Musical Instruments: These will be used as objects, as part of the set. Moreover they need to act deeply and direct on our sensibility through the senses, and from the point of view of sound they invite research into utterly unusual sound properties and vibrations which present-day musical instruments do not possess, urging us to use ancient or forgotten instruments or to invent new ones. Apart from music, research is also needed into instruments and appliances based on refining and new alloys which can reach a new scale in the octave and produce an unbearably piercing sound or noise.
One could say that one of the main reasons that Theaterlab is presenting The MMiX Festival of Interactive Music Technology is to make good on Antonin Artaud‘s vision on the future of music and sound in the theater. There is no doubt that Artaud’s manifestoes were ahead of their time and, like most visionaries who are born into that situation, he paid the price, mentally-spirtually-and physically, of not seeing many of his ideas become reality in his lifetime. As a result, his writings and his work have become inspiration for generations of artists that followed, myself included.
One of the projects I undertook was a commission from The Cornell Gamelan Ensemble when I was a visiting composer there during 2002-2003 in a joint venture of the Digital Music Lab (David Borden) and the Dept. of Enthomusicology (Martin Hatch). Through that I was able to create a tone poem for gamelan, keyboards, & strings based uponThe Philosopher’s Stone (La Pierre Philosophale – 1931), a scenario by Artaud in which I tried to fused his passion of the Balinese theater with the vision of new musical sounds via the synthesizers as laid out in the excerpt above.
As curator of The MMiX Festival, and in doing it at Theaterlab, I hope that we can show how close we’ve come to Artaud’s vision, how far we have yet to go, and can look forward to its multi-disciplinary application on the stage in the future work of all artists. For right now, enough theory. Let’s see where were at in 2009 (MMIX) and have a blast doing it!
Antonin Artaud (September 4, 1896, in Marseille – March 4, 1948 in Paris) was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director.
Artaud believed that the Theatre should affect the audience as much as possible, therefore he used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound and performance.
In his book The Theatre and Its Double, which contained the first and second manifesto for a “Theatre of Cruelty,” Artaud expressed his admiration for Eastern forms of theatre, particularly the Balinese. He admired Eastern theatre because of the codified, highly ritualized and precise physicality of Balinese dance performance, and advocated what he called a “Theatre of Cruelty“. At one point, he stated that by cruelty, he meant not exclusively sadism or causing pain, but just as often a violent, physical determination to shatter the false reality. He believed that text had been a tyrant over meaning, and advocated, instead, for a theatre made up of a unique language, halfway between thought and gesture. Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all theatre is physical expression in space.
The MMiX FESTIVAL of Interactive Music Technology October 8-11, 2009 at Theaterlab
137 W 14th Street, New York City
(212) 929-2545 http://www.theaterlabnyc.com
6:00-7:45 PM Thursday through Saturday
Free and open to the public in Studio C
Interactive sound installations by Chronotronic Wonder Transducer
led by sound inventor Steven Litt
PLUS product giveaways of Ableton LIVE 8 and Cycling ’74’s MAX 5
* * * * * * *
The MMiX Festival of Interactive Music Technology is produced by Theaterlab, radio producer Jocelyn Gonzales, and curated by composer/performer Patrick Grant.
All events take place in the studios of Theaterlab which is located at 137 West 14th St., between 6th and 7th Ave., New York City. For more information (ticket info, directions, etc.) visit Theaterlab’s web site at http://www.theaterlabnyc.com.
Software and laptop improvements present new possibilities for composer/performers to create complex soundscapes in real-time during live performance. The focus of the festival is to demonstrate that these emerging audio technologies are instrumental in new artistic creations, and to inform the public regarding the current state of this art form. The artists presented in MMiX have set a new bar in that discourse and will provide live performances, media installations and workshops.
Ableton, creators of LIVE 8 and Cycling ’74, creators of Max/MSP/Jitter are primary sponsors of the festival with additional support by DubSpot NYC and Eventide.
Media sponsorship for the festival is generously provided by WNYC 93.9 FM and 820 AM, New York City listener supported radio.
MEATWARE: the human element in a technological system.
Here’s but a few links to some artists in NYC that have been embracing new technologies on the stage in the creation of their work. We’ll be adding more as time goes on. I’m sure that many of you reading this blog know of them, if not personally or as collaborators, but they are worth pointing out, especially if they are news to you.
3-Legged Dog
3-LEGGED DOG is a non-profit theater and media group focusing on large-scale experimental artwork. Their work has been seen in New York City at such venues as the Kitchen, La Mama, The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, PS 122, and Signature Theatre Co. Since 1994, they have become a mainstay in the experimental arts community and have been performing downtown ever since.
Five years after the destruction of their headquarters at 30 West Broadway on September 11th, 2001, 3-Legged Dog Media and Theater Group announced the launch of a new home in Spring 2006. 3LD Art & Technology Center is located at 80 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan, just 3 blocks south of the WTC site.
3-Legged Dog is the first producing arts group to sign a lease in the Liberty Zone and the first to rebuild downtown. A cultural anchor for the Greenwich Street Arts Corridor, 3LD Art & Technology Center provides complete production and presentation facilities for emerging and established artists and organizations that create large-scale experimental works, many of which incorporate and create new tools and technologies.
"Fire Island" by 3-Legged Dog
3LD ART & TECHNOLOGY CENTER is a community-oriented and artist-run production development studio. They offer artists a unique experience with specialized equipment, flexible space and expert knowledge, as well as the desperately needed time to fully realize their visions. If New York City is to remain at the forefront of experimentation, then its artists must have the means to create cutting-edge work. Since opening in 2006, they have offered the latest materials and innovative tools to more than 900 artists from veterans like Laurie Anderson to the newest prodigies like J. Reid Farrington, recently of the Wooster Group. They have structured programs to ensure the aesthetic and financial success of their residents. They provide a critical resource and development home for these artists, who carry on the traditions of risk-taking and boundary-pushing aesthetics, a tradition that reaches back in New York City’s history to the late 1800s.
Troika Ranch
TROIKA RANCH is the collaborative vision of artists Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello. Established in 1994, and based in New York City and Berlin, Germany, Troika Ranch produces live performances, interactive installations, and digital films, all of which combine traditional aspects of these forms with advanced technologies. The artists’ mission in producing this wide range of art experiences is to create artwork that best reflects and engages contemporary society.
The name Troika Ranch refers to Coniglio and Stoppiello’s creative methodology, which involves a hybrid of three artistic disciplines, dance/theater/media (the Troika), in cooperative interaction (the Ranch). This method preceded the organization Troika Ranch, which was formed as a means to support the artists’ engagement in this process. During the 1990’s, Coniglio, Stoppiello and their company Troika Ranch were among the pioneers in the field that came to be known as Dance and Technology.
As the use of technology in the arts has developed and integrated over the last decade, the need for the separate moniker Dance and Technology has dissolved. Troika Ranch’s present concerns correspondingly reflect this broader scope, expanding across genres and pioneering new frontiers. As innovators and visionaries, Coniglio and Stoppiello produce art that values live interaction – between viewer and viewed, performer and image, movement and sound, people and technology. It is time-based but typically includes an element of spontaneity, in that the events and images that unfold lie within a certain range but are not exactly replicable. As authors, they establish images, direct performances, determine time frames, and devise technologies. The works may be presented as performances, installations, or in portable formats. In sum, Troika Ranch engages in creative endeavors using all that contemporary invention has to offer.
The arts world, well, the world in fact, recently suffered the loss of MERCE CUNNINGHAM. He extended the frontiers of choreography for more than half a century, most recently with his use of the computer program called DanceForms (formerly LifeForms).
DanceForms
Merce was on the development team for this dance software. Each work he choreographed since 1991 made use of this program, and each one was quite different from the others. Those of you interested in seeing firsthand how DanceForms works can download a demo of the program from their web site at http://www.charactermotion.com/danceforms/
Jonah Bokaer
Former Cunningham performer, choreographer & media artist JONAH BOKAER seems to be the heir apparent to Cunningham and his use of technology in the creation of dance.
Over the past several years, Jonah Bokaer has developed a body of work addressing the creative potential of digital technologies in movement production. He makes choreography by rendering a virtual body in the built domain, employing motion capture, digital animation, 3D modeling, and choreographic software to generate movement material. “Choreography” involves designing a body inscreen, embodying its movements in real time, and performing the choreography live.
While developing this new artistic practice, Bokaer frequently questions (and subverts) the spaces in which works are performed, creating site-specific installations that playfully critique the venue presenting a dance. This generally involves a visual or sonic intervention in the periphery of each individual venue.
As an arts activist, Bokaer is also deeply committed to fostering interdisciplinary dialogue with artists across media. With this in mind, he has established a cooperative studio space called “Chez Bushwick,” in which artists can congregate, develop ideas, and present their work in a catalytic environment. Bringing innovative new work into direct conversation with contemporary thought and culture is the main interest of this artist.
Bokaer’s unparalleled dancing in Merce Cunningham’s company, his co-founding of the Brooklyn performance space Chez Bushwick, and his well-crafted yet cutting edge choreography that moves dance into the new century, have made him a convincing advocate for the dance community.
Chez Bushwick in Brooklyn
CHEZ BUSHWICK, an artist-run organization based in Brooklyn, is dedicated to the advancement of interdisciplinary art and performance, with a strong focus on new choreography. Since its inception in 2002, the organization has been acknowledged as a new model for economic sustainability in the performing arts, offering New York City’s only $5 subsidy for rehearsal space, and thereby fostering the creation, development, and performance of new work. Chez Bushwick is also responsible for a number of monthly performance programs that encourage artistic freedom, collaboration, and creative risk-taking.
This is just the tip of the iceberg and, even then, this is just one city. I’m very interested in where all this development is leading us. Personally, I feel that much of it still has far to go. As advanced as it may seem to us now, I still get that feeling that we’re like those folks who first marveled at the Model T.
Whatever progress is to be made, one thing I am sure of, is that it is going to be based on the “meatware” which has a much longer tradition of moving the people’s hearts and minds. My hope is that a lot of what I like to call “The Gee Whiz Factor” will fade as this ubiquitous technology is increasingly greeted by a de-mystified public, one that will demand more and more meaningful creations that will continue to close the gap between the hardware/software and the “meatware.”
A little while back, we posted about this new body paint called Bare Conductive, a type of skin-safe ink that conducts electricity. When the ink on the body comes in contact with a sensor, it closes a circuit. It can be programmed to trigger a sound or some sort of lighting effect.
Well, it was only a matter of time until somebody figured out a saucy little way to apply this interactive technology, and that guy is Scottish electronic musician Calvin Harris. In this video, he premieres a version of his latest single, “Ready for the Weekend,” on what he calls “a unique human synthesizer.”
The video’s description reads: “The instrument consists of 34 pads on the floor which have been painted with the conductive ink and connected to a computer via some clever custom electronics. The performers stand on the pads, and touch hands to complete a circuit and trigger a sound. Different combinations of pads trigger the different sounds needed to play the track.”
Matt Johnson created the custom pads and electronics for the project, using two Arduinos and Max/MSP. The pads, the performers, the body ink, electronic boards, and software create this moving, breathing MIDI controller that makes the music, which is sequenced by Ableton LIVE.
We know that tap dancers create their own percussive soundtrack when they perform. Back in the eighties, pioneering choreographer, teacher and composer, Alfred Desio, took this a step further.
Desio was a veteran Broadway performer, having appeared in original productions of West Side Story, Fiddler On the Roof, Man of La Mancha, Zorba the Greek, and many others, before settling in Los Angeles at USC to teach. He trained with Jerome Robbins and worked with Joseph Pilates, inventor of the now ubiquitous Pilates Technique offered at many a fitness studio across the country. Desio and his wife, Louise Reichlin founded Los Angeles Choreographers & Dancers, a non-profit dance organization composed of two professional companies, Louise Reichlin & Dancers (modern) and Zapped Taps™/Alfred Desio (tap).
Desio made a splash with the 1982 debut of Tap-Tronics™, a system where tap dancers would be able to compose music and control audio effects with their feet. We’ve got all kinds of permutations of this idea today, with these tiny motion sensors, Wi-fi and digital synthesis. But when Desio invented this method of hooking choreography up to electronics, the technology was still really bulky, involving radio transmitters and tangled wires everywhere. So one might think this was a clunky notion, tethering a dancer to this kind of equipment.
Desio managed to overcome those limitations and devise a way for the tap dancer to create a fully realized score live and in the moment. Microphones were embedded in the dancers shoes, and wired to a portable transmitter. Receivers picked up the tap sounds and fed them through synthesizers, effects pedals, drum machines and vocoders. The music would modulate or change tempo with the muscles, pressure & rhythm of the body. If you watch this video about Alfred Desio, you’ll see that there was nothing heavy or dragging about his invention. For Desio, Tap-Tronics was all about heightening the pleasure of his art.
Sadly, Alfred Desio, the Electronic Tap Dancer, passed away on Valentine’s Day in 2007, at the age of 74. Tributes and more information about his career and legacy are maintained by L.A. C & D at http://www.lachoreographersanddancers.org/p3a_obit.html.
I’m considering another tattoo, so I’ve been spending some idle time looking at design and ink, wondering if a new tat will prove to be a permanent mark of pride or folly. But in my wanderings, I came across something called Bare Interactive Ink Technology – a temporary “electronic” tattoo, if you will. Imagine painting your body with this special conductive ink, and all of your movements could interact with electronic devices around you.
What? Could I just wave my dragon tattoo in the air to turn the TV on and off?
Well, not quite. Bare was developed by Bibi Nelson, Matt Johnson, Isabel Lizardi & Becky Pilditch from the department of industrial design engineering at the Royal College of Art. As described on the website, Yanko Design, Bare is:
“…this new parasitic technology being explored where you apply the special paint to your body via brush, stamp, or spray. The paint acts as a medium to send information from a person to another, transmit data from a person to a computer, or power small LEDs. It’s however limited to simple applications such as switching and data transfer that consume less power, but the potential is unlimited…the ink per-se is temporary, non-toxic and water-soluble and is composed of non-metallic conductive particles suspended in food and cosmetic additives. Thus it is safe for skin application.
The circuitry between the ink and the electronic device is completed when the small electrodes are placed directly on to the skin, which in turn transmits the data.”
Well this is a pretty futuristic type of henna, no? And although this ink is still in development stages, it seems natural that the designers of Bare foresee its use in performance. A dancer’s body, decorated with beautiful and intricate designs by makeup and costume folks would be able to trigger lighting and sound effects onstage as he or she moves to choreography. In fact, in their project video, the designers asked a dancer whose limbs were painted with Bare Ink to step into something called “The Music Box.” She improvised movements that set off pre-programmed audio samples and patterns, resulting in music that seems to be…composed by the body:
In their project paper, the designers explain how the Music Box works:
“The functionality of a MIDI keyboard was mapped onto the surfaces of the space with a matrix of resistance switches that input signals to a computer. A professional dancer was invited to interactive with the space and the conductive ink was applied to different parts of her skin in an iterative process. As different parts of her body touched the surfaces different switches were closed as electrical signals passed over her skin, creating musical notes and patterns.”
It might be the editing of the video, but at first I thought it wasn’t the most compelling display of the idea. Yet it’s clear what the potential is. It’s a start.
Take the concept of the Music Box to the stage and using human skin as a conductor could present some new opportunities for dancers, composers, set and video designers, prop masters and makeup artists to collaborate in wicked new ways. However, I still have some some practical questions about this conductive ink: How long will the ink last on the skin? What if the wearer starts sweating? Will the paint flake off the more the performer moves? Most importantly…does it come in Candy Apple Red?
MMiX. That’s “2009” in Roman numerals and the year in which I am pulling together my current interests in how music and media manifest in real time performance through a collaboration with Theaterlab NYC.
Early this year, Theaterlab co-director, Carlo Altomare (with Orietta Crispino) asked me to think up some kind of a concert series for their upcoming season. Our previous effort was an installment of my One-Two-Three-GO! new music series in 2006 and that went quite well.
Ever since, I’d used “MMiX” as a graphic as part of the annual New Year greeting that I send out to my mailing list every year, and I knew that I wanted to use it again somehow. This opportunity gave me the perfect place for it. Perfect in so many ways.
At that time, I had just come off creating three scores for theater, one in NYC, and two in Brazil (Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) and giving workshops on the software to the public. My whole emphasis has been to create musical scores that would be interactive with the performers on a number of levels that were not possible when I began working in the theater. Those possibilities are the direct result of a number of software programs that have made new these new levels possible, performable, and highly portable since all the hardware that had been used in the past has now been distilled down into the confines of a laptop computer.
With that having been achieved, any number of controllers (keyboards, wands, motion sensors etc.) could now be interfaced with the computer so that all of the performing arts had access.
I have come to see this extra “m” in MMiX as representing the different branches of the performing arts that are now able to be blended and blurred: music, mise-en-scene (theater, film), movement (dance), monographs (words; spoken or sung), montage (visual arts), etc. etc. etc. I found so many “m” words I’ll only put the essential ones here, but it should be said that, the most important one may be, is “meatware,” the human element in a technological system.
The purpose of this new blog is to consolidate the content of our research through original content and the many findings that we come across the internet of like-minded artists working along similar lines. Guided by partner and co-producer Jocelyn Gonzales, “The MMiXdown” will also document our progress in pulling together all of the above elements into a cohesive series of presentations to the public in October to see where we’re at, to see how far we can go, when software, hardware, and meatware meet in the common goal of artistic expression.
The MMiXdown 