I'm very sad to tell you that Michel Waisvisz, director of STEIM, died yesterday, peacefully at home. Joel Ryan was performing with Sakata Akira at that exact moment - in front of a packed house during a big event to show the world what it is STEIM does. How's that for timing.
I will always remember Michel as playful, friendly, and determined. Being happy as a little kid playing with electronic instruments, tiny little gadgets and virtual toys, keeping the weird bunch of people at STEIM motivated and feeling good, and being determined about what direction to go with STEIM.
Coming days will be strange, stressfull, and soothing at the same time with all positive messages from all over the world coming in.
The electroacoustic trio SKIF++ consist of Jeff Carey and Robert van Heumen, both of whom work on laptops, with Bas van Koolwijk adding a visual component. Van Koolwijk's stated intention is to use video to expose its essential falseness, to reveal the cold machinery behind the "placating curtain" of the visuals it generates. This is a facet of the music also, which has a certain feral, vicious quality to it - as if using machinery as some sort of vengeance upon itself. Using devices such as joysticks to exacerbate the chance, improvised nature of this music, this is musique concrete that has torn away from its formal, academic origins. The openingtrack "SK01" uses conspicuous samples of kitchen implements, battered and smashed into near uselessness, alongside coruscating bursts of voracious noise. "SK02" meanwhile starts out as nothing but the random movement of tiny particles, pinging and colliding, before accruing into a larger, more malevolent shape. Deconstruction and reassembly in nasty extremis.
I'm currently at CultureLab in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, working on the Vreemdeling composition. I'm keeping a dedicated blog at http://hardhatarea.com/vreemdeling/. Still not sure of the title by the way.
Tomorrow I'll be leaving for CultureLab, Newcastle-upon-tyne. That's where I'll stay for two weeks, working on Vreemdeling. I'll talk about it to the students, discuss electronic composition techniques, work on finalizing the stereo version, and preparing a multi channel version. There will be a concert at the end, at which I will probably perform the multi channel version, using joysticks and such for diffusion. Sending OSC to the Resound system. This might be combined with my usual live setup. Or I might also perform Fury. Will see.
Currently I'm still thrown off balance quite a bit with all the events from the last couple of weeks. STEIM threatened to be shut down and other personal stuff around the workplace. Thinking of STEIM, it's not so much that I fear losing my job. I'm just very angry that people would risk losing such a valuable place. It's injustice. But well, lots of people said that much better and in prettier words than I can... all the letters that came in.
In these times I can find solace with music. Not only my own, but just beautiful music. Like Martha Wainwright's 'I know you're married but I've got feelings too' (great title!), Portishead's Third, or just straightforward Linkin park's Hybrid Theory.
A review by Keir Neuringer (from STEIM's Concert blog) of the Audrey Chen / Robert van Heumen duo at STEIM's Local Stop concert on May 22, 2008:
[...] Robert van Heumen and Audrey Chen followed. They have performed together in various combinations before in Amsterdam and Chen’s home city of Baltimore, but this was their first duo. Chen played ‘cello with more finesse than I have seen her do before. When I have seen her in the past she has employed the ‘cello and electronics mainly as drone instruments, with her often primal vocalizations leading the performance. Tonight her voice fed hungrily and playfully off her capricious ‘cello playing. Devoted to not holding back when she performs, it was a pleasure to see her working so hard to match van Heumen’s often brutal digital transformations of her sound. There were several moments of pure psychedelia as van Heumen allowed untransposed, ungranulated repetitions of Chen’s voice to come through—often considered dangerous territory in some circles but used here in good taste. Van Heumen tends to play forcefully and loudly, and tonight was no exception. However, I noted positively that his choices seemed to be more calculated and considered than usual, with less attention given to his joystick controller and more focus on subtle actions and longer-term transformations. I loved it when, halfway through the second of two extended pieces, he took Chen’s keening voice and filtered it in such a way that, for a moment, it seemed that George Martin, the revered Beatles producer, had entered the room.
Of course I don't know a thing about everyday life in the US, and even less about its politics, but following the whole circus from a distance, and reading some here and there, I'd like to officially endorse Obama here (Let the media come in! Experimental composer in Bos en Lommer endorses Obama!).
Seriously - read Robert Reich's blog entry. His blog makes a lot of sense in general.
And although I know charisma can be dangerous at times, I think Obama's charisma could help him, the US and the rest of the world 'transcending the boundaries of class, race, and nationality'. I know some friends on that side of the big devide have lost hope that anything will change, but if we want anything to happen, it'll have to be through Obama.
O, and give Barry Adamson a listen - Stranger of a Sofa is a very nice, a little dark, but overall very happy album. And usually I hate happy music - so that says something. You can listen now (don't know how long they will keep it there) at VPRO's 3voor12 luisterpaal.
Dutch electronic improviser, member of an electro-acoustic project (OfficeR) and of a trio active in audio-visual arts (SKIF++), mathematician, trumpet player, software programmer and so on…
Robert van Heumen’s compositions are created using primarily the laptop and, specifically, running the software LiSa for a live sampling and SuperCollider for a real-time audio-synthesis.
This is his first CD, containing two titles: “Fury (after anger)”, a composition in four movements built on distorted, crackled, buzzed sounds with episodic fragments of spoken words, repetitive at times but often consisting of entire pieces of text taken from historical documents about “Dust Bowl migrants living in Farm Security Administration camps in central California (1940-1941)” (see here). Subtle melodies generated by a guitar occasionally interfere.
“They Would Get Angry Sometimes”, the second piece, has nearly the same structure, but with more incidence of computer treatments and, perhaps, of noise.
Original work of sampling and programming, great combination of different sound sources, thus an excellent debut.
The online magazine neural.it - 'media art, hacktivism, emusic, since 1993' - published a review of Fury.
"Fury (after Anger)" is a new project by Robert von Heumen made up of two recordings: the title track, split in four different tracks, and "They Would Get Angry Sometimes". The former has been commissioned by the Sonic Circuit Festival in Washington and the latter has been composed from a performance at Rhode Island's Brown University. Both the works show their "in progress" structure and a strong conceptual approach, in part because of the sound forms riskiness, really suggestive, impalpable, ultimate, but somehow subject to the textual dynamics: recordings dating back to 1940-41 concerning the immigrants' life in the California's Farm Security Administration camps. Van Heumen's thesis is that "Fury" is functional to a specific investigation on the human beings primitive dynamics, our inner part that we feel very hard to eradicate or control. The author perfectly succeeded in emanating a sense of disquietude, even avoiding to decipher all the included texts. The texts are then suspended among drones, hums and buzz'n'crackles: muffled rustlings and dissonant glitches, wonderfully acted in a vibrant music crescendo but also still ambiguous, harsh and unstable. Aurelio Cianciotta
With Tom Tlalim & Nicolas Field I played in Geneva, through the Cave12 connection, on March 28. This was the first concert with this trio, after two studio sessions, and we rocked! It's quite heavy, noise-like, driven by Nicolas's endless energy behind the drumkit, Tom's basslines and melodies, and my distorted sample layers.
Everyone is still hacking along during this third workshop day. Making their own circuitboards using simple circuits with photocells to generate squarewaves, controlling the pitch. And still hacking their toys, from machine guns to radios, Pokemon dolls and toyparrots (tiny live sampling machine).
In the meantime Taku has done an evening course with them, building their own sensorinterface. Some students worked until as late as 2AM last night, after a party they organized at the workshop space.
Nic started the day with some more theory on analog processing, and in a couple of minutes Frank will demo a way to use all this with JunXion and LiSa to control live sampling.
Posted on February 28, 2008 2:49 AM
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After hooking up a speaker to a 9 volt battery, they are now all emerged in their battery-operated radios. Opening them up, making connections that god never thought of, and the space is beautifully engulfed in a vibrant buzz of crackles. Since communication through the english language is not working that well, Nic choose to work by example: in silence showing everyone how to make and break connections. That's what makes the buzzing room even more interesting: there's little talking...
Speaker making:
Radio hacking:
Radio hacking (2):
Posted on February 27, 2008 3:10 AM
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So I'm trying to force myself to write everyday about out activities with STEIM in Tokyo. Still pretty jetlagged, so my writing might not be so fluent...
With Frank Baldé, Taku Mizuta Lippit, Nic Collins and myself went to Tokyo for a STEIM tour. More details of the tour in the events section of hardhatarea.com, and the news section of steim.org.
Yesterday we arrived in Tokyo, a first time for me. We stayed in Akihabara, the mekka for electronic components and gadgetry. It was quite overwhelming - endless streets of small shops stuffed with tiny toys, usb gadgets, computer stuff, games, games, games. It is very obvious that in Japan it is accepted to play computer- and consolegames. Unlike the Netherlands it is not something that you're only supposed to do when you're under 20.
Everything is arranged extremely well, by our hostess Ayako Fukunga, of the Naya collective. Also Tomomo Adachi should be thanked for all his efforts in helping us realizing this visit.
Today we moved to Hachioji Seminar House, located to the west of Tokyo, 1.30h drive by train & taxi. Here is where we'll do the workshops, and stay too. The seminar house is very much in the country, with hills and trees and such. Nice facilities (including heated toiletseat ;)) and friendly people (like all people in Japan I've met so far). We started in the cafetaria right after our arrival, for a lunch. Then a presentation by Taku on 'Interfacing the physical and the digital', followed by Frank demonstrating junXion with the Wii and talking about data mapping. After dinner (in the same cafetaria - nothing else around) I did my talk about 'Designing digital instruments'. As with Frank's talk, mine was also translated by Taku and our friendly workshop organizer Kboto-san. The participants didn't understand the english language wlll enough without that. This was quite a challenge, since the flow of your presentation is completely lost - it requires a different approach from the informal lectures we usually do. But according to Taku, who was able to read the students better, we did a good job in making them enthousiastic about our work.
Announcement by Kbota-san:
Now they are all soldering the PIC boards that Taku brought, and tomorrow Nic will do his workshop - having them create a simple cracklebox and a simple oscilator out of a speaker and battery.
Posted on February 26, 2008 2:27 PM
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