gender change
Indiv not s indiv, but as exemplary of particular profession
Tang
Sanjusangendo Temple in Kyoto, each year on Kyoto
Hiroshi Sugimoto – famous Japanese photographer
- still photography, horizon lines
- Sea of Buddha
- Appears as same image, but they are each different – taken from 1000 buddhas
- Impression of single image is product of modernity.
- Require knowl of the 1000 buddhas to know that it is not simply duplication
Is this specifically Japanese approach in photography
Sugimoto – show in Rapongi
Shoichi Auk
- Freshfruits
Katrin Paul
Tokio Hotel
Masaki Fujihata
- Making of Landing Home
- Gps, angle of camera.
MedeaElectronique media lab residencies
Koumaria2009 ? international open call
http://www.medeaelectronique.com/residencies
Between the 23rd and 31st of October, 2009
MedeaElectronique organizes Koumaria fall residency offering a week?s
retreat for media artists in rural Sparta, Greece.
At the foot of Mount Taigetos, a huge private olive grove will be
transformed into a laboratory for contemporary art. Offering a 400
square meter residency made into a mixed media art studio, we aim to
bring together artists of different disciplines in order to develop a
collective mixed media art project.
We are interested in the process itself, as a hypothesis and as an
experiment in the search for an emerging work ethic, an intense and
refreshing experience that will serve as a model for future creative
gatherings.
The outcomes we are aiming at:
? A public performance on the 31st of October in Athens, Greece
? Material and ideas for further research and processing
? Recorded improvisations and other emergent pieces of work to be
shared and distributed in appropriate forms between the participants
? Documentation of the whole process to be analysed and elaborated on
? Further inspiring and productive collaborations to be initiated
The specificity of the place hints towards thematic directions
relating to the ideas of creation and growth, serenity, light and the
processes of natural flow, universals, as well as the journey outward
and within. Anything else that might resonate with the participants
during the residency will be greatly appreciated.
There will be a fare amount of relaxed personal space, friendly
communal life, conversations, common experiments and improvisation, as
well as daily key group sessions for reviewing, processing and
structuring of ideas and materials.
We are looking for practitioners active in such diverse fields as:
Electroacoustics, sonic art, live electronics, field recording,
instrumental improvisation, performance art, VJing, video art,
creative computer programming, creative hardware modification, plastic
arts, conceptual art, drama, philosophy and semiotics. The list is non
exhaustive and we will be happy to consider any interesting proposal.
The ideal participants would have interdisciplinary interests and a
strong creative drive. They would be happy to share and embrace ideas,
techniques, material, time and energy. They would need good social and
communication skills, as well as the ability to function in a wide
range of situations. A respect to the craft and the powers of
improvisation will be also greatly appreciated.
We are expecting participants to enjoy a degree of self-sufficiency
concerning creative tools: e.g. laptop, soundcard, recorder,
microphone(s), headphones, camera(s), instruments and so on. We will
be providing basic technical support including: a Mac G5 with Logic
and Final Cut, assorted plugins, a 32-channel digital mixing desk,
high-end monitoring, a range of studio microphones, preamps and sound
processors, digital recorders, projector, materials, internet, etc.
Organic food from the farm and transport to nearby villages will be
also provided. There will be access to a telescope dome observatory on
the roof of the building. MedeaElectronique offers a limited number of
bursaries meant to cover travel and other expenses (depending on each
case). Particular technical and other arrangements will be made with
each individual after initial selection.
Please download the application form from http://www.medeaelectronique.com/residencies
Submit not later than the 15th of June 2009, by email to stgiann@yahoo.com
Selection will be completed by 15 July 2009.
For more information contact the project curator Stelios Giannoulakis
at stgiann@yahoo.com
Media Art Scoping Symposium
Vital Signs: Revisited
Media art education at the intersection of science, technology and
culture
http://mass.nomad.net.au/
Date: July 4th – 5th 2009
Location: Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia
Call for Abstracts – Deadline 27th March 2009
The media/electronic art scoping symposium seeks to explore the
current pioneering educators, artists and scientists who have brought
about the dissolution of boundaries that have traditionally existed
between the artistic and technological disciplines. The symposium will
survey the work of media art educators who have developed new
interdisciplinary curricula, facilities and information technologies.
The symposium aims to add to the media art scoping study via
collaborating between leading universities in Australia currently
conducting research and academic teaching and learning programs in new
media/electronic arts.
The symposium will explore influential theoretical, scientific and
philosophical pedagogies that have influenced the development of media/
electronic arts.
It is the ambition of the scoping project to establish the basis for a
functional network model. Significantly, the establishment of an
online historical database and link to the symposium will provide a
body of information to assist development of appropriate
infrastructure reflecting an approach to training that is in tune with
the distinctive characteristics of the discipline area now and for the
future.
The Mass symposium calls for refereed and non referred papers, posters
on the following themes
• media art, media art histories and associated pedagogical strategies.
• media art in the context of contemporary art education.
• examples of media art, descriptions and analysis of science, media
art and culture.
• creative practice as research in new media
• media art innovations in teaching and learning
These would be based on the introduction and infiltration of digital
media, technologies and related pedagogies in disciplines such as Art
& Design, Architecture, the Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences; as
well as examples of interdisciplinarity through art-science-technology
collaborations.
We particularly wish to encourage presentations from and about new
developments in teaching Media Art. Proposals are welcomed from
academics, artists, theorist, and researchers in media art, media art
history, performance studies, literature, film, and science and
technology studies.
Deadline for 200 word abstracts: 27th March 09. Please submit
proposals by email to:
Julian Stadon Media Art Scoping Symposium organizer j.stadon@curtin.edu.au
Abstracts of proposals, panel presentations and posters should be
submitted in either text, RTF, or Word formats.
The Human Futures book will be presented at Ding Dong, FACT’s new exhibition for December. A central part of the exhibit is The Fragmented Orchestra, which one the PRS Foundation prize and one of the Chapters of Human Futures. Come to Ding Dong on 10 December and the artists’ breakfast on 11 December to meet the authors/artists/musicians and get a signed copy of the book.
Here’s some information about the exhibit:
The Fragmented Orchestra is a huge distributed musical structure modeled on the firing of neurons within the brain’s cortex. It is designed by its composers to perform a profound and unique score to thousands of listeners across the UK. This instrument, a model of a brain, will be distributed across 24 public locations throughout the UK, and at least one central venue (FACT, Liverpool). The piece will operate continuously over the period of three months.
At 24 diverse locations, ranging from football stadia, motorway crash barriers, school playgrounds and an offshore buoy with a ringing bell, a small ‘neuron unit’ will be mechanically attached to the resonant surface of an existing physical structure. All of the neuron units are connected to each other, via the internet, to form a tiny ‘cortex’ and will ‘fire’ signals back and forth when stimulated by sound. The ‘neuron units’ will act as a musical interface and gateway into The Fragmented Orchestra.
When a ‘neuron’ fires, fragments of sounds from its location are transmitted to the central venue in which each neuron unit is represented by its own loudspeaker. Performers, including individuals and groups from each locality, can play each neuron unit and listeners can hear a unique array of rhythms, timbres and pulses created by the cortex at work. The music at the central venue will also be shared with listeners at each of the remote locations through the use of Feonic™ technology, which turns any resonant surface into a high quality loudspeaker. A website will also enable people to tune into each of the neurons as well as the central location.
Jane Grant is predominately a visual artist working with film, sound, video and installation. She has exhibited widely in the UK and is currently Principal Investigator at the University of Plymouth of an AHRC funded project, which merges the human voice and breath with neuronal firing patterns to be shown at ArtSway in 2008. John Matthias is a musician and physicist. He has worked with many artists including Radiohead, Matthew Herbert and Coldcut and has performed extensively in Europe including at the Pompidou Centre, Paris. He is a lecturer in Sonic Arts at University of Plymouth. Nick Ryan is a composer, producer and sound designer. He won a BAFTA for his ground breaking interactive radio drama The Dark House, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and has composed extensively for film and television.
“The sounds created at 24 resonant locations around the UK would be captured and transmit to each other in a collective composition, based on the same principles as the connections in the human brain. This is music writ large across the country and, through complex technology, we can all create, listen and play a part in it.” New Music Award panel
Would you be interested in taking part in this musical experiment? Do you think that this technology will create music? Click here to let us know your thoughts…
Responses so far
“As an artist and supporter of sound based artistic practice, I’m really interested in this sort of cross discipline work and have recently been doing research in architecture and music; folk musics as distributive technologies, I can’t wait to see how it will be realised.”
“There seems to be a surge of works of music and sound that are essentially distributive and expanded in their performance; no fixed settings; no fixed audiences microscopic elements distributed across many places… physical networks across an atomised society. I’m really interested in this sort of cross discipline work; folk musics as distributive technologies. I cant wait to see how it will be realised.”
