BRÜMMER, Ludger [GER]: Shine

IMAI, Shintaro [J]: Motion and Glitch Study

for dance, visual image processing and electronic sound (2004)

This work was developed for dance improvisation, digitally processed visual effects and electronic sounds. The live electronic system consists of two Macintosh computers. During the piece, dance performance on the stage is captured by a digital video camera, and is sent to the computer. The same video signal is processed variously in real time as programmed by means of DIPS (Digital Image Processing with Sound) software, then it is projected to the screen. Several data from the sound part, such as amplitude, attack and so on, are applied to the image processing parameters. Thus the visual image on the screen is deeply interacted with the dance and sound.

The main purpose of the piece is to experiment with the relationship between the gradual/sudden transformation of a dancer's motion, electronic glitch sounds and visual textures as results of modulation. The sound part was created and organized using a real- time algorithmic sound-generating system by means of extended granular sampling techniques, which IMAI called "Sound Creature".
This work was commissioned by Inventionen 2004, and realized at Elektronisches Studio der TU Berlin. Also I gratefully acknowledge the support of the dancer Kazue IKEDA and DIPS developer Shu MATSUDA, who made this project possible.

KURTÁG jr., György [H]: Spaces Talks

"We shape our spaces, and afterward our spaces shape us". W CHURCHILL, 1943

We can ''see'' with our ears.

We are aware of aural architecture, consider displacing familiar sounds to unfamiliar environments.
The wall becomes audible, or rather, the wall has an audible manifestation, A real environment, such as an urban street, a concert hall, or a dense jungle, is sonically far more complex than a single wall. The composite of numerous surfaces, objects, and geometries in a complicated environment creates an aural architecture.

My piece "space talks" is inspired by the Zirkonium software as the Klangdom itself. His high resolution in space and time provides for the composer not only the possibillity to mouve soundsources, but to build sound space like an architect.

SZIGETVÁRI, Andrea [H]: Swinging Door

for a dancer and live electronics controlling sound processing and the Klangdome

The inspiration for the piece came from a text by Shunryu SUZUKI comparing the process of breething to a swinging door.

"When we inhale, the air comes in to the inner world, when we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless and the outer world is also limitless. We say inner world or outer world, but actually there is just one whole world. In this limitless world our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing thru a swinging door. If you think, I breeth, the I is extra. There is no you to say I. What we call I is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves. That is all. When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing, no I, no world, no mind, nobody, just a swinging door."*
The movements of prerecorded, preprocessed and processed in realtime sounds coming from the throat (talking, breething) and of imaginary swinging door imitations are activated by the hands of a dancer, which motions are captured by a video camera.
The piece is dedicated to my friend Stewart COLLINSON, whose ideas and voice served as a starting point for the composition.

The piece were comissioned by the Bipolar Grant.

* Shunryu SUZUKI: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Informal Talks on Zen meditation and practice
Weatherhill
New York & Tokyo

TODOROFF, Todor [GER]: Around and above, weightless…

Some themes are recurrent in my music: the use of voices, the multiple transformations that radically modify the original sounds whilst keeping a clear trace of their energetic profiles, the use of clouds of particles, the broad use of spatialisation and multiphony,… 

But some instruments inspire new ways of doing things. The spatial discrimination made possible by the 44 speakers of sound dome in the Kubus at ZKM and it’s driving software, the Zirkonium made me want to explore spatialisation modes that are not possible with traditional surround systems where the positioning of a sound in the centre is done by sending the same level to all speakers, which only works for the few lucky listeners in the small sweet spot in the center of the hall. The possibility of moving sounds across or near the centre convincingly made me want to revive old ideas of spatialisation that I dropped because most sound systems wouldn’t concretise the idea tangibly.

I therefore wrote algorithms that extend the use of the Zirkonium and help make those ideas a reality. This piece uses sound spatialisation in a way that goes often beyond moving and locating sounds, going from disappearance and reappearance, coalescence and dissolution to the creation of demultiplied sound masses to the emergence of space-rhythmical forms impressed on continuous sound materials

The spatialisation and the sound transformations are both controlled in real-time with sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes, digital Theremins, contact microphones). Linking sound analysis and sensor data with the spatialisation they control also creates a strong bind between the nature of sounds and their spatial manifestation.
This desire to interpret electroacoustic music beyond spatialisation and to partly improvise with the help of sensors grew from my work for the last 10 years with the choreographer Michèle NOIRET and her dancers.

The setup of the dome also means a predominance in sounds localised around and above the audience which favours the feeling of floating, weightless sound sources. This feeling of weightlessness has been resonating with me for a long time and the instrument allows me to explore it musically deeper than ever.

WISHART, Stevie [USA]: The Sound of Gesture

Stevie WISHART composes and improvises with live electronics, violin, and voice interfaced with computer-based technology. The musician’s movements are extracted as data using tiny sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes) on the hands and fingers, electric-field systems such as the Theremin on the violin, and a resistor in the form of a bend sensor on her bowing arm.

The music is generated by carefully selecting those violin sounds and gestures that are most effective for “playing” new virtual instruments running on a laptop using granulation, filtering, and delay lines and include new instruments inspired by the physiology of the ear, developed in collaboration with the Physiological Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

The violinist then has the power to simultaneously transform the violin music. For this Bipolar commission, it is these transformed sounds that she will move between the speakers of the sound-dome to create sonic clouds around the acoustic sound and physical placement of the violin.

Stevie WISHART: composer/ musician/ concept
Todor TODOROFF:  technical and systems director, sensor & sound analysis development, engineering, virtual instruments, Max/MSP and network co-ordination.
Nick ROTHWELL: software architect, computer music designer and programmer, Max/MSP and network coordination.
Ian WINTER: neuro-scientist - auditory perception in terms of neural information processing, Department of Physiology, University of Cambridge

Credits:
Funded by a Sciart Production Award (2005-2006) from the Wellcome Trust awarded to Margie Medlin and Stevie Wishart. in collaboration with The Physiological Laboratory, University of Cambridge.

Project support:
| ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe [GER]
FoAM, Brussels [B]
STEIM "Studio for Electro Instrumental Music", Amsterdam [NL]
ART ZOYD Centre Transfrontalier de Production et de Création Musicales, Valenciennes [F] 
ARTeM (Art, Recherche, Technologie et Musique), Brussels [B]
The music for this project was initially developed as part of Quartet, directed and devised by Margie MEDLIN.

Project management:
Andrew LOGAN