The embodiment of music/sound within an multimediaperformance space (original) (raw)
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The notion of the convergence between sound and visuals emerged as an exploration of new digital processes, creative possibilities of media technologies and creation of new artistic artefacts. With advancements in technology, creative audiovisual practices employ explorations in technological processes, software experimentation and creative aesthetics that are pursued by most artists. Music plays a significant role in this combination of art forms, bridging and forming connections and relationships between visuals and sound. With the prominence of music in such practice, music producers have since taken steps to bridge their initial field of music across to an interdisciplinary audiovisual combination. This paper examines this form of audiovisual practice from the viewpoint of a musician - specifically a music producer or one that creates and produces his or her own music. This paper discusses current trends within audiovisual practice, highlighting relevant relationships and integrated technologies, along with the reasons, roles, and impact in terms of the artistic, economic, social and cultural aspects. A practical field research was also conducted in Berlin, Germany, where my findings from volunteering at an audiovisual arts festival are discussed within this paper as well. Future work would involve creating audiovisual works of my own, creating a sense of personal artistic practice in response to the results of this paper.
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Music Composition and Performance in Interactive Computer/Human Systems
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This paper explores a dialogue between art and technology in the fields of interactive art,interface design and interactive music. These fields create a frame in which I present mycreative project Ephemeral Gumboots, a hybrid media artwork/musical instrument that takes South African Gumboot dance and extends it as an interface into an electronic music-making system. The notion of interactivity, its history, development, social meaning and the technology that has enabled it become objects for interrogation. The concept of process, which is at the heart of interactive art and music, is also located philosophically and historically. Essential (Cagean) considerations surface too: whether music is an art form; and how composition relates to music. A socio- political milieu is constructed in which to locate the work: Ephemeral Gumboots is presented via description, analysis, and as poetry. The modified boots are explained from an electronic music/ instrument design point of view, and a dialectic is set up between the technical existence of the work and the philosophical questions it asks. These questions are(intuitively) presented in a metaphorical creative writing style as intimate fragments of the artist’s imagination. Meaning is touched upon, but left open-ended and ephemeral.Lastly, there is a practical attempt to put a technical description of the work into laymen’s terms, with the invitation to other composers and dancers to use the system for further creative exploration. Special attention is given to instrument design (which is an integral part of the process of composition in this context) and the organisation of material.
Body, Space & Technology, 2011
This paper proposes reflections of an ongoing nature about the relationship of sound, image, and movement in art. Following a range of productions from stage choreographies to dance films, CD-ROMs and interactive-generative installations to videoclips and multimedia scenographies for dance and music, practical experience has shown that what may be seen as standard and complimentary elements of much contemporary interdisciplinary creation, in fact prove to offer a gamut of very different creative potentialities with each new project. This said, the question of interdisciplinary practice has also been occulted in recent years by artistic fervour and fascination surrounding digital productions that propose "new" sensorial experiences. While artists and critics alike are keen to assert how it is the technologies themselves that are responsible for "augmenting", "embodying" or "interfacing" sensorial experiences in art, the basic configuration of sound, image, and movement nevertheless remains a constitutive parameter of most productions, be they specifically digital, interactive, generative or not. Revisiting the nature of interdisciplinary creation today can be approached from various angles, for example, from the point of view of new spatial and temporal propositions or new hybridities in art. This paper chooses to look at interdisciplinarity from the perspective of intersensoriality, immersion and environment, taking as its principal reference Paroles trouvées, an installation I created in 2007 with French composer Dominique Besson and scenographer Olivier Koechlin. Conceived as a composite work involving three intertwined scores, musical, videochoreographical and optical, the interdisciplinary elements here combine in a novel way in the work's reception. Highlighting theoretical and practical issues of relevance and referring to a selection of immersive works in a brief historical overview, the paper also addresses questions of scoring, presence, interiority, texture, scale, intertextuality, and vibration.
Towards a definition of the Performing Audiovisualist
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The evolution of the laptop computer as a musical instrument in the 1990s provided a tool for empowering the solo musician and divergent approaches to the application of this technology in performance remain consistently debated. The increasing ubiquity of digital media combined with the power of current generation notebook technology has provided the perfect platform to realise integrated audio-visual toolsets that respond to musical controllers and provide mixed-media results. Despite emerging practitioners increasingly availing themselves to the musical affordances of this technology, theoretical discussion in the field ignores the various approaches a solo musician might take in developing integrated media works for performance. In an increasingly crowded niche there is a clear compulsion to consider expanded modes of performance, yet lacking any formal framework these integrations can easily alienate an audience, distract from performance and lead to criticisms of novelty for novelty's sake.