Johannes Kretz | University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (original) (raw)
Papers by Johannes Kretz
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Dec 22, 2022
This panel is structured by two performance lectures (20 minutes each) presenting two artistic re... more This panel is structured by two performance lectures (20 minutes each) presenting two artistic research projects, followed by a dialogue between the panelists. The performance lectures introduce baseCollective, a residency program for Artistic Research and Arts-Based-Philosophy in South India, and creative (mis)understandings, a project about methodologies of inspiration with indigenous people in Taiwan. The panel will discuss implications on the definition of artistic research (AR) when dealing with diverse cultural contexts.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Dec 22, 2022
This volume assembles contributions from the meeting "Performing, Engaging, Knowing," which took ... more This volume assembles contributions from the meeting "Performing, Engaging, Knowing," which took place online from 26 to 29 August 2020. It convened ethnomusicologists and artistic researchers to explore the following topics: intervening artistically for social and political change; producing, performing, and disseminating auditory and sound knowledge in collaborative processes; developing ethnomusicologically informed artistic research methodologies; and decolonizing academia and "the arts" in the contexts of artistic research and applied ethnomusicology. The meeting was organized by the Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology, a network of scholars of the International Council of Traditional Music ICTM. Coorganizers included the School of Music at the
Knowing in Performing, 2021
Artistic research as it has developed in the last three decades is related to an increasing inter... more Artistic research as it has developed in the last three decades is related to an increasing interest in epistemological issues, as well as with the question of how artistic practices initiate processes of knowledge production. In this way, art acts as both the subject and the medium of artistic research. Furthermore, via artistic research art participates in the discourse on knowledge regimes and research models. The anthology Knowing in Performing addresses these points in the development of artistic research. The term 'knowledge' has a range of epistemological connotations. For example, knowledge can be gained through contemplation (e.g. in certain philosophical conceptions), by calculations and inductive or deductive reasoning (in natural sciences or medicine), through logical analysis and inference (in formal sciences and analytical philosophy), or through the interpretation of actions, events and artefacts in terms of their meaning and genealogy (in the humanities, cultural and social sciences). In such cases, knowledge takes on symbolic and propositional forms. The meaning of 'knowing' differs from that of 'knowledge'. The suffixing points to a genuinely physical, sensual and practical accomplishment and thus to the f luid, process-like status of knowing "Knowing is literally something which we do", says John Dewey (1916, 331). Knowing in action does not depend on the previous learning of certain (contemplative, calculational, logical-analytical or interpretative) methods. Rather, it presupposes practical learning by doing in which knowing and mastery develop in parallel and completely overlap. In the case of repetitive activities, like learning to play a piece on the piano, we talk about processual knowledge which is learned
Knowing in Performing, 2021
This paper demonstrates how to use multiple Kinect(TM) sensors to map aperformers motion to music... more This paper demonstrates how to use multiple Kinect(TM) sensors to map aperformers motion to music. We merge skeleton data streams from multiplesensors to compensate for occlusions of the performer. The skeleton jointpositions drive the performance via open sound control data. We discuss how toregister the different sensors to each other and how to smoothly merge theresulting data streams and how to map position data in a general framework tothe live electronics applied to a chamber music ensemble.
KLANGPILOT is an environment for sound analysis as well as for control of sound synthesis. Curren... more KLANGPILOT is an environment for sound analysis as well as for control of sound synthesis. Currently additive, subtractive and formantic synthesis are supported in parallel through optimized externals for Max/MSP with multi-processor support. Sound samples can be analyzed for their spectral content as well as for their noise components. These data are then submitied to a process of data reduction, abstraction and simplification in order to turn them into human readable models of sounds. Alternatively the user can define such models from scratch using a highly intuitive set of editors for frequencies, amplitudes, envelopes and other musical parameters. Equally one can modify the sound models obtained by analysis in the same interface. These sound abstractions can be arranged into a ‘timbral score’, an extension to the classical piano roll capable of displaying detailed spectral information as well. This new paradigm may ease composing music, where the visibility of sound details is c...
The original version of the KLANGPILOT environment for control of sound synthesis was developed i... more The original version of the KLANGPILOT environment for control of sound synthesis was developed in LISP in 1992, with the purpose of generating Csound scores while allowing more sophisticated control of sound synthesis. It was a text based, human- readable score language that described musical ideas in a way better suited to the creative process of composition. This language was then translated by the computer into detailed parameters for various sound synthesis methods. As faster computers became available, a new real-time version of KLANGPILOT was developed that aimed to provide a highly intuitive and interactive user interface for entering, editing and displaying sound including timbral parameters. This article focuses on the new KLANG- PILOT and its graphical paradigm of music representation within the Max/MSP environment – being placed somewhere in the middle between the traditional music notation and a spectral representation of sound.
This paper presents the author’s experience in developing a software called “morph tunnel” for mo... more This paper presents the author’s experience in developing a software called “morph tunnel” for morphing sounds in real time in the frame of the MaxMSP environment, as well as its application for the composition and performance of a work, “timbre tunnel” for 6 musicians, dancer (optional) and live electronics. The main idea is to create a spectral – and temporal – “tunnel” through a method of pattern matching between overtones, where the user – or a dancer – can navigate in real time between spectra and time in a continuous way.
Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 2017
This paper presents the evaluation of playful technologymediated audience participation (TMAP) du... more This paper presents the evaluation of playful technologymediated audience participation (TMAP) during three music performances in a recent music event. It captures preliminary impressions from a wide range of perspectives and includes critical reflections of music artists, video analysis and qualitative interviews with audience members to cover hypotheses designed to capture both the artists' and the audience's point of view. Results indicate a willingness from both sides to engage in playful TMAP, and a high potential for exploration and playful collaboration within the audience, but the experience is restricted by the need to retain control on the side of artists and the need for clear instructions, feedback and reliable technical systems on the side of the audience.
How can performing be transformed into cognition? Knowing in Performing describes dynamic process... more How can performing be transformed into cognition? Knowing in Performing describes dynamic processes of artistic knowledge production in music and the performing arts. Knowing refers to how processual, embodied, and tacit knowledge can be developed from performative practices in music, dance, theatre, and film. By exploring the field of artistic research as a constantly transforming space for participatory and experimental artistic practices, this anthology points the way forward for researchers, artists, and decision-makers inside and outside universities of the arts.
The research explores the use of digital technology in the context of live multimedia performance... more The research explores the use of digital technology in the context of live multimedia performance.(My specific role in this collaborative project is to explore the moving image as a live performance medium). The output was a live multimedia performance event. It took ...
Knowing in Performing, 2021
Knowing in Performing. Artistic Research in Music and the Performing Arts, 2021
This paper aims to provide an overview of the project creative (mis)under-standings, supported by... more This paper aims to provide an overview of the project creative (mis)under-standings, supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, PEEK , AR 463-G24), which began in September 2018 and spans three years. Today, many traditional musical practices face the threat of immanent discontinuation. Contemporary academic composition also figures among endangered traditions, 1 along with many other non-mainstream practices. In this sense, our project is an effort to join the forces of creativity, to support the solidarity between (artistic) minorities in the broadest sense, ranging from traditional music to composition in academia, to gain importance in a world of strongly commercialised cultural life, and to redefine aesthetic and social categories. The project anchors notions of 'music composition' or 'sound creation' and composition within contemporary philosophical and anthropologi-cal theories. These theories highlight the diversity of reality constructions, including artistic representation and practice (including music). The project aims to develop transcultural approaches of inspiration (which we regard as mutually appreciated intentional and reciprocal artistic inf luence based on solidarity) by combining approaches from contemporary music composition and improvisation with ethnomusicological and sociological research. We encourage creative (mis)understandings emerging from the interaction between research and artistic practice, and between European art music, folk and non-Western styles, in particular from indigenous minorities in Taiwan. Comprehension and incomprehension both yield serendipity and inspiration for new research questions, innovative artistic creation and applied follow-ups among non-Western communities.
SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS UVPA COLOMBO, 2019
Abstract (following a Creative Demonstration) This contribution aims to present and perform – wi... more Abstract (following a Creative Demonstration)
This contribution aims to present and perform – with e-viola, electronics and video – our own approach based on the synthesis of applied ethnomusicology and new approaches to composition and improvisation.
Since 2002 Artistic Research (AR) has been in focus through the Bologna-process of artistic higher education in Europe and has been institutionally established as discipline in many art universities/ academies/ conservatories as well as in funding programs. Nevertheless – especially in the field of music – the development of AR is still in its beginnings compared to to other art disciplines and philosophy. Also, internationally the definition of AR is still open or in a process of clarification.
AR – as bridge between research and art – offers a chance to overcome limitations, debates, paradoxes and conflicts originating from too rigorous disciplinary demarcation and / or reduction of research to only one form of academic (declarative) knowledge. Although AR is a relatively young discipline, previous experiences already suggest clearly that its methods and criteria should not be defined on a meta-level, but rather develop immanently out of the research questions of any given project. Inter-/Transdisciplinarity as well as collaborative and integrative (non elitist) approaches are characteristic for most projects.
Since AR implies the gain of knowledge in and through (artistic) practices, the emancipation of different – mostly non verbal – form of knowledge (tacit, procedural, implicit, bodily, sensual, felt knowledge) can be fruitful for research, art practice and its social implications, and therefore play and important role for broadening and decolonizing academia.
Keywords
Artistic Research, Decolonization, Composition, Applied Ethnomusicology, Knowledge
Forms.
The European concept of representing and thinking music as notes in a score guides and limits wha... more The European concept of representing and thinking music as notes in a score guides and limits what can be expressed by music. Computer music on one hand (especially when inspired by ethno-musicological sources) and contemporary experimental DJing on the other hand both suggest the extension of this paradigm and affect the way, how music can be performed, on stage and even over the Internet. This paper presents the authors experiences in developing new computer models of sound articulation partly by analyzing field recordings of the songs of Taiwanese aborigines, partly by integrating contemporary experimental DJing techniques. In Kopfjägergesänge (head hunter songs) for piano, DJ and two laptop performers the author created a sound language connecting these two musical worlds by focusing on questions of sound articulation. Furthermore tools for capturing this articulation from field recordings and for applying the captured parameters on other sound material will be presented as well as software, which allows DJing over Internet in the frame of Georg Hajdu's Quintet.net environment. 1. Field research In summer 2005 during a research travel 1 of three weeks I could visit several of the indigenous tribes in Taiwan and record and study their music as well as the still very strong connection between daily and ritual live on one hand and singing on the other. Those tribes (of which some used to be head hunters in old times) all have a strong cultural identity and amazingly different singing styles, varying from triadic homophony of the Bunun tribe to the microtonal clusters of the Yami on Lan Yu Island, (see figure 1). Figure 1: The distribution of the aborigines of Taiwan island The main attention of the research was to capture and analyze especially this information contained in the singing, which cannot be notated in western score notation. Figure 2 shows a song from the Yami tribe, as women there typically sing it. The pentatonic pitch organization (as notated below the pitch curve) can be clearly perceived even though much pitch deviation in the form of numerous micro-glissandi and ornaments as well as vibrato creates a rich world of subtle pitch articulation, which is at least as important as the underlying pentatonic " pitch skeleton " .
Journal of New Music Research, 2002
This paper summarizes the authors experiences in developing tools for generating and performing s... more This paper summarizes the authors experiences in developing tools for generating and performing sounds with computers using concepts, which strongly extend the traditional concept of notes in a score. The software environment KLANGPILOT allows to describe and formalize ...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Dec 22, 2022
This panel is structured by two performance lectures (20 minutes each) presenting two artistic re... more This panel is structured by two performance lectures (20 minutes each) presenting two artistic research projects, followed by a dialogue between the panelists. The performance lectures introduce baseCollective, a residency program for Artistic Research and Arts-Based-Philosophy in South India, and creative (mis)understandings, a project about methodologies of inspiration with indigenous people in Taiwan. The panel will discuss implications on the definition of artistic research (AR) when dealing with diverse cultural contexts.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Dec 22, 2022
This volume assembles contributions from the meeting "Performing, Engaging, Knowing," which took ... more This volume assembles contributions from the meeting "Performing, Engaging, Knowing," which took place online from 26 to 29 August 2020. It convened ethnomusicologists and artistic researchers to explore the following topics: intervening artistically for social and political change; producing, performing, and disseminating auditory and sound knowledge in collaborative processes; developing ethnomusicologically informed artistic research methodologies; and decolonizing academia and "the arts" in the contexts of artistic research and applied ethnomusicology. The meeting was organized by the Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology, a network of scholars of the International Council of Traditional Music ICTM. Coorganizers included the School of Music at the
Knowing in Performing, 2021
Artistic research as it has developed in the last three decades is related to an increasing inter... more Artistic research as it has developed in the last three decades is related to an increasing interest in epistemological issues, as well as with the question of how artistic practices initiate processes of knowledge production. In this way, art acts as both the subject and the medium of artistic research. Furthermore, via artistic research art participates in the discourse on knowledge regimes and research models. The anthology Knowing in Performing addresses these points in the development of artistic research. The term 'knowledge' has a range of epistemological connotations. For example, knowledge can be gained through contemplation (e.g. in certain philosophical conceptions), by calculations and inductive or deductive reasoning (in natural sciences or medicine), through logical analysis and inference (in formal sciences and analytical philosophy), or through the interpretation of actions, events and artefacts in terms of their meaning and genealogy (in the humanities, cultural and social sciences). In such cases, knowledge takes on symbolic and propositional forms. The meaning of 'knowing' differs from that of 'knowledge'. The suffixing points to a genuinely physical, sensual and practical accomplishment and thus to the f luid, process-like status of knowing "Knowing is literally something which we do", says John Dewey (1916, 331). Knowing in action does not depend on the previous learning of certain (contemplative, calculational, logical-analytical or interpretative) methods. Rather, it presupposes practical learning by doing in which knowing and mastery develop in parallel and completely overlap. In the case of repetitive activities, like learning to play a piece on the piano, we talk about processual knowledge which is learned
Knowing in Performing, 2021
This paper demonstrates how to use multiple Kinect(TM) sensors to map aperformers motion to music... more This paper demonstrates how to use multiple Kinect(TM) sensors to map aperformers motion to music. We merge skeleton data streams from multiplesensors to compensate for occlusions of the performer. The skeleton jointpositions drive the performance via open sound control data. We discuss how toregister the different sensors to each other and how to smoothly merge theresulting data streams and how to map position data in a general framework tothe live electronics applied to a chamber music ensemble.
KLANGPILOT is an environment for sound analysis as well as for control of sound synthesis. Curren... more KLANGPILOT is an environment for sound analysis as well as for control of sound synthesis. Currently additive, subtractive and formantic synthesis are supported in parallel through optimized externals for Max/MSP with multi-processor support. Sound samples can be analyzed for their spectral content as well as for their noise components. These data are then submitied to a process of data reduction, abstraction and simplification in order to turn them into human readable models of sounds. Alternatively the user can define such models from scratch using a highly intuitive set of editors for frequencies, amplitudes, envelopes and other musical parameters. Equally one can modify the sound models obtained by analysis in the same interface. These sound abstractions can be arranged into a ‘timbral score’, an extension to the classical piano roll capable of displaying detailed spectral information as well. This new paradigm may ease composing music, where the visibility of sound details is c...
The original version of the KLANGPILOT environment for control of sound synthesis was developed i... more The original version of the KLANGPILOT environment for control of sound synthesis was developed in LISP in 1992, with the purpose of generating Csound scores while allowing more sophisticated control of sound synthesis. It was a text based, human- readable score language that described musical ideas in a way better suited to the creative process of composition. This language was then translated by the computer into detailed parameters for various sound synthesis methods. As faster computers became available, a new real-time version of KLANGPILOT was developed that aimed to provide a highly intuitive and interactive user interface for entering, editing and displaying sound including timbral parameters. This article focuses on the new KLANG- PILOT and its graphical paradigm of music representation within the Max/MSP environment – being placed somewhere in the middle between the traditional music notation and a spectral representation of sound.
This paper presents the author’s experience in developing a software called “morph tunnel” for mo... more This paper presents the author’s experience in developing a software called “morph tunnel” for morphing sounds in real time in the frame of the MaxMSP environment, as well as its application for the composition and performance of a work, “timbre tunnel” for 6 musicians, dancer (optional) and live electronics. The main idea is to create a spectral – and temporal – “tunnel” through a method of pattern matching between overtones, where the user – or a dancer – can navigate in real time between spectra and time in a continuous way.
Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 2017
This paper presents the evaluation of playful technologymediated audience participation (TMAP) du... more This paper presents the evaluation of playful technologymediated audience participation (TMAP) during three music performances in a recent music event. It captures preliminary impressions from a wide range of perspectives and includes critical reflections of music artists, video analysis and qualitative interviews with audience members to cover hypotheses designed to capture both the artists' and the audience's point of view. Results indicate a willingness from both sides to engage in playful TMAP, and a high potential for exploration and playful collaboration within the audience, but the experience is restricted by the need to retain control on the side of artists and the need for clear instructions, feedback and reliable technical systems on the side of the audience.
How can performing be transformed into cognition? Knowing in Performing describes dynamic process... more How can performing be transformed into cognition? Knowing in Performing describes dynamic processes of artistic knowledge production in music and the performing arts. Knowing refers to how processual, embodied, and tacit knowledge can be developed from performative practices in music, dance, theatre, and film. By exploring the field of artistic research as a constantly transforming space for participatory and experimental artistic practices, this anthology points the way forward for researchers, artists, and decision-makers inside and outside universities of the arts.
The research explores the use of digital technology in the context of live multimedia performance... more The research explores the use of digital technology in the context of live multimedia performance.(My specific role in this collaborative project is to explore the moving image as a live performance medium). The output was a live multimedia performance event. It took ...
Knowing in Performing, 2021
Knowing in Performing. Artistic Research in Music and the Performing Arts, 2021
This paper aims to provide an overview of the project creative (mis)under-standings, supported by... more This paper aims to provide an overview of the project creative (mis)under-standings, supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, PEEK , AR 463-G24), which began in September 2018 and spans three years. Today, many traditional musical practices face the threat of immanent discontinuation. Contemporary academic composition also figures among endangered traditions, 1 along with many other non-mainstream practices. In this sense, our project is an effort to join the forces of creativity, to support the solidarity between (artistic) minorities in the broadest sense, ranging from traditional music to composition in academia, to gain importance in a world of strongly commercialised cultural life, and to redefine aesthetic and social categories. The project anchors notions of 'music composition' or 'sound creation' and composition within contemporary philosophical and anthropologi-cal theories. These theories highlight the diversity of reality constructions, including artistic representation and practice (including music). The project aims to develop transcultural approaches of inspiration (which we regard as mutually appreciated intentional and reciprocal artistic inf luence based on solidarity) by combining approaches from contemporary music composition and improvisation with ethnomusicological and sociological research. We encourage creative (mis)understandings emerging from the interaction between research and artistic practice, and between European art music, folk and non-Western styles, in particular from indigenous minorities in Taiwan. Comprehension and incomprehension both yield serendipity and inspiration for new research questions, innovative artistic creation and applied follow-ups among non-Western communities.
SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS UVPA COLOMBO, 2019
Abstract (following a Creative Demonstration) This contribution aims to present and perform – wi... more Abstract (following a Creative Demonstration)
This contribution aims to present and perform – with e-viola, electronics and video – our own approach based on the synthesis of applied ethnomusicology and new approaches to composition and improvisation.
Since 2002 Artistic Research (AR) has been in focus through the Bologna-process of artistic higher education in Europe and has been institutionally established as discipline in many art universities/ academies/ conservatories as well as in funding programs. Nevertheless – especially in the field of music – the development of AR is still in its beginnings compared to to other art disciplines and philosophy. Also, internationally the definition of AR is still open or in a process of clarification.
AR – as bridge between research and art – offers a chance to overcome limitations, debates, paradoxes and conflicts originating from too rigorous disciplinary demarcation and / or reduction of research to only one form of academic (declarative) knowledge. Although AR is a relatively young discipline, previous experiences already suggest clearly that its methods and criteria should not be defined on a meta-level, but rather develop immanently out of the research questions of any given project. Inter-/Transdisciplinarity as well as collaborative and integrative (non elitist) approaches are characteristic for most projects.
Since AR implies the gain of knowledge in and through (artistic) practices, the emancipation of different – mostly non verbal – form of knowledge (tacit, procedural, implicit, bodily, sensual, felt knowledge) can be fruitful for research, art practice and its social implications, and therefore play and important role for broadening and decolonizing academia.
Keywords
Artistic Research, Decolonization, Composition, Applied Ethnomusicology, Knowledge
Forms.
The European concept of representing and thinking music as notes in a score guides and limits wha... more The European concept of representing and thinking music as notes in a score guides and limits what can be expressed by music. Computer music on one hand (especially when inspired by ethno-musicological sources) and contemporary experimental DJing on the other hand both suggest the extension of this paradigm and affect the way, how music can be performed, on stage and even over the Internet. This paper presents the authors experiences in developing new computer models of sound articulation partly by analyzing field recordings of the songs of Taiwanese aborigines, partly by integrating contemporary experimental DJing techniques. In Kopfjägergesänge (head hunter songs) for piano, DJ and two laptop performers the author created a sound language connecting these two musical worlds by focusing on questions of sound articulation. Furthermore tools for capturing this articulation from field recordings and for applying the captured parameters on other sound material will be presented as well as software, which allows DJing over Internet in the frame of Georg Hajdu's Quintet.net environment. 1. Field research In summer 2005 during a research travel 1 of three weeks I could visit several of the indigenous tribes in Taiwan and record and study their music as well as the still very strong connection between daily and ritual live on one hand and singing on the other. Those tribes (of which some used to be head hunters in old times) all have a strong cultural identity and amazingly different singing styles, varying from triadic homophony of the Bunun tribe to the microtonal clusters of the Yami on Lan Yu Island, (see figure 1). Figure 1: The distribution of the aborigines of Taiwan island The main attention of the research was to capture and analyze especially this information contained in the singing, which cannot be notated in western score notation. Figure 2 shows a song from the Yami tribe, as women there typically sing it. The pentatonic pitch organization (as notated below the pitch curve) can be clearly perceived even though much pitch deviation in the form of numerous micro-glissandi and ornaments as well as vibrato creates a rich world of subtle pitch articulation, which is at least as important as the underlying pentatonic " pitch skeleton " .
Journal of New Music Research, 2002
This paper summarizes the authors experiences in developing tools for generating and performing s... more This paper summarizes the authors experiences in developing tools for generating and performing sounds with computers using concepts, which strongly extend the traditional concept of notes in a score. The software environment KLANGPILOT allows to describe and formalize ...
Knowing in Performing. Artistic Research in Music and the Performing Arts, 2021
Today, many traditional musical practices face the threat of immanent discontinuation. Contempora... more Today, many traditional musical practices face the threat of immanent discontinuation. Contemporary academic composition also figures among endangered traditions, along with many other non-mainstream practices. In this sense, our project is an effort to join the forces of creativity, to support the solidarity between (artistic) minorities in the broadest sense, ranging from traditional music to composition in academia, to gain importance in a world of strongly commercialised cultural life, and to redefine aesthetic and social categories. The project anchors notions of 'music composition' or 'sound creation' and composition within contemporary philosophical and anthropological theories. These theories highlight the diversity of reality constructions, including artistic representation and practice (including music). The project aims to develop transcultural approaches of inspiration (which we regard as mutually appreciated intentional and reciprocal artistic influence based on solidarity) by combining approaches from contemporary music composition and improvisation with ethnomusicological and sociological research.