[LEAuthors] Leonardo Electronic Almanac vol.12 no.1 January 2004
MIT Press
lea at mail-mitpress.mit.edu
Wed Feb 11 11:23:48 EST 2004
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Leonardo Electronic Almanac volume 12, number 2, February 2004
http://lea.mit.edu
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ISSN #1071-4391
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| CONTENTS |
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INTRODUCTION
------------
FEATURES
--------
< Recursive Audio Systems: Acoustic Feedback in
Composition, by Christopher Burns and Matthew
Burtner >
< Turn/Stile: Remixing Udo Kasemets' *Calendaron*, by tobias c. van Veen>
LEONARDO REVIEWS
----------------
< A Culture of Fact - England, 1550-1720, reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen >
< American Modernism: Graphic Design, 1920 to
1960, Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens >
< A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of
Joseph Paxton, reviewed by Dennis Dollens >
< The Book of the Pharaohs, reviewed by Enzo Ferrara >
LEONARDO JOURNAL
----------------
< *Leonardo*, vol. 37, no. 2 (April 2004) - table
of contents and selected abstracts >
LEONARDO ABSTRACTS SERVICE
--------------------------
< Portrait of the Artist in Red Ink, by Jennifer Henderson >
OPPORTUNITY
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< Faculty Position: Asst or Assoc Prof, New Media Arts
University of California San Diego >
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| INTRODUCTION |
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LEA SPECIAL ISSUE - GROOVE, PIT AND WAVE:
RECORDING, TRANSMISSION AND MUSIC, PART II
IN CONJUNCTION WITH *LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL* VOLUME 13
This month, in Part II of our special LEA/LMJ
issue (see the LEA January 2004 issue for Part
I), we include two feature articles: "Recursive
Audio Systems: Acoustic Feedback in Composition,"
by Christopher Burns and Matthew Burtner, in
which the authors discuss the use of feedback
systems in their compositional and performance
techniques and "Turn/Stile: Remixing Udo
Kasemets' *Calendaron*," by tobias c. van Veen,
in which the author provides a lively narration
of his attempts to update composer Udo Kasemets'
work, thus interweaving DJ turntable techniques
with compositions based on the Mayan calendar.
*Leonardo Music Journal* Volume 13 (LMJ13) and
this accompanying special issue of LEA (part two
of two) focuses on the role of recording and/or
transmission in the creation, performance and
distribution of music. In the print issue, these
topics are discussed by Peter Manning, Yasunao
Tone, Douglas Kahn with Christian Marclay, Nick
Collins, David First, Matthew Burtner, Guy-Marc
Hinant, Caleb Stuart, Álvaro Barosa, Holger
Schulze, Sérgio Freire and Philip Sherburne.
LMJ13 includes *Splitting Bits, Closing Loops:
Sound on Sound*, an audio CD curated by Philip
Sherburne. The CD features pieces from an
eclectic mix of composers/performers: AGF, M.
Behrens, Alejandra & Aeron, DAT Politics, Stephan
Mathieu, Francisco López, Institut fuer
Feinmotorik, Janek Schaefer, Steve Roden, Scanner
and Stephen Vitiello.
LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL
The LMJ series is devoted to the aesthetic and
technical issues in contemporary music and sonic
arts. Currently under the editorship of Nicolas
Collins, each thematic issue features
artists/writers from around the world,
representing a wide range of stylistic
viewpoints, and includes an audio CD or CD-ROM.
LMJ is available by subscription from the MIT
Press.
LMJ13, "Groove, Pit and Wave: Recording,
Transmission and Music," can be purchased via the
MIT Press at http://mitpress.mit.edu/LMJ or
journals-orders at mit.edu.
More info about the issue is available at: http://lmj.mit.edu.
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| FEATURES |
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RECURSIVE AUDIO SYSTEMS: ACOUSTIC FEEDBACK IN COMPOSITION
by Christopher Burns and Matthew Burtner
Christopher Burns, CCRMA, Department of Music,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-8180,
U.S.A.
cburns at ccrma.Stanford.EDU
http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/~cburns
Matthew Burtner, 1607 Mulberry Ave, Charlottesville, VA 22903, U.S.A.
mburtner at virginia.edu
http://www.burtner.net
ABSTRACT
Compositional and performance experience with a
wide variety of audio feedback systems suggests a
number of traits common to feedback processes.
These systems share not only certain sonic
qualities, but also offer highly linked
relationships between pitch, timbre, amplitude
and time characteristics. These unconventional
parameterizations, along with the often
unpredictable response of feedback systems to
control and input, lead almost necessarily to an
improvisational approach in composition and
performance. In this article, the authors
consider Matthew Burtner's *Study 1.0 (FM)* for
radio transceiver and *Delta* for electric
saxophone, Christopher Burns' *Letters to André*
and *Calyx* for networked effects processors and
a realization of John Cage's *Electronic Music
for Piano* using a feedback software synthesis
instrument.
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INTRODUCTION: FEEDBACK AND SYSTEMIC EXPRESSION
Our compositional work with feedback joins the
tradition of creatively repurposing artists'
tools. Matthew Burtner's *Studies for Radio
Transceiver* considers the broadcast and
reception of an FM radio system's self-noise,
while his *Delta* re-imagines the amplified
saxophone as a dynamic network of resonances
producing feedback [1]. Christopher Burns'
*Letters to André* and *Calyx* exploit commercial
multi-effects processors for waveguide synthesis
and his realization of John Cage's *Electronic
Music for Piano* translates this idea into an
unusual form of real-time software synthesis. In
each case, acoustic feedback is used to reinvent
the capabilities of a given technology.
These reinventions can be thought of as a form of
system analysis, where the expressive qualities
of the chosen tools (FM radio, the saxophone,
effects processors) are revealed. Recursive loops
expose the inherent properties of a system,
diverting our attention from the content that
ordinarily passes through the system to the
behavior of the system itself. A central task in
composition with feedback is the construction of
compelling systems and loops.
These four projects were conceived and realized
separately, employ different techniques, and
express different musical intentions. However, in
discussing them, we noticed that they share a
number of common properties: the use of acoustic
feedback had substantial ramifications, both for
the compositional processes we employed and for
the sonic qualities of the resulting music.
Feedback seems to have a "nature," aspects of
which appear across these divergent musical
works. Each shares in the dynamic, articulate,
potentially explosive sound of acoustic feedback
and in its idiosyncratic response to control.
EFFECTS PROCESSORS AS WAVEGUIDES: *LETTERS TO ANDRÉ* AND *CALYX*
*Letters to André* and *Calyx* were composed with
a hybrid digital/analog feedback system using
off-the-shelf electronic music equipment. The
feedback system was planned as a low-cost
environment for music-making with a unique sonic
fingerprint. This system was used actively from
1996 through 1998 to produce fixed-media
compositions (recorded first to cassette and
later to CD); it was also occasionally pressed
into service as an instrument for improvisation.
The system was inspired by André Tavares'
experiments with guitar-effects "stomp boxes"
connected in feedback loops. An exciting feature
of these experiments was the system's ability to
generate sound without external input: the
self-noise of the analog components of the
network could be shaped via feedback into complex
sonic textures. The concept of Tavares'
guitar-effects network was replicated by
recursively patching two digital multi-effects
processors through an analog mixer. The new
system added the feature of MIDI control over the
effects processors, via a computer running
sequencing software.
The works composed with this system were
essentially all real-time activations of the
system, scripted by MIDI control. A single system
configuration was used for each piece, without
any changes to the audio routing or effects
processor patches that would require human
intervention in performance or produce audio
glitches. The output of the system was recorded
without any further editing or manipulation: the
feedback loop was treated as the "performer"
rather than as a source of material for
additional compositional refinement.
The use of feedback and the philosophy of system
"performance" as finished work produced very
tight constraints on the compositional process of
these pieces. Composition began with
configuration of the system hardware, patching
together inputs and outputs. Each piece used its
own routings between the mixer and the two
processors, ranging from a circular stereo path
to more complicated parallel configurations.
After connecting the hardware, the next task was
programming the effects processors. Standard
effects algorithms like reverb, chorus, flanging,
pitch shifting, delay and equalization could be
selected and combined in parallel or series
configurations. The parameters (such as delay
time or chorus rate) were then set for each
algorithm, with eight parameters designated for
real-time MIDI control. Configuration of the
system was necessarily done on a speculative and
interactive basis; different audio routings and
effects settings were tested until a system
resulted that produced a promising set of
textures for composition.
In use, the behavior of the feedback network was
extremely sensitive to its current conditions.
The array of sonic possibilities for "the next
moment" was totally dependent upon the current
state of the system. However, the network was not
genuinely chaotic. If musical events were
generated from stable rest conditions, they could
be reproduced again from those same conditions,
not only in broad outlines but also in their
precise sonic details. In order to maximize the
system's stability and reproducibility, "fussy"
mixer settings were generally avoided by setting
the faders and sends at unity or maximum. The
dynamics of the system (including "start" and
"stop") could be controlled using the built-in
gain controls of the effects processors
(automated via a MIDI sequencer and thus
reproduced precisely time after time) - as a
result, there was no need to change the mixer
settings during the course of a given composition.
Because the sequencer facilitated stable,
reproducible output, the system's "performances"
could be and were shaped and revised over many
months. While the system output was treated as a
compositional endpoint, work-in-progress was
listened to, critiqued, revised and re-thought as
many times as desirable. However, the sensitivity
of the system to its current state meant that the
flow of composition could only proceed from the
beginning of the work towards its end: a change
to the parameter data at the beginning of a piece
would alter the sonic results throughout. As a
result, composition proceeded in chunks. After a
short phrase or section was developed and
polished, it was fixed, becoming an immutable
part of the piece and influencing the development
of future materials.
*Compromise,* the second and shortest of the four
*Letters to André,* provides a relatively simple
and direct example of the system in use. The
piece is an inverted arch: a decrescendo followed
by a crescendo, with the loudest moments defined
by noisy textures and the quieter segments
characterized by echoing, continuously sliding
pitches. *Compromise* used a parallel system
configuration in which the output of each effects
processor was routed to its own input and also
the input of the other processor. Both effects
processors used pairs of processing algorithms in
series: the first box offered a pitch detuner
chained to a parametric equalizer; the second
used a pitch shifter (with a wider possible range
of pitch shifting than the detuner) chained to a
delay.
[See Figure 1: system diagram for *Compromise* -
Ed. note: the figures referenced in this article
can be viewed in the online version of LEA at
http://lea.mit.edu]
The inverted arch was created by reducing and
then increasing the input levels to the detuner,
pitch-shifter and delay; additional timbral
modifications were produced with simple curves
for the parametric equalizer and pitch-shifter
settings. The most obvious use of the equalizer
comes at the end of the piece, when low cuts and
high boosts concentrate the sonic energy into
high-frequency noise; the most dramatic change in
the pitch-shifting comes at the bottom of the
arch, when upward pitch shifts give way to
downward transpositions.
The feedback system used for *Compromise* and
related works implements what is essentially an
idiosyncratic form of waveguide synthesis. Most
of the varieties of signal processing available
in multi-effects professors, whether
pitch-shifting, chorusing or reverberation, can
be understood as variations on the basic process
of delay. When the feedback routing provided by
the audio mixer is also considered, the system is
essentially an implementation of the recursive
delay structures which are the building block of
waveguides. The analogy has more to do with
principle than practice - one would be hard
pressed to implement waveguide models of acoustic
instruments using this equipment, and there are
no real-world acoustic interpretations of the
processor networks. However, the system shares an
articulate and continuously varying sonic
character with more conventional forms of
waveguide synthesis.
The recursive nature of the audio path makes the
system dependent upon its analog components for
tolerance of overload. Both the mixer and the
inputs to the effects processors occasionally
overload or clip; with careful gain settings, the
overloads can be concentrated in the analog
sections of the network and digital clipping
minimized. However, the system is not sonically
pristine: audible grit and clicking are a
necessary part of the music.
FEEDBACK IN THE DIGITAL DOMAIN: *ELECTRONIC MUSIC FOR PIANO*
Inspired by the waveguide analogy, more recent
projects have involved fully digital
implementations and variations of the hybrid
feedback system described above, using software
synthesis platforms like Pd and Common Lisp
Music. One important difference between the
hybrid analog/digital model and the software
versions is that all-digital systems require
external excitation. Software models have no
self-noise and will not sound without some kind
of input stimulus. The software networks must be
excited by injection of an impulse, a noise
burst, an arbitrary sound recording or a live
microphone input.
A larger challenge for software implementations
is gain control; digital feedback structures have
an extremely small threshold between silence and
explosive clipping (The problem can be avoided by
using damped feedback - that is, feedback scaled
by a coefficient less than unity - and continuous
excitation, as in traditional waveguide
applications for physical modeling. However, the
models for these projects are self-generating and
essentially undamped). Complex network topologies
only become possible when automatic gain control
techniques like peak-limiting compression or
waveshaping are applied [2].
One software feedback system was implemented for
a realization of John Cage's *Electronic Music
for Piano*, first performed by Christopher Burns
and pianist Christopher Jones in May 2002.
*Electronic Music for Piano* is perhaps one of
Cage's most permissive scores. While the range of
possibilities - electronics and piano or pianos -
is more circumscribed than in works for
indeterminate groups of performers like the
Variations series, *Electronic Music for Piano*
lacks the systems of discipline associated with
that series. The handwritten prose score
(complete with Cage's strikeouts and emendations)
consists only of lists of potential technical
means - "feedback, and changing sounds
(microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers - separate
system for each piano)," and suggestive metaphors
to guide action ("observation of imperfections in
the silence in which the music is played" [3].)
*Electronic Music for Piano* is dedicated to
David Tudor; presumably the "permissive"
characteristics described above have much to do
with Cage's trust in his friend and colleague
Tudor, as well as the shared culture they
developed through extensive collaboration. The
dedication can also be viewed as another kind of
suggestion for performance. Our realization of
*Electronic Music for Piano* is not only a
digital translation of the work with hybrid
feedback systems, but also an homage to David
Tudor's homebrew analog feedback systems [4], now
reinvented with digital components and
deterministic controls.
The feedback network is implemented in Pd, with a
circular array of delay lines feeding each other
and eight loudspeakers. Audio signals are passed
around the circle in both clockwise and
counterclockwise directions, with waveshaping
functions to prevent clipping at every stage
where signals are combined. Each delay time is
continuously varying, with linear interpolations
between randomly generated values over randomly
selected lengths of time. This process was
developed in response to another of Cage's
suggestions:
as though there were
take a drawing of the controls
(volume, tone) available and -
on a transparency - transcription
for astronomical atlas suggesting
were it would
which (^ superimposed) ^ gives
suggestions for use of controls (not explore)[5]
The electronics operator - through a series of
control parameters - and the pianist, via the
microphone inputs, have influence over the
feedback network. However, they do not have
command of the process; the randomly generated
parameters and the generally idiosyncratic
behavior of feedback make the output of the
system unpredictable. Sometimes the feedback
imitates events played at the piano very
precisely, sometimes it remains quiet during busy
passages and sometimes it bursts into noise in
the middle of a long silence.
[Figure 2: system diagram for *Electronic Music for Piano*]
This is the unusual aspect of this realization
and instrument; the electronics are designed to
guide the operator's musical choices, just as the
operator guides the electronics. There is a
symbiosis of piano, pianist, electronics and
operator; in performance the situation is one of
improvising with the electronics, rather than
using the electronics to improvise. David Tudor
said, "I want to find ways of discovering
something you don't know at the time that you
improvise.... The first way is to play an
instrument over which you have no control, or
less control than usual" [6]. In this
realization, the instability of the feedback
system makes it an equal partner in the
improvisational process.
As with its analog/digital model, the software
feedback system produces complex sonic textures,
articulate melodic gestures and other interesting
emergent behaviors. It creates a rich palette of
unusual and continuously evolving sounds; the
unpredictability of the feedback provides both a
compelling musical element and an interesting
challenge to the performers in the
semi-improvisatory environment of *Electronic
Music for Piano*.
THE ELECTRIC SAXOPHONE AS A FEEDBACK CONTROLLER: *DELTA*
The musical use of acoustic feedback is closely
tied to the development of amplification. In
musical instrument design, feedback is especially
important for the development of the electric
guitar. Perhaps most famously, Jimi Hendrix
redefined guitar performance with his
groundbreaking performance of "The Star Spangled
Banner" at Woodstock in 1969. Hendrix abandoned
traditional notions of guitar performance, using
the instrument as a feedback controller.
Hendrix's performance practice, and especially
the Woodstock "Star Spangled Banner," inspired
the composition of *Delta* (2001), a work for
solo saxophone. The electric guitar, as played by
Hendrix, provides a model for the reimagination
of the saxophone as an electric feedback
instrument.
In *Delta*, small microphones embedded inside the
saxophone are used to capture resonances within
the air column. Feedback between the internal
microphones and external loudspeakers is
generated and then controlled by opening and
closing keys and by changing the air pressure in
the column. The saxophone body becomes a filter,
dynamically modifying the feedback signal via
changing instrumental resonances.
The electric saxophone grew out of the
Metasaxophone Project [7], an ongoing effort
since 1997 to extend the properties of the
saxophone through new performance techniques and
technologies. The saxophone is enhanced as both a
computer controller and as an acoustic signal
generator. The idea to explore the saxophone as
an electric feedback instrument arose from a
desire to carefully capture the audio signal as a
control signal for use in interactive
electroacoustic music.
Using sensor technology and a microcontroller on
the bell of the instrument, the Metasaxophone
captures constantly changing performance data and
converts it to continuous MIDI control change
messages. This data is used to extend the
gestural interface of the acoustic saxophone; the
player can generate control data with techniques
such as finger pressure and saxophone position,
which do not affect any simultaneous acoustic
activity with the instrument. The Metasaxophone
as a MIDI controller debuted in 1999, in
performances of *Noisegate 67*. This new
controller continues to be used in a number of
ways to extend the instrument [8].
Because the sensor-based modifications to the
Metasaxophone do not alter the acoustic sound of
the instrument, the native sound of the saxophone
can be used in performance or interpreted as
another type of control parameter. The continuing
acoustic viability of the instrument makes
amplification and acoustic feedback possible;
hence the "electric saxophone," or Metasaxophone
Audio System. The electric saxophone is based on
a set of small electret condenser microphones
inserted inside the instrument. The electret
capsules used are Panasonic WM60-ATs, chosen
because they feature good frequency response (20
to 20,000Hz), less than 2.2kOhm impedance and
resilience under difficult environmental
conditions, vibration and shock. Additionally,
the omnidirectional polar pattern of the
microphones aids the propagation of feedback in
the air column.
The microphones, along with a long copper "arm"
and a shielded cable, were threaded through
heat-shrink tubing [Figure 3]. The resulting
bendable arms are then rearranged to suit the
specific miking situation desired. The three arms
attach at the top of the bell of the saxophone
[Figure 4]; from there, the three shielded audio
cables are combined into a snake that runs to the
audio equipment. The microphones each have a
different audio output, so that their signals can
be routed independently.
Once the microphones were operational,
experimentation helped define the saxophone
performance techniques that would enable the
instrumentalist to control acoustic feedback.
With the microphones in place, a series of
acoustic measurements were taken of the interior
of the saxophone. These tests suggested the range
of filter responses the saxophone will exhibit
when placed in an audio feedback loop, and
demonstrate the relative efficacy of various
techniques applied in performance.
In *Delta* (2001), the Metasaxophone audio system
becomes the basis for an electric feedback
instrument. The continuous control properties
exhibited in the acoustic tests became meaningful
musical controls, extending the capabilities of
the saxophone. [Figure 5 shows the technical
setup for *Delta*.]
The saxophone sound is picked up by the
microphones in the bell and output through the
loudspeaker, where it is again picked up by the
microphones inside the bell, now filtered through
the body of the saxophone. The instrument feeds
back and the performer can control the resonant
frequency by changing the properties of the tube
with fingerings. In keeping with Hendrix's
inspiration, the microphone outputs are sent
through a distortion box that emulates the type
of overdrive distortion characteristic of
electric guitars and tube amplifiers.
Because the saxophone body is not solid, the
instrument cannot be overdriven, and attempts to
create true overdrive distortion only overdrive
the microphones. The distortion box creates the
sound of distortion without the need to increase
the gain of the audio system to unmanageable
levels. In addition, the use of distortion
introduces a wider frequency range that
approaches the noise signals used in the acoustic
tests. The broad spectrum allows for the
activation of a variety of resonant frequencies
in the air column.
The performer controls the feedback loop by
forming an embouchure and applying different air
pressures through the mouthpiece, and by changing
keys on the instrument, either rapidly or in a
slow, deliberate fashion: as with the
Metasaxophone's pressure-sensitive sensors, the
intention is to transform the discrete switches
of the saxophone keys into continuously variable
controls. Performance confirms that the frequency
response of the instrument changes slightly as
keys are slowly depressed or released. The
changing internal state of the saxophone alters
the air column, creating different, and often
multiple, resonant frequencies.
The feedback loop has a pronounced effect on
instrumental performance practice. In an ideal
performance, no audible sound emits from the
saxophone, and the audience hears simply the
changing distortion and feedback as it is shaped
by the saxophone body and activated by key
clicks. In reality, however, the rapid changes in
air pressure in the instrument inevitably cause
acoustic byproducts - high squeaks, air hisses
and honks - that are then amplified, distorted
and fed back into the system.
*Delta* is highly unstable, and as such is
permitted to be different for each performance. A
score prepared for use in concerts in 2001
outlines in a tablature notation the fingering
combinations to be used, embouchure pressure
changes over time, and the formal conditions of
the performance in the form of time-line energy
changes. From the score, it appears that the
performer has great freedom to shape the dramatic
flow of the piece, but in actuality the freedom
of the performer is closely curtailed by the
instability of the system. Much like surfing on a
breaking wave, the performer of *Delta* makes
decisions about movement "on-the-fly," responding
immediately to the system in order to keep the
piece alive. The score outlines ideas that are
always modified in performance due to the
unpredictability of the system. [Figure 6 shows
the score of Delta prepared for a performance at
Stanford's CCRMA in 2001.]
The score contains up to five staves for the
saxophone part. The "Sound" staff gives a graphic
overview of the time/energy development of the
piece and includes indications such as
"cause/allow beatings," "very light tonguing to
bring out squeaks," "changing key clicks" and
"teeth on reed." The "Fingering" staff provides
suggested key fingerings and gives descriptive
"microkeying" indications such as "Ad lib low Bb
attack to G#, insert periodically," "very slow
changes of key - slight closing/opening," and
"lift Bb key 1/4." In the beginning of the score,
a "Sounding Pitch" staff appears at the top of
the page, revealing the tritone structure that
acts as the opening of the piece. This staff
disappears on subsequent systems as pitch becomes
something difficult or irrelevant to control. The
"Air Pressure" staff uses a notation for pressure
and gives indications such as "talk into horn
while playing." The "Electronics" staff was used
to give indications of changes in the distortion
boxes or any other electronics.
In the performance this score was prepared for, a
computer drum machine (the polyrhythmicon) was
used to create frenzied accelerating beats behind
the electric sax. A dense polyrhythm with a tempo
relationship of 90 BPM (beats-per-minute): 60BPM:
120BPM gradually accelerates to
120BPM:180BPM:250BPM. This electronic part is not
necessarily a permanent feature of the piece, and
like all other aspects of the piece it can be
changed or ignored. It was added to augment the
tension of a hyper-frenetic performance system.
Despite the existence of a score, the composition
of the piece was worked out in rehearsal and it
is always recomposed in performance. The score is
simply a guide for the performer, a repertoire of
ideas and a memory aid for an instrument that can
be quite disconcerting to play. Although the
piece is different every time, it does have a
clear identity and the score helps capture that,
even as the system simultaneously subverts
repetition.
The Greek letter (Delta), originally meaning
"door," is a threshold or barrier at an opening,
such as a sandbar at the mouth of a river. It is
also the mathematical symbol for change. The
saxophone body is viewed as a type of threshold
or doorway into a world of rich change and
dynamic transformation. Subsequent performances
of the piece will use the same title, possibly
with version numbers for significant changes.
CONCLUSIONS: SYSTEM DESIGN AND COMPOSITIONAL PROCESS
Although the works described here display
different approaches to performance and aesthetic
intentions, the common use of acoustic feedback
leads to a number of other similarities between
pieces. Most obviously, the sonic fingerprints of
feedback are present in each. Whatever other
sounds may be present, each composition trades in
some way on the whistling, melodically articulate
resonances characteristic of feedback. Grit,
distortion, and other "lo-fi" artifacts are also
common, even in the software implementation of
*Electronic Music for Piano*.
In each case, system design was a major component
of the compositional process. As with much
electroacoustic music, the arrangement and
configuration of the electronics determined the
range of sonic and compositional options for each
piece. The most extreme example presented here is
*Study 1.0 (FM)*, where the compositional work
was, in essence, the conception and design of the
electronic system.
The configurations of our feedback loops rarely
allow for the direct and independent control of
important musical parameters like pitch, rhythm
and timbre. The performer of *Delta* fingers an E
on the saxophone; at least some sonic change will
be initiated and, at best, the system will
resonate at some frequency in the harmonic series
above the fingered E. Similarly, the composer
working with a network of effects processors
might change the length of a delay line in the
hopes of creating a glissando or other variation
in pitch. The composer and performer have the
feeling of influencing the system, rather than
controlling it.
This sense of engaging with a system, rather than
commanding it, is strengthened by the dependence
of feedback systems upon their current state. In
each of the systems described here, the range of
available sounds is highly dependent upon the
current contents and conditions of the system.
Typically, composers and performers have nearly
their entire chosen sonic palette available at
any moment. With feedback systems, this is not
the case; future activity is limited and
channeled not only by the composer's decisions,
but also by the history of the audio system
itself. A texture or sound, achieved with a
certain system configuration or parameter setting
at one point in a piece, may not be repeatable at
another moment.
As a result, much of our compositional work with
feedback systems is improvisational, even when
the completed work is relatively fixed, as with
*Study 1.0 (FM)* and *Compromise*. The potentials
of the system at any moment and the range of
influence of the controls can only be explored
through improvisation. The complex, "messy"
responses of feedback systems necessitate an
intuitive approach in composition and
performance; formal and sonic complexities result
from the emergent properties of the system,
interacting in the moment with the composer and
performer. Feedback systems will speak for
themselves.
_____________________________
REFERENCES AND NOTES
1. A detailed discussion by Burtner of this work
is available in the current issue of *Leonardo
Music Journal* (LMJ 13, "Regenerative Feedback in
the Medium of Radio: Study 1.0 (FM) for Radio
Transceiver," by Matthew Burtner). For a brief
description of the article, see
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/journal/toclmj13.html.
2. See Christopher Burns, Stefania Serafin and
Matthew Burtner, "Musical Applications of
Multichannel Generalized Digital Waveguides," in
*Proceedings of the Stockholm Music Acoustics
Conference 2003* and Christopher Burns, "Emergent
Behavior from Idiosyncratic Waveguide Networks,"
in *Proceedings of the International Computer
Music Conference 2003*.
3. John Cage, *Electronic Music for Piano* (New York, NY: C. F. Peters, 1968).
4. See John D.S. Adams, "Giant Oscillations: the
birth of *Toneburst*," in *Musicworks*, Vol. 69
(1997) pp. 14-17 and Joel Chadabe, *Electric
Sound* (Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1997).
5. See Cage [3].
6. Richard Kostelanetz, ed., *Conversing with
Cage* (New York, NY: Limelight, 1987).
7. See Matthew Burtner, "The Metasaxophone:
Concept, Implementation, and Mapping Strategies
for a New Computer Music Instrument," in
*Organised Sound*, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2002).
8. See Matthew Burtner and Stefania Serafin, "The
Exbow Metasax: Compositional Applications of
Bowed String Physical Models Using Instrument
Controller Substitution," *Journal of New Music
Research*, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2002).
_____________________________
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Christopher Burns
Christopher Burns' recent compositional activity
focuses on chamber music. His experience as a
computer music researcher is a major influence on
his acoustic composition; his newest works are
written with pitch and rhythmic structures that
are created and transformed using custom
software. One of these pieces, a sextet entitled
*The Location of Six Geometric Figures*, was
recently awarded first prize by the Hitzacker
Summer Music Festival. This work has been
performed by ensemble recherche in Germany,
ensemble Gageego! in Sweden and the San Francisco
Contemporary Music Players in California.
Burns is the Technical Director of the Center for
Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA)
at Stanford University, where he has completed a
doctorate in composition, and is pursuing a
second in computer music research. He has studied
composition with Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan
Harvey, Jonathan Berger, Michael Tenzer and Jan
Radzynski. His research interests include
algorithmic composition techniques, the
application and control of feedback in sound
synthesis, and the study and preservation of
sketch materials produced by electroacoustic
composers.
Burns co-curates the *sfSoundSeries* concerts in
San Francisco and the *Strictly Ballroom* concert
series at Stanford; both venues feature
contemporary music performed by local and
international guest artists. These concert
projects are also an outlet for his interest in
the realization of classic electroacoustic music;
recent projects include the creation and
performance of new versions of works by Cage,
Ligeti, Lucier, Nancarrow and Stockhausen.
Matthew Burtner
Matthew Burtner's music has been described by
*The Wire* as "some of the most eerily effective
electroacoustic music I've heard," and *21st
Century Music* writes "There is a horror and
beauty in this music that is most impressive."
His work regularly combines instrumental
ensembles, computer technology, interactive
acoustics and multimedia.
Burtner is currently Assistant Professor of
composition and computer music at the University
of Virginia, where he is associate director of
the VCCM Computer Music Center. A native of
Alaska, he studied philosophy, composition,
saxophone and computer music at St. Johns
College, Tulane University (BFA, 1993), Iannis
Xenakis' UPIC Studios (1993-94), the Peabody
Institute of the Johns Hopkins University (MM
1997) and Stanford University's CCRMA (DMA,
2002). He has been composer-in-residence at the
Banff Centre for the Arts, Simon Fraser
University in Vancouver and the IUA/Phonos
Institute in Barcelona. His original computer
music research is presented regularly at
international conferences and it has been
published by journals such as *Organized Sound*,
*The Journal of New Music Research* and the
*Leonardo Music Journal*. His music has been
recorded for Innova (USA), DACO Records
(Germany), *Computer Music Journal* (MIT Press)
and Norway's Eurydice label.
ARTICLE RECEIVED 16 NOVEMBER, 2003
==========================
TURN/STILE: REMIXING UDO KASEMETS' *CALENDARON*
by tobias c. van Veen, Dept. of Communications,
McGill University, 853 Sherbrooke Street W.,
Montreal, PQ H3A 2T6, Canada.
tobias at quadrantcrossing.org
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org
ABSTRACT
Udo Kasemets' *CaleNdarON*, a sound-script that
engages the Mayan calendar to give birth to
random-chance composition, poses unique
difficulties in the electronic age. As a
"techno-turntablist" - and potential hermeneutist
- of *CaleNdarON* at the Vancouver New Music
Society's Link-Age Festival (2002) [1], I cut an
approach to grasping this challenging script for
60 minutes of sound by six musicians. It proved
deceptively exhaustive to play the turntable over
the laptop, to scratch the binaries of
nature/culture and mind/body through the manifold
temporalities of Mayan numerology, and to face
the demands of the *scriptual-logos* while
catalyzing a questioning of the script, the
technology and the techniques through a collision
of historical records: the present-day
turntablist clasping a living member of
yesterday's avant-garde, Udo Kasemets.
_____________________________
SPINNING THE CONTEXT
It is a sad epitaph of the history of modernity
that phonographic experimentation and multiple
directions of the avant-garde were forced into
hiatus and perhaps never fully recovered after
their dispersal during the two world wars.
However, Douglas Kahn notes that "in the two
decades following World War II, an abundance of
artistic activities incorporated new approaches
to sound" [2]. It was during these two decades
that Estonian composer Udo Kasemets attended the
Kranichstein Institute for New Music in Darmstadt
(1950), studying Ernst Krenek, Edgard Varèse and
Hermann Scherchen before immigrating to Canada in
1957. It was around 1960 that Kasemets "totally
abandoned the above concepts and moved toward
open forms, special notations, mixed media,
audio-visual interactions, sound texts and
electroacoustics" after being exposed to the work
of John Cage [3]. Kasemets' movement toward what
Kahn calls the *all sound* and *always sound* of
Cage was dedicated [4]: "He withdrew most of his
earlier compositions from circulation and
concentrated solely on creating and presenting
music and mixed-media art reflecting rapid and
vigorous changes taking place in the culture and
technologies of the latter half of the century"
[5].
There are three junctures to be traced in this
development. The first is the proliferation of
the avant-garde of the early twentieth century,
from the futurists to Dada and sound poetry; the
second is the later generation, separated form
the first by two wars and to which Kasemets
belongs, which included the developments of
Fluxus and happenings, Iannis Xenakis,
electroacoustic music and minimalism. John Cage,
it could be said, straddled the first and second
junctures. The third juncture is the flourishing
of "contemporary electronic music," from pop and
rock permutations ("Kraut rock," new wave,
industrial music) to African-American innovations
(funk, disco, Chicago house, Detroit techno,
electro, hip-hop and their Afro-futurist
movements), including their "avant-garde"
tendrils (IDM, minimal techno, lowercase and
microsound, microhouse, clicks 'n' cuts).
As someone at the tail end of the third juncture,
I find myself magnetized by the tragically short
*first* exploration of technology and it is this
desire that awakens a fourth juncture in the
history of "electronic" music where, at the
limits of today's "experimental" scene, a return
to considering the technology and apparatus of
performance and the very means of composition
places the "producer" at the heart of a nascent
history. This thirst for productive
experimentation, which so drove Russolo (even in
his dark passion for war) and Varèse, is sampled
as a catalyst for combating the pessimism of the
postmodern milieu.
Today's phonographists and computer musicians are
turning to the surviving members of the second
juncture to learn of the first forays into the
technological unknown of aurality. Unfortunately,
the average DJ knows little of these junctures
(which are sketched here only as arbitrary
histories to facilitate an understanding in this
context). Conversely, among the academy, an
appreciation of the African-American traditions
of rhythm and percussion - what was considered
"the music of the future" by Cage - is scant [6].
Thinking of another turn-of-the-previous-century
author, Proust, it is perhaps worth recalling
that to move forward is to remember. A turntable
rotates endlessly to circulate the movements of
sound. To *turn* back, to glance behind, is to
scratch out a history in the revolutions of wax.
At the juncture of *chance* - temporal
performativity - the apparently antiquated
phonograph eclipses the computer. Wax, the loop
and the turn prepare the way for scripting
Kasemet's junctured sound in tactile ways, which
the circuitry of the laptop renders untouchable.
Beyond tactility, the laptop encodes multiple
time as variables, determining, in the process,
the process of process itself, making *possible*
an algorithm of generative numerosity. Until the
laptop can be tampered, decodified, *broken* - it
remains a control device.
There is more to be said of the laptop and the
turntable (we shall return to this), for the
turntable, like the failure of the script,
demands impossible time and impossible touch. To
perform at that moment where the performance
cannot be performed, where the script becomes
impossible to follow, when the moment of
impossibility or what would be judged as codified
failure - a new *stile* in the dial of time, a
new time of listening (and to consider this time
as unique) - is to cut the grooves into skips and
smooth them through burns. To turn a new stile of
sound - *Turn/Stile*. To work with Udo Kasemets
and to re-turn a century-aged tradition of
phonographic experimentation so that it rotates
face-to-face with postmodern DJ histories and
techniques, scratched through the mediation of
post-Cagean composition and cut and burnt with an
avid ear for the panaural, is to solder these
traditions and histories, to conjure and mix
inspiration from wax and wires, and to sonically
sound the way into unnoted sound/scapes.
Stile: \Stile\, n. [See Style.] 1. A pin set on
the face of a dial, to cast a shadow; a style. 2.
Mode of composition. May I not write in such a
stile as this? - Bunyan.
PARAMETERS OF THE *CALENDARON*
Kasemets' conceptual score for an undetermined
number of electroacoustic, electronic or
otherwise amplified musicians presents a unique
conundrum. This dilemma arises in the
interpretation of the script, which calls for a
prepared, yet improvised, reading of the graphic
"event-sounds." These pictographemes are
numerative illustrations sampled from Mayan
calendar permutations, presented for the
musicians as sonic events to produce in a certain
timeframe. The temporal is delimited by the
random drawing of shuffled playing cards, by each
performer, to ascertain an event's duration.
This interpretative intensity - already a matter
of lightning-speed poetic hermeneutics - is
compounded when a musician cannot easily
construct the two sample sets as required, as in
the case of irregular uses of a turntable, where
sources cannot be quantified beforehand. By
engaging tactile technology that, at base, wires
the temporalities of the Mayan script, the
difficulties of inhabiting the historical
disjunctive are embodied in the momentum of the
performer. The *remix* that follows proceeds from
Kasemets' allowance for "mental abstracts" in
interpreting the script. The necessity of
abstraction conjoins an equally necessary
physicality, as the mindwork of preparation meets
the bodywork of improvisation, a work of manifold
temporalities in the performance of sound.
The script calls for a (re)interpretation of its
body from the beginning. The permutations of the
script, in their immediacy, call for an engaged
*embodiment in performance* at the same time that
mental abstracts are schematized, before the
actual performance, to de/construct a
*performative hermeneutics*. The primacy of the
mental conjoins the body, as question mark,
through the force of touch, while an embodied
immediacy calls for the challenge of
interpretation in the demands of otherness from
the script's graphic-logic. To fail to perform
this script, or to perform it poorly, in my mind
and felt with the strains of my body, would be to
fail to struggle with the demands of its peculiar
*scriptual-logos*.
The representation of *logos*, as the sign of
*possible logic*, or performative order, is
questioned here through the manifold nature of
the Mayan calendar used to construct scriptual
authority. Whereas the Gregorian calendar sets
into stone the demarcation of days and their
purposes in a fixed manner, the Mayan calendar
permeates each day. According to Kasemets'
script, the Mayan calendar combines 52 solar
cycles, each consisting of 18 months of 20 days,
plus 5 extra "unlucky" days, totaling 365 days,
which are permutated with 73 ritual cycles, which
are "intermeshing rotations of 20 day names and
[the] numbers 1 to 13," totaling 260 days. The
"same combinations of month and day names and
numbers recur only [once] in 52 years" [7]. (One
can possibly experience every day as unique
during one's lifetime.) The "nameless days"
fissure, that which is beyond or before the
*logos*, consists of days of fasting and
mourning. The Mayan calendar autodeconstructs a
*logos* that, if we continue to utilize these
Western philosophical paradigms, dances an
embrace with *khõra*, the mourning of futurity
and the difference of each moment.
SCRIPT TEMPORALITIES: NUMBERS
Along with the complex score of 52
chronologically sequenced notations, temporally
delimited by randomized playing cards, "each
performer prepares two distinct sets of sound
'samples.' Each 'sample' has to be of such a
nature that it can be treated in multiple ways in
matter of durations, amplitudes and other
parameters, and also that it can be comfortably
combined with other 'samples,' either linearly or
simultaneously." The "samples" are broken into
two groups: set 1 consists of 20 samples
represented by the binary numerals (the 20 day
names of the Mayan calendar). The corresponding
day names and their symbolic meanings provided by
Kasemets offer further signifying material.
Playing proceeds as follows:
The score indicates which "samples" are to be
activated (either singly or jointly) during a
given time segment. The Arabic numeral
accompanying a given binary set indicates the
number of "events" to be presented during the
segment. The underlined numeral represents the
name of the day of the segment, thus denoting a
somewhat predominant treatment.
Set 2 consists of four samples - x, y, z, Ø -
which represent the "names of three Mayan months
and the sequence of five nameless days." These
"samples" should be, if possible, original or
modified recordings of nature sounds (e.g. water,
wind, whales, insects, birds). They may or may
not mix with, or influence, or be influenced by
the "samples" of the other set.
In my performance of the work, Set 2 consisted of
four records of Top 40 pop tunes. These included
the 1999 Grammy Award winners for rap
double-pack, 12" remixes of Donna Summer and
remixes of recordings by TV actor William Shatner
(these records were given away to eliminate all
records of these records). The choice of highly
culturally encoded pop records over "natural"
sounds constituted a way to begin acknowledging
the technological medium inherent to the
production of permutative temporal sound. The
first set of samples was *processed* from the
burning and cutting of the second set, operations
determined by the "relative durations of the
activation of the 'sample' of the given letter. A
vertical line (I) stands for a long(er), a dot
(.) for a short(er) sound."
Amplification was determined through the playing
cards. The cards themselves signify the following
attributes: red - loud(er); black - soft(er);
rounded (hearts, spades) - sustained, smooth,
long(er); pointed (diamonds, clubs) - detached,
edgy, short(er), as well as determining the set
time for a series of actions (3 = 30 seconds,
etc.). The performance should end at the same
time for all performers, despite each performer
working with a unique and random time-line.
*TURN/STILE* PROCESS: LAPTOP VS. TURNTABLE
Although I have previously performed experimental
turntablism [8], it was the *quantitative
impossibility* of the turntable, unlike a laptop,
that irrupted the phonograph as a manifold
time-machine. To assemble 24 samples in software
such as Max/MSP and to code a patch that simply
accounts for the variables *executes* the *body*
of the script [9]; the lack of performativity and
the ease with which the software would negotiate
the challenges of the script scrubs the body of
its sweat. The laptop becomes William S.
Burroughs' "Grey Room," the center of *control*:
a deep schematization of random elements is
established and the laptop recites its enclosed
domain of *techne*. Would there climax the
erotic, the number-stroking card-flipping
intensity? Would one love the machine or watch
idly? Would there become the ability to radically
interact with the machine as a de-territorialized
instrument, the way the turntable became? For the
script is already *techne*, the code of the
prosthetic body or soft-machine, that which
temporalizes the sweat of impossibility.
Although the "lack of gestural theater" inherent
to laptop performance decodes pop-music
spectacle, as Kim Cascone suggests [10], its
newfound status as the academic acousmatic leaves
*much to be desired*. The lack of gestural
theater allegorizes a broader schematic: the
negation of interpretative impossibility through
technological control [11]. Although there exists
the possibility of improv-coding software patches
during performance, is it possible that we mime
only an *encoded* impossible, an impossible not
at all?
Thinking of Baudrillard, I realized that I would
not be watching the laptop, but that the laptop
would be watching me and the audience would be
watching me being watched [12]: a double
panopticon, double simulacrum of power-gazing,
control of control. To where is the rift
assigned: the script or the software? To where is
manifold, Mayan memory encoded? To be memory-lost
and moment-forsaken in having *neither record nor
way of reproducing that same performance again*,
is it possible to use a digital encoding system?
To perform times of multiplicity is to *touch*
duration, not program the memory bank of our
current incarnations of the binary machine.
During the practice of *CaleNdarON*, Kasemets
would say, "It's all music." The transactions
between performers - as this script calls on six
bodies not only to interpret the script but to
watch and hear the others - was by far the most
pronounced amongst those who could conjure sound
with impossible speed. With two performers on
laptops, two on CD players, one on an electric
violin and myself on turntable, the dominant
sonic-cues were between myself and the violinist.
Yet to conclude the purity of an atechnology or
Ludditism would erase the ways in which one
transacts with the machine through the other, the
body of the script, which is to say, the bodies
of the *other* performers, wired as the
machinic-ensemble.
SCRIPTING TURNTABLISM
The turntable has a history with script, not only
through the avant-garde, but also in the realm of
hip-hop. Several script-notations for scratching
vinyl, including all manner of fader tricks and
manipulations, have been developed, as well as
scores for "hip-hop operas." A competitor in the
DMC Championships for scratch-turntablism and
beat-juggling is working from her own
composition, which determines the timing and
placement of records and the tricks to be
utilized [13]. Although in the past this script
has been memorized aurally and through touch,
scripts by the likes of DJs such as Radar, A-Trak
and Jon Carluccio [14] have inscribed these
difficult routines.
My own history burns another path, of the
experimental, of African-American music, if not
Afro-futurist, via the advent of Detroit techno.
Unlike hip-hop turntablism, the recognition of
techno-turntablism has been scarce among academia
and the electronic music world. Focused less upon
the scratch, techno-turntablism emphasizes the
speed and improvisation of each mix. Although
scratching is common, it is the cutting of faders
and the inventing of disruptive tricks - such as
feedback utilization and off-beat
synchronization, while engaging the moving bodies
of the audience through the transactive
composition of a sonic voyage - that challenges
the techno-turntablist [15]. Techno-turntablism
is only at the dawn of its efforts to engage
avant-garde techniques, including those pioneered
by Janek Schaefer, Philip Jeck, Martin Ng, Martin
Tétreault and others, as well as the
turntable-instruments of Schaefer and Kitundu
[16].
It is with a desire for rhythm and the
otherworldly (the alien technologies of techno)
that the first set of samples became
*differential processes* upon the four records of
the second set, which were also not the "nature"
sounds Kasemets called for. Given the permutative
*nature* of the script, it became *necessary* to
revolve the binary with manifold temporality -
from high-art "culture" to *pop culture*. At a
surface, yet institutional, level, Kasemets'
script is considered avant-garde, at the edge of
pop-culture. If the script *is culture*, pop
culture must be, by force of the binary (note the
uses of *binary numbers* in this script),
*nature(al)*. By embodying a logic that *spins*
the *scriptual-logos* - a (dj) *mix* of theory
and practice - the performative interpretation
affects not through representation, similitude or
mimesis but through the movement of the
permutative "nature" of the script itself.
SMOOTH SPACE, STRIATED SPACE: TWO TECHNIQUES, CUT AND BURN
There are two primary processes that construct
the samples in Set 1: cuts and burns. To parse
the set, 20 sounds from and for each record
letter were marked, using tape, where either
knife or fire were employed (remixed from the
script, where 0 is "fire," 1 is "knife").
Smooth and cut space [17]:
1. In *cutting* vinyl, one striates space across
a predetermined spiral of grooves that rotate a
highly structured arrangement of sound. By
cutting the record's grooves, one engages the
pre-cut groove through the slicing and carving of
grooves, the incision of inadvertent grooves (or
skips or loops). Eventually, a heavily striated
surface will cease to be normatively playable and
a multiple temporality of playing and listening
must arise, as we cut this paragraph, as
something beyond demonstration, with the knife
itself. The Mayan calendar is a cut-up (the
cut-up according to Burroughs is erotic); the
sounds cut-up IN *CaleNdarON* - to cut is to
think - have been cut before this thought.
2. In *burning* vinyl, one melts the groove to
smooth, soft space, warm to the touch,
accentuating the random travel of the needle
across glacial sound-space. Eventually, a
heavily-burnt surface will cease to contain
grooved sound, save for the whirring rotations of
the turntable system and sounds normally unheard
(such as electrical hum). "Silence," as *heard*
by John Cage [18] - the amplification of
miniscule sound, the vibration of warm
record-molecules and sound of melting, dripping
wax - liquefies the burn, calling for a *burning
ear*.
ASSEMBLY MARKINGS
i. After cutting or burning the vinyl, a number
of separate and distinct sounds, as called for by
the script, are performed, utilizing turntablist
aspects (EQ, fader techniques, tone-arm rubber
bands, mixer effects, reverse-playing, feedback,
line noise). As these sounds are in relation to
the *notes of duration*, an element of
impossibility often arises, consisting of more
durations than sounds. This means that *one of
the durations has to be an amount of silence*.
The performance became the work of a complex and
unfolding remix, random and desperately haptic.
ii. When the record became so fully manipulated
and affected that it became, in a movement of
fury and love, *a time* to play the needle
directly across spinning surfaces, such as the
platter, tinfoil and sandpaper (as the Mayan
letter became effaced), the subjectile was
touched there - as the rip, the surface beyond
surface - and *heard* [19].
iii. When faced with a scriptual notation, such
as "Event-Sound 13," performance process became
*machinic* (scratch marks from this turntable
beast). Body and hermeneutics became an
all-encompassing act of irruptive and
interruptive interpretation.
Event-Sound 13 is as follows:
Record: Ø
Duration note: .
Predominant Binary: 01
Further Binaries:
0101 1101 0011 1011 0111 1111 00001 10001 01001 11001 00101 10
With record Ø, one short duration, from a burn,
of 13 sets of binary coda, drawn a 3 of clubs,
calling for quiet, and the total event
(preparation, interpretation, in/decision and
action) to resound within 30 seconds. This meant
one had to incorporate silence with one single
duration of 13 distinct sounds, through one quick
sonic movement from the surface of a burn.
Simultaneously, the process was as follows:
scratching the burn, the echo parameter on the
mixer, EQ mid-hi and taps to the needle-head,
final sideways scratch, the needle off the
record, with the lighter held under its point,
resulting in the needle catching fire and acidic
smoke.
iv. Beyond the capacity of interpretation,
although perhaps not the senses, was the
symbolism of the Mayan day. Kasemets'
*temporalities* abandon at least one element to
evade the *script* (although it might be sounded,
even in its absence). Just as there is silence,
there is an interperformative gap where the
meanings of the script resound via
*infiltration*, as the moments of random
accumulation, mixture, construction and
destruction cut-up silence. One grasps
*interpretative silence*, a moment where
*bodymind* can neither account nor perform. The
script, as the demands of manifold, Mayan - if
not alien - temporalities, overwhelms the
performer's dedication (or lack thereof) to the
*scriptual-logic* of the script. The script rips
itself apart. It temporalizes rifts, and these
are heard, even in their evasion. The script rips
its scriptuality. It is at such a moment - and
such moments abound - that movements of
disjunction and synchronicity transact with the
performers, the machinic-ensemble. Too absorbed
in the script itself, the *movements of failure*
constituted the ensemble's improvisation as a
bodymind machine failing its programs, failing to
grasp all variables and, in their failure, giving
chance to manifold time, to an experience of time
beyond linearity, to alien, Mayan temporalities.
The playing of the impossible calendar, from
riotous cacophony to solitary silence, becomes
*CaleNdarON*.
_____________________________
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
UK; VT; GM; optic mystic; CP.
_____________________________
REFERENCES AND NOTES
1. See http://www.newmusic.org/.
2. Douglas Kahn, *Noise Water Meat: A History of
Sound in the Arts* (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2001) p. 12.
3. See
http://www.musiccentre.ca/CMC/dac_rca/eng/k_/Kasemets_Udo.html/
(1998) and http://kalvos.org/kasemet.html/.
Accessed August 2002.
4. Kahn [2], p. 158.
5. See http://tictocfestival.org/symphony3.html, 1994.
6. See "The Future of Music: Credo," in *Silence:
Lectures and Writings by John Cage*. (Hanover:
Weslayan University Press, 1973) p. 5. Also see
*Social Text* No. 71 (2002).
7. Udo Kasemets, *CaleNdarON*, from 12 . 19 . 1 .
11 . 1 CHUEN 9 CUMKU to 12 . 19 . 9 . 4 . 2 . 13
IK 15 UO (Toronto: 2002).
8. Tobias, *Claustrophobia* (Vancouver: <ST>
Communications, 1999). Cassette tape mixwork.
9. See http://www.cycling74.com for information on Max/MSP software.
10. See Kim Cascone, "Laptop Music -
Counterfeiting Aura in the Age of Infinite
Reproduction," in *Parachute:
électrosons_electrosounds*, No. 107 (2002) 53-58;
K. Cascone, "Deleuze and Contemporary Music," in
*Intersects: Between the Disciplines*, Vol. 1,
No. 1 (2001);
http://www.iisgp.ubc.ca/whatsnew/intersects/; K.
Cascone, "Post-Digital Tendencies in Contemporary
Computer Music," in *Computer Music Journal, Vol.
24, No. 4 (2000) 12-18. Also see tobias c. van
Veen, "Laptops & Loops: The Advent of New Forms
of Experimentation and the Question of Technology
in Experimental Music and Performance,"
Conference Paper, (Calgary, Canada: University
Art Association of Canada, 1 November, 2002),
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org/papers.htm/;
William Ashline, "Clicky Aesthetics: Deleuze,
Headphonics, and the Minimalist Assemblage of
'Aberrations,'" in *Strategies: Journal of
Theory, Culture, Politics*, Vol. 15, No. 1
(2002) 87-104; Tim Hecker, "Sound and the
'Victorious Realm of Electricity,'" in
*Parachute: électrosons_electrosounds*, No. 107
(2002) 60-68.
11. Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning
Technology," in *Basic Writings*, Trans. W.
Lovitt (New York: Harper and Row, 1977).
12. See Jean Baudrillard, *Simulacra and
Simulation* (Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press, 1994).
13. See http://www.dmcworld.com/.
14. See Oliver Wang, "Scratch Transcription," in *Urb* (2000),
http://www.djradar.com/urb100.html/, and "Higher
Science: Better Deejaying through Turntablature,"
in *LA Weekly* (25-31 August, 2000),
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/40/music-wang.php/.
15. See tobias c. van Veen, "Vinyl/auralism: A
Manifesto of Sonic Wax," in *Discorder* (March -
April 2002).
16. See Kitundu's website:
http://www.cpcarts.org/kitundu/instruments.htm/,
and Schaefer's: http://www.audioh.com/. In the
context of North American techno-turntablists, a
few notable practitioners are (among a growing
contingent) Toronto's Jeff Milligan, Montreal's
the Mole, Windsor's Richie Hawtin, Winnipeg's
Fishead, and Detroit's Claude Young and Jeff
Mills.
17. See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, "1440:
The Smooth and the Striated," in *A Thousand
Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia*, trans.
Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2000): "Smooth space is
constantly being translated, transversed into a
striated space; striated space is constantly
being reversed, returned to a smooth space" (p.
474).
18. Kahn considers Cage's "silence" in *Noise
Water Meat*. See [2], pp. 158-241.
19. See Jacques Derrida, "To Unsense The
Subjectile," in *The Secret Art of Antonin
Artaud*, Trans. Mary Ann Caws (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1998) pp. 59-148.
_____________________________
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tobias c. van Veen is a sound and Net artist,
techno-turntablist and writer. He has been
enmeshed with musical resistance culture since
1993, curating, DJing, performing and provoking
via interventions and events, sounds and words.
Hailing from Vancouver, BC, tobias was
intricately involved in the West Coast
anarcho-techno scene as founder of the <ST>
Projekt and techno.ca's technoWest.org. Tobias
holds editorial and columnist positions for
several arts, music and politics publications,
including *FUSE*, *e|i*, *Capital*,
*Dustedmagazine.com* and *Discorder*. He has
freelanced for *The Wire*, the CBC and Austria
Kunstradio.
His tactical media, performance and Net-art have
surfaced on CTheory.net, 120seconds.com,
Rhizome.org, Javamuseum.org,
thisistheonlyart.com, Juniradio.net, at the
Centre for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona,
Steim.nl in Amsterdam, and the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Denver. A DJ set still resides
on Betalounge.com. He is author of the 2003
Canadian Electronic Music Directory and is
currently writing a book on the politics of sound
and postsubcultures. Although he can be found in
the halls of McGill's Department of
Communications, his blog resides at
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org/blog.
ARTICLE RECEIVED 15 NOVEMBER, 2003
_________________________________________________________________________
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| |
| LEONARDO REVIEWS |
| 2004.02 |
|_________________________________|
_________________________________________________________________________
This month, *Leonardo Reviews* includes
contributions from new members of the panel,
Malcolm Miles and Enzo Ferrara. In addition,
reviewers whose names will be familiar to regular
readers ensure that the latest listings reflect
the intellectual breadth of the *Leonardo*
constituency. Stefaan van Ryssen's review,
featured below, responds to a formidable piece of
scholarship by Barbara J. Shapiro, while Rob
Harle has taken time out to experiment with
discursive form in his review of *Intermedia*.
Amy Ione, Robert Pepperell and Roy Behrens
continue to feature among our reviews, while
newer members Denis Dollens, Chris Cobb and Aaris
Sherin have also filed copy this month, making it
a rich and fascinating selection of topics and
styles. Finally, a special welcome to the
familiar names of George Shortess and Kasey
Asberry, who make a return with fascinating
contributions to *Leonardo Reviews* after a brief
absence.
Altogether, a rich and varied selection that can be accessed in full at:
http://leonardoreviews.mit.edu
Michael Punt
Editor-in-Chief
Leonardo Reviews
_____________________________
Reviews Posted February 2004:
The Abyss of Representation: Marxism and the
Postmodern Sublime, by George Hartley
Reviewed by Malcolm Miles
American Modernism: Graphic Design, 1920 to 1960,
by R. Roger Remington with Lisa Bodenstedt
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens
Art, Not Chance: Nine Artists' Diaries, edited by Paul Allen
Reviewed by Rob Harle
An Atlas of Rare City Maps: Comparative Urban
Design 1830-1842, by Melville C. Branch
Reviewed by Kasey Asberry
Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation, and Creativity
by William J. Mitchell, Alan S. Inouye, and Marjory S. Blumenthal,
Editors, Reviewed by Amy Ione
The Book of the Pharaohs, by Pascal Vernus and Jean Yoyotte
Reviewed by Enzo Ferrara
A Culture of Fact, England, 1550-1720, by Barbara J. Shapiro
Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Digital Magazine Design, by Paul Honeywill and Daniel Carpenter
Reviewed by Rob Harle
Heteroptera: The Beautiful and the Other or
Images of A Mutating World, by Cornelia
Hesse-Honegger
Reviewed by Robert Pepperell
The Industrial Design Reader, edited by Carma Gorman
Designing for People, by Henry S. Dreyfuss
Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens
Shaped Your World, by Glenn Adamson
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens
INTERMEDIA: alteridem.exe, edited by G. Sabau et al
Reviewed by Rob Harle
Introduction to Imaging, by Howard Besser
Reviewed by George Shortess
Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma, by Ulrich Baer
Reviewed by Robert Pepperell
Teaching at the Bauhaus, by Rainer K. Wick
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens
A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton, by Kate Colquhoun
Reviewed by Dennis Dollens
Les Unites Semiotiques Temporelles, Nouvelles cles pour l'ecoute
(Outil d'analyse musicale), CD-ROM by MIM
(Laboratoire Musique Informatique de Marseille)
Reviewed by Chris Cobb
Women, Art and Technology, edited by Judy Malloy
Reviewed by Aaris Sherin
_____________________________
A CULTURE OF FACT - ENGLAND, 1550-1720
by Barbara J. Shapiro, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, 2000, 284 pp., trade. ISBN: 0-8014-8849-4.
Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen, Hogeschool Gent,
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium.
stefaan.vanryssen at pandora.be
Over the past decades, critical observers and
suspicious citizens have learned to mistrust
reports about the facts of military campaigns,
corporate (ir)responsibility, royal mishap and
scientific success. The media, we have gradually
come to understand, are as easily creating
"facts" as they are hiding others from public
view. Misters Bush and Blair "know for a fact"
that the former Iraqi regime was producing and
hiding weapons of mass destruction, and it is a
well known "fact" that man never walked on the
moon. Yes, Elvis lives, as a matter of fact, I
have met him at a recovery center in the South of
France, where lady Di has gone in hiding too.
Facts are no longer facts, it appears, but how
have they ever become facts in the first place?
What does this overworked four-letter word -
derived from the Latin "factum" or "man-made
thing" - really stand for? When was it used and
what were the events or pieces of information
that received this seemingly untouchable label?
Who elevated mere descriptions, stories,
anecdotes and gossip to the semisanct status of
undoubtable, solid and fool-proof status of
factual evidence?
Barbara Shapiro, a professor of history in the
Graduate School at the University of California,
Berkeley, retraces the early history of the
concept of "fact" in the United Kingdom in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It starts in
the courts, when juries and judges were urged by
early modern thinkers to ground their verdicts on
facts as witnessed by reliable and trustworthy
observers. Sir Thomas More and Sir Francis Bacon
(himself a professional lawyer), among many other
lesser-known philosophers, contributed to the
advancement of the "fact" in the legal arena,
although it may come as a surprise that they
thought gentlemen to be more reliable than
commoners and men more trustworthy than women.
In a matter of decades the concept gradually
spread from law to historiography, chorography
and travel reporting. By the end of the sixteenth
century, reporters of "marvels," "wonders" and
other "news" in the periodical press had adopted
the practice of quoting witnesses and their
antecedents to support the factual status of
their stories and with the founding and the
development of the Royal Society, "facts" became
part and parcel of scientific discourse. Finally,
at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the
use of the word had become so common in English
culture that it appeared even in religious texts.
Barbara Shapiro has taken the work of Shapin and
Shaffer (see *Leviathan and the Air Pump, Hobbes,
Boyle and the Experimental Life*, Princeton, 1985
- a landmark work on the development of early
scientific thought and on the societal nature of
science and knowledge) to heart and clearly
demonstrates how the fact originated in law, not
in science, and how this epistemological concept
moved from one realm to the other, reshaping the
structure of knowledge in its wake. She does so
in eight thematically arranged chapters, rather
than one chronologically ordered narrative,
giving enough side information for the reader to
get the complete picture. She draws from a truly
formidable range of reference, appropriately
organized in the footnotes to keep the prose
clear and readable, and she strikes a balance
between "factual" description and epistemological
interpretation. This makes this book a good read
for both historians and amateurs - in the modern
sense - of intellectual and cultural history.
_____________________________
AMERICAN MODERNISM: GRAPHIC DESIGN, 1920 TO 1960
by R. Roger Remington with Lisa Bodenstedt, New
Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2003. 192 pp.,
250 color illustrations. Paper, $35.00. ISBN:
0-300-09816-2.
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens, Department of Art,
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA
50614-0362, U.S.A.
ballast at netins.net
To the extent that any country is a melting pot,
its culture is indebted to the traditions that
were brought in by its emigrants, whether
European, Asian, African or whatever. But with
luck, those same traditions mix, through
synergistic alchemy, into new and original
cultural forms, of which perhaps the most famous
example is jazz. At times, related claims are
made about a cluster of graphic designers who
flourished in the U.S. in the years before and
after World War II, and whose styles are
sufficiently different from other influences as
to merit the special, distinguishing tag of
"American Modernism."
A surprising number of these designers were born
and raised in the Midwest (e.g. Merle Armitage,
Lester Beall, Bradbury Thompson, Noel Martin and
Charles Eames), while others grew up in the
cities (Paul Rand, Saul Bass and Alvin Lustig).
Without exception, they were wonderfully smart
and resourceful; they were also eager for
experimentation, so much so that they all
embraced the European avant-garde (in particular
De Stijl, surrealism, the Bauhaus, and
Tschichold's new typography), acquired firsthand
in some cases by working side by side with recent
emigrants, among them Ladislav Sutnar, Alexey
Brodovitch, Herbert Bayer and Will Burtin. At the
same time, they did not complacently align with
that influence, but practiced what in retrospect
is a seamless amalgam of European modernism and
American regionalism, in the sense that its
softened geometry is not unlike the art produced
by Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper,
Charles Sheeler, and others who were active in
the WPA-era.
The author of this beautiful book, design
historian R. Roger Remington, is as well-informed
about this subject as anyone, and is widely known
for his efforts as the founder of the Graphic
Design Archives, a large collection of printed
ephemera and other research materials in the
Wallace Library at the Rochester Institute of
Technology. This volume, which is his fourth and
largest study of various aspects of this segment
of design history, begins in the nineteenth
century and retraces the emergence of the
European avant-garde. It slows down as it looks
more reflectively at the major representatives of
American modernism, then resumes speed as it
surveys the 40-year period near the end of the
twentieth century, in which modernism is replaced
by the maze that we currently find ourselves in.
In addition to Remington's wonderful text, it is
exquisitely designed (as it really has to be, to
practice what its text promotes) by Brad Yendle
and stunningly illustrated by 250 color
illustrations of the finest, most unforgettable
works from an historic period in which not just
graphic design, but cinema, literature, dance,
popular music and other forms of expression were
produced at a very high level.
(Reprinted by permission from *Ballast Quarterly Review*.)
_____________________________
A THING IN DISGUISE: THE VISIONARY LIFE OF JOSEPH PAXTON
By Kate Colquhoun, Fourth Estate, London 2003. £18.99.
Reviewed by Dennis Dollens, Department of Genetic
Architecture, Universitat Internacional de
Catalunya, Barcelona.
exodesic at mac.com
Joseph Paxton, when he is remembered, is known
for his design and supervision of the Crystal
Palace - the 1851 cast-iron and glass structure
that transcended its garden heritage (evolving
from greenhouses) to become the world's most
advanced, technological structure. Enclosing 21
acres and erected in a few months, the Crystal
Palace housed England's first blockbuster
international exhibition. Media and promotional
support was so great during its development that
the building became the exhibition's main
attraction. Its physical structure came to embody
early Victorian ideals of work and industry, as
its image seeded future visions affecting urban
building typologies such as glass atria, shopping
arcades and railroad stations. Interestingly, the
Crystal Palace's appeal and vision crossed social
boundaries, receiving the early support of Prince
Albert and Queen Victoria, then subsequently
garnering working-class support in the form of
massive attendances (it was one of Cook's Tours
first destinations and workers could pay travel
expenses through advanced weekly subscription).
Such a building would be the life's triumph of a
great engineer or architect, but a gardener built
the Crystal Palace; and it was only one of Joseph
Paxton's many triumphs.
So, while Kate Colquhoun's chapters describing
the Crystal Palace are full of revelations, those
surrounding them tell a fairytale-like story of a
developing genius. They reveal Paxton's
autodidactic path and his ongoing and deep
relationship with his patron and later friend and
colleague, the sixth Duke of Devonshire. Paxton's
training ground was the Duke's Chatsworth estate
where, over his lifetime, he transformed
landscape, garden, waterworks and eventually
architectural history, concurrently transforming
himself into a Victorian icon of work and
intelligence. His collaboration with the Duke
resulted in botanic expeditions that added new
and formerly unknown trees, plants and orchids to
England's botanic patrimony; together, the Duke
and Paxton made Chatsworth the botanic showplace
of Europe. Through channels independent of the
Duke, Paxton wrote and edited garden magazines
and later founded a general London newspaper,
hiring Charles Dickens as editor. Even as writing
supplemented his healthy Chatsworth income, he
also took on independent design work (notably
designing Baron Mayer de Rothschild's 1855
estate), as well as serving as a board member and
consultant for various railways.
If one nineteenth-century structure could
represent the seed of a new architecture - and
like botanic seeds, there are an abundance of
architectural seeds - Paxton's 1835-38 "Great
Stove" (as his greenhouse masterpiece was known)
would be my foremost candidate. Looking at
pictures of it (it was demolished in 1920), one
could be looking at a prismatic or origami-like
structure from today's avant-garde. As a piece of
pre-Victorian design it is dazzling, anticipating
Bruno Taut's crystal architecture by almost 80
years. The Great Stove is a set of continuous
folding facets or, as Colquhoun tells us, "furrow
and ridges," arched and curved to cover an
enormous 30,000 square feet.
Primarily a wood-framed building, the stove's
elements were steam-milled on site. Its glass
scales were the largest panes available (48 x 6
in) and, when inserted into the skeletal-like
frame, created a lightweight, undulating skin
supported by 36 interior, cast-iron columns. A
material hybrid not possible before the
industrial revolution, this building's
morphological shape also owed nothing to
architectural history. Yet, it was effectively
Paxton's testing-ground for prefabrication and a
model for techniques he later refined for the
Crystal Palace. Therefore, if the Crystal Palace
is considered the beginning of enormous-scale
prefabrication projects, eventually leading to
modernism, the Great Stove and other works at
Chatsworth, especially the glasshouse sheltering
the gigantic Amazonian water lily, Victoria
regia, were its germinating bed. Colquhoun's book
rights this neglected parentage.
*A Thing in Disguise* charts Paxton's development
as gardener, landscape designer, writer,
architect, politician, family man and friend; all
part of his historic role in nineteenth-century
England. Paxton was a determined, hard worker who
became a national figure - the common man who
worked his way to the top - he was elected to
Parliament and knighted by Queen Victoria. This
is a benchmark biography and deserves an honored
place on every library shelf serving architects,
engineers, gardeners and those interested in
Victorian technology and culture.
_____________________________
THE BOOK OF THE PHARAOHS
by Pascal Vernus and Jean Yoyotte, translated
from the French by David Lorton, Cornell
University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003, 233
pp., illus. Cloth, $35.00, ISBN: 0-8014-4050-5.
Reviewed by Enzo Ferrara, IEN Galileo Ferraris, Materials Department,
Strada delle Cacce, 91, 10135 Turin, Italy.
ferrara at ien.it
"The universe rests on the pharaoh, who is
mandated on earth by the creator god to repel
evil and chaos" - Christiane Ziegler (Louvre
Research Unit Director)
The term "pharaoh," handed down through the
Bible, comes from the Egyptian "per-aâ," which
originally designated the royal palace but later
referred to its ruler, emblem of the rich and
complex Egyptian civilization. The pharaohs,
almighty kings of many forms, dominated the whole
Egyptian perspective on human life and ruled over
a huge, unified territory spanning 4,000
kilometers along the banks of the Nile.
Egyptian society could not have functioned
properly without the pharaoh's presence. The
importance and the role of the pharaoh as an
intermediary between the natural and supernatural
realms can be appreciated through the quantity of
his effigies, multiplied everywhere in ancient
Egypt to grant that divine forces take care of
human affairs. The most eminent pharaohs amount
to no more than 50; among them, the names of
kings such as Cheops, Akhenaten, Ramesses,
Tutankhamon and Alexander the Great have become
part of popular culture. Their profiles are
well-known, extensively sketched in portraits,
busts, decorated heads and bas-reliefs worldwide.
However, the images of the pharaoh we have
inherited are always stereotyped, as imposed by
the ideology to respect and testify to the
continuity of Egyptian culture and art. For all
the tombs, statuary and other relics that have
survived, little deals with the daily work of the
government, the court, or the private life of the
royal family. Historians can scarcely uncover the
individuality of kings, although they can
scrutinize the policy and warfare during each
period and each reign. Thus, this effort by the
French Egyptologists Vernus and Yoyotte to write
down *The Book of the Pharaohs* is appreciable.
Their volume examines what lies behind the
formalism and monumental majesty of the pharaohs,
offering critical and practical information for
an objective characterization of the reigns and
personalities of the "great" pharaohs, but also
to make account of the greatest possible number
of less-celebrated sovereigns.
As suggested by the original title of the French
edition, *Dictionnaire des pharaons* (1996), the
book resembles an encyclopedia, with
alphabetically ordered short essays on the
places, dynasties, subjects and themes relating
to the kings and their rule in ancient Egypt.
Each entry contains information on the etymologic
origin of the name, along with genealogical and
historical data, and most of them conclude with
an essential bibliography for further reading on
the major sources of Egyptian history. Entries on
specific cultures such as Hyksos, Hurrians and
Hittites have been integrated and, to broaden the
cultural "landscape," brief chapters also deal
with non-royal personalities, institutions,
practices and concepts.
It is difficult to recognize plain chronological
connections in the history of ancient Egypt. For
the Egyptians, time was a cyclic progression: the
ascension to the throne of a pharaoh marked the
first year of a new era, to be ended with his
death. Everything written or materially
reproduced thus became eternal or, more properly,
outside of time: artistic expressions, whether
utilized in a tomb or a temple, mainly served a
functional, rather than an artistic end. Thus,
the sequences of dynasties, the classification of
reigns and periods with coeval sovereigns are not
easy to reconcile with the continuity apparent in
the artistic tradition.
Vernus and Yoyotte recognize this limitation:
"The dates in this table, as well as those in the
entries ... cannot pretend to fix in time
precisely and irrevocably the important moments
and the major events. The textual and
archaeological realities condemn us to this
humility ... or rather, to this humiliation" (p.
VIII). Even so, they offer information to place
the monarchs, at least approximately, in the
historical context of their respective periods
and the volume contains entries devoted to the
"Kingdoms" and "Intermediate Periods" and to each
of the dynasties as they succeeded one another.
Queens are considered as well, from Hatshepsut,
the first, to Cleopatra VII Philopator, last
representative of the Ptolemaic dynasty and,
after Teye and Nefertiti, the fourth female
pharaoh of Egypt. The last entry is the "Zero
Dynasty," inserted in the revised English
edition. This is a strange but appropriate
indication of the pre-dynastic period that was
recognized as have existed earlier than the
foundation of Memphis and the unification of Low
and High Reigns.
The Egypt of the pharaohs still attracts
scholarly attention and highly publicized
exhibits continuous to inspire popular
fascination. *The Book of the Pharaohs* is
intended for a wide audience. It efficaciously
spans, although concisely, 3,000 years of history
of the Egyptian kings, offering readers a
reference to the human reality of royal Egypt.
The volume includes a bibliography of recent
books for general readers and a chronological
table that organizes the major periods of
Egyptian history, along with the most illustrious
royal names.
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| LEONARDO JOURNAL |
|_________________________________|
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LEONARDO, VOL. 37, NO. 2 (APRIL 2004) - TABLE OF
CONTENTS AND SELECTED ABSTRACTS
=====================================
EDITORIAL
< Robert Root-Bernstein: ArtScience: The Essential Connection >
_______________________
SPECIAL SECTION - @RT OUTSIDERS FESTIVAL
< Jean-Luc Soret: Introduction: @rt Outsiders
Festival: The New Alchemists of Creation >
< Chu-Yin Chen: *Quorum Sensing*: An Interactive Installation >
< Magali Desbazeille and Siegfried Canto, with
Christine Beigel: *You Think, Therefore I Am
(Following You) (Tu penses donc je te suis)* >
< Christophe Luxereau: An Aesthetic of Emptiness >
< Daniel Mange and Gianluca Tempesti: BioWall -
An Electronic Tissue That Pulsates Like Skin >
Artists' Statements from selected participants in
the Third @rt Outsiders international digital art
festival, 18 September-20 October 2002, Paris.
Participating in the creation of a genetically
modified and living work; touching a "biological
wall" and seeing artificial life emerge; creating
creatures that visibly evolve before our eyes
within a virtual jungle; observing a living
microcosm activated by our footsteps: This was
the passionate journey that awaited visitors to
the third @rt Outsiders international digital art
festival, which took place 18 September-20
October 2002 in Paris and on
www.art-outsiders.com.
_______________________
ARTIST'S NOTE
< Franc Solina: *15 seconds of fame* >
ABSTRACT
*15 seconds of fame* is an interactive
installation that every 15 seconds generates a
new pop-art portrait of a randomly selected
viewer. The installation was inspired by Andy
Warhol's ironical statement that "in the future
everybody will be famous for 15 minutes." The
installation detects human faces and crops them
from the wide-angle view of people standing
before the installation. Pop-art portraits are
then generated by applying randomly selected
filters to a randomly chosen face from the
audience. These portraits are then shown in
15-second intervals on the flat-panel computer
monitor, which is framed as a painting.
_______________________
GENERAL ARTICLES
< Roy Ascott: Planetary Technoetics: Art, Technology and Consciousness >
ABSTRACT
As the planet becomes telematically unified, the
self becomes dispersed. The convergence of *dry*
silicon pixels and biologically *wet* particles
is creating a moistmedia substrate for art where
digital systems, telematics, genetic engineering
and nanotechnology meet. A technoetic aesthetic
will not only embrace new media, technology,
consciousness research and non-classical science
but will also gain new insights from older
cultural traditions previously banished from
materialist discourse as esoteric or shamanic. As
the century progresses, we may find ancient plant
technology allied to the emerging moistmedia
technologies of our constructed realities and new
or rediscovered realms of consciousness
contiguous with new domains of the planetary web.
In the present post-9/11 crisis, with its
competing ideas of reality and morality,
collaborative transdisciplinary research is
needed if a truly planetary culture is to emerge
that is techno-ethical as well as technoetic.
Entirely new organisms of communication, learning
and creativity must be engendered.
< Robert Thill: Intellectual Property: A
Chronological Compendium of Intersections between
Contemporary Art and Utility Patents >
ABSTRACT
The author presents a group of projects in which
the roles of inventor, artist, amateur and
institution variously overlap, merge and blur,
offering new perspectives on the relationship
between contemporary art and patents. Addressing
issues of originality, aesthetics, labor,
ownership and value, these projects demonstrate a
continuous link between art and patents and
encourage thoughtful speculation about shared
concerns, guiding ideologies and forms.
_______________________
ARTIST'S ARTICLE
< Katherine Lubar: Color Intervals: Applying
Concepts of Musical Consonance and Dissonance to
Color >
ABSTRACT
Throughout the centuries, there have been
numerous attempts to correlate elements within
the fields of music and visual art. The author
compares the 12-tone musical scale to the 12-hued
subtractive pigment color wheel commonly used by
artists and applies the principles of consonance
and dissonance in musical intervals to their
counterparts in color "intervals." The main
function of this paper is to put forth a paradigm
that can be used by artists as a point of
departure for their own explorations into the use
of color as well as to create a possible method
of analyzing works of art to understand why
certain color combinations may work well together.
_______________________
STATEMENTS
< Kok Kee Choy, *T2000* >
< Thomas Jacobsen, Kandinsky's Color-Form
Correspondence and the Bauhaus Colors: An
Empirical View >
_______________________
SPECIAL SECTION - ARTMEDIA
< Annick Bureaud: Introduction: From Aesthetics
of Communication to Net Art: The ArtMedia VIII
Symposium >
< Wolfgang Strauss and Monika Fleischmann:
Artistic Practice as Construction and Cultivation
of Knowledge Space >
Selected papers from the international symposium
Artmedia VIII: From Aesthetics of Communication
to Net Art, co-organized by Fred Forest, Mario
Costa and Annick Bureaud, Paris, December 2002.
http://www.olats.org/projetpart/artmedia/2002eng/mono_index.html
ABSTRACT
This article presents the netzspannung.org
Internet platform, a media laboratory on the
Internet that not only collects high-quality
information on digital culture and media
production but also interlinks this information,
contextualizes it and makes it available on-line
as a constantly expanding knowledge space that,
like a library, can be explored by the public as
an interactive installation and an educational
space. In the broadest sense, the aim of this
project is to visualize and semantically network
information to create "knowledge spaces" that can
be explored interactively and in real time and
that are accessible to the user through play.
Technologies, on-line tools and intuitive
interfaces are being developed that support
communication between the digital and physical
spaces and investigate new forms of knowledge
acquisition as "knowledge-based arts."
< Maurizio Bolognini: The *SMSMS* Project:
Collective Intelligence Machines in the Digital
City >
ABSTRACT
The author's *SMSMS* project, a computer-based
interactive installation, is presented, and some
implications concerning art and new technologies
are discussed. *SMSMS* derives from a previous
work, *Computer sigillati*, in which 200 machines
have been programmed to produce an endless flow
of random images and left to work indefinitely
without being connected to a monitor. In *SMSMS*,
one of the *Computer sigillati* programs is
employed to create images that are visible and
can be modified by the public using cell phones.
It is argued that *SMSMS* could be considered
indistinctly as either an exercise in collective
intelligence or, in contrast, as a disturbance to
the perfectly unpredictable working of the
machine. It is concluded that this apparent
contradiction, as well as the oppositions between
control and randomness, intelligence and chaos,
should itself be recognized as one of the most
significant themes for artistic research using
new technologies.
_______________________
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
< Rui Moreira Leite: Flávio de Carvalho: Media Artist Avant la Lettre >
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the work of Brazilian artist
Flávio de Carvalho (1899--1973) from the
perspective of contemporary media art,
highlighting his practical and theoretical
legacy. Initially associated with the
Anthropophagy art movement, Carvalho used mass
media creatively and incorporated insights from
psychology, sociology and anthropology into his
art. He realized events that went beyond
"performance art," including a pioneering
presentation on television in 1957. This article
offers a brief overview of Carvalho's trajectory.
_______________________
LEONARDO REVIEWS
< Reviews by Fred Andersson, Wilfred Niels
Arnold, Roy R. Behrens, Sean Cubitt, Dennis
Dollens, Allan Graubard, Dene Grigar, Rob Harle,
Amy Ione, Michael R. (Mike) Mosher, Robert
Pepperell, Stefaan Van Ryssen >
_______________________
LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS
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The Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) is a
listing of Masters and Ph.D. theses in the
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LEA also maintains a discussion list open only to
faculty in the field. Students interested in
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list should contact leo at mitpress.mit.edu.
_____________________________
AUTHOR
Jennifer Henderson
jenniferhenderson at sbcglobal.net
LANGUAGES FAMILIAR TO THE AUTHOR
English
THESIS TITLE
Portrait of the Artist in Red Ink
ABSTRACT
"Portrait of the Artist in Red Ink" was an
installation of artists' financial portraits on
canvas. The work, which resulted from the
application of twentieth-century capitalist
financial analysis models to artists shows,
through application of these socio-economic
research models, the precise, albeit estimated,
economic and class impact of the artist's
occupation.
Extensive interviews with artists about their
professional, lifestyle and family goals as well
as income, expense, debt load and desired
geography form the basis for the custom
interactive financial model I created of the
artist's financial future. This model enabled the
artist to explore different choices and see the
effect on income and expense for his life
expectancy. Lastly, I created the art object, a
financial portrait that contains symbols of class
from portraiture (such as home, pet and children)
combined with contemporary business graphics
(income and expense graphs) to represent the
desires of the artist against the reality of
existence.
The application of financial planning models to
artists highlights the flaws in the art economy
that an artist must contend with and shows that
living a life with enough money to create art is
perhaps the most creative endeavor of all.
KEYWORDS
capitalist, financial analysis, modeling, agency,
portrait, money, art economics, design science,
installation, business graphics, class
YEAR PUBLISHED/EXAMINED
2003
URL
http://www.jennifer-henderson.com/id27.htm
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE OF THESIS
English
COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP
Jennifer Henderson
THESIS SUPERVISOR
Joel Slayton, San Jose State University;
Professor and Coordinator of CADRE (Computers in
Art, Design, Research and Education) in the Art
and Design Department; jslayton at email.sjsu.edu
UNIVERSITY WHERE THESIS WAS CREATED
San Jose State University/CADRE
THESIS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST: contact author
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________
| |
| OPPORTUNITY |
|_________________________________|
_______________________________________________________________________
Faculty Position: Assistant or Associate Professor, New Media Arts
University of California San Diego
The University of Californa, San Diego Division of Arts and
Humanities (http://dah.ucsd.edu) invites applicants for an assistant
or beginning associate professor of new media arts, to begin July 1,
2004. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience
and based upon UC pay scales.
Candidates should have creative and/or theoretical work that
demonstrates a substantial engagement with computing in any field of
the arts such as (but not limited to) the visual arts, music, theatre
and/or dance. The position will be affiliated with the New Media Arts
area of the California Institute of Information Technology and
Telecommunications [Cal-(IT)2 - http://www.calit2.net ], and with the
Center for Research in Computing and the Arts
(CRCA - http://www.crca.ucsd.edu). The position
will involve teaching within
the Interdisciplinary Computing in the Arts Major and the development
of new digital arts graduate programs. The candidate will join one
of the departments of Visual Arts, Music, or Theatre and Dance. PhD,
MFA or commensurate professional experience is required.
To apply, please send a letter of intent including a statement of
qualifications and research interests, curriculum vitae, samples of
creative work and/or publications, along with names and addresses
(including email addresses) of three references to:
Digital Arts Search Committee
CRCA 0037
UC San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0037
The application deadline is March 10, 2004, or until the position is
filled. Please reference position #4-332-fAf in all correspondence.
Enclose self-addressed postcard for acknowledgment of application and
SASE for return of work samples.
UCSD is a major research university that promotes and supports
creative work and advanced research in all forms of the arts
including practice, history and theory. One of the ten campuses in
the world-renowned University of California system, UCSD has rapidly
achieved the status as one of the top
institutions in the nation for higher education
and research. Total current campus enrollment is
nearly 25,000. Generous research funding and
excellent studio facilities are available.
Teaching will include both graduate seminars and
undergraduate classes and active involvement with
a new interdisciplinary graduate program currently
in development.
UCSD is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer with a
strong institutional commitment to excellence through diversity.
_______________________________________________________________________
___________________
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Stephen Wilson: Chair, Leonardo/ISAST Web Committee
Craig Harris: LEA Founding Editor
Editorial Advisory Board:
Irina Aristarkhova, Roy Ascott, Michael Naimark, Craig Harris, Julianne Pierce
Gallery Advisory Board:
Mark Amerika, Paul Brown, Choy Kok Kee, Steve Dietz, Fatima Lasay, Kim Machan
fAf-LEA corresponding editors:
Ricardo Dal Farra, Elga Ferreira, Young Hae-Chang, Fatima Lasay, Lee
Weng Choy, Jose-Carlos Mariategui, Marcus Neustetter, Elaine Ng, Marc Voge
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For over a decade, Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) has thrived
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Contents include Leonardo Reviews, edited by Michael Punt,
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LEA is accessible using the following URL: http://lea.mit.edu
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< End of Leonardo Electronic Almanac 12 (02) >
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