Katharine Norman receives 2012 New Media Writing Prize

Honorary Research Fellow Katharine Norman is recipient of the 2012 New Media Writing Prize, announced by Bournemouth University and if:book UK. Norman received the prize for her work Window, an interactive sound essay in memory of John Cage. 

The work was described as "a beautiful meditation made by a composer with a love of coding and an imagination that naturally expresses itself in digital, multimedia productions. The term ‘poetic’ in this field can be code for impenetrable, but this really is a multimedia poem of depth and substance, inspired by the work and philosophy of John Cage. The viewer/listener/reader looks out of a window, hears ambient sound, evocative text, using a slider which makes it possible and pleasurable to move from day to night, to remix the balance of text to sound."

John Cousins (NZ) Guest Concert Wednesday December 5th 7pm PACE Studio 1

A performance of audiovisual works by John Cousins

'Choke' (8 channel)
'Between Floors' (16 channel)
'Say' (stereo)

John Cousins is New Zealand’s leading sonic artist.  In a career spanning more than 40 years his output embraces instrumental and vocal music, live art, photographic installations, audiovisual and acousmatic electroacoustic music.  In this concert he will present three audiovisual works in an immersive sound environment.

Preceded 3-4.30pm by a research seminar on Cousins’ audiovisual work 'Aria', in the PACE Building, Studio 1.

Entry Free! All Welcome!

Dirty Electronics Workshops in Estonia and Finland

On November 10, 2012, Dr John Richards brought a "Cut and Thrust" Dirty Electronics workshop to Ptarmigan in Estonia, where projects included an instrument based on an electric generator made from a pair of scissors and a motor appropriated from a desktop printer.

Collaborating with students of the Sibelius Academy, he also presented a concert at the Helsinki Music Centre (Musiikkitalo) on November 16.

Shenyang Conservatory of Music - Lunchtime Concert 12.00 - Wednesday 21st November - PACE Studio 1

We welcome composers and instrumentalists from the Shenyang Conservatory in China. They will introduce us to the work of the Conservatory and play some electroacoustic music by members of their community, both staff and graduates of the composition department.

Looking of a Lad by Zhao Ziwen, Wei Fangxia, Zhao Yitong, Deng Ruochuan, Ren Xiu
Ambush on All Sides in Acousmographe by Zhang Ruibo
Birth and Rebirth by Zhang Ruibo (for Guqin and Max/MSP/Jitter)
Guqin soloist: Zhu Mohan
Heng (Perserverence, Duration) for live khoomei and industrial noise with VJ - Creative Design: Xie Bingyuan, Zhang Ruibo; Khoomei: Wumuti Anniwa (bass), Zhang Ruibo (tenor); Programmer: Zhao Zhongye, Yang Tianyang; VJ: Zhou Zhengqi

Entry Free! All Welcome!

Louise Rossiter: First Prize Espace du Son

Doctoral student Louise Rossiter was awarded ex-aequo First Prize in the Espace du Son competition for intepretation/diffusion of acousmatic music, along with Thomas Gorbach. The competition was held in October by Musiques & Recherches in Belgium.

MTI Events launch with two concerts of new work

 
We welcome new members of the growing Music, Technology & Innovation Research Centre team in two concerts to open the 2012-2013 season – a feast of acousmatic surround sound, audio-visual & generative music.

Wednesday October 24th  7.30pm PACE Studio 1  – MTI Team Concert 1

John Young - Tongue (acousmatic) 
Craig Vear - Five Antarctic Solitudes (audio-visual)
Pete Batchelor - Nebula (acousmatic)
Ben Ramsay - The Batteries Of Orchards (acousmatic)
Luca Forcucci - L'Ecume des Jours (acousmatic)
Si Waite - Columns, rows and collisions: an interactive-generative piece for layered, grid-based systems (live laptop and controllers with projected visuals) 
(Note slightly later start time for this concert!)

Wednesday November 7th  7pm PACE Studio 1  – MTI Team Concert 2

Simon Atkinson - Interiorities vi (acousmatic)
Louise Rossitter - Culture Shock (acousmatic)
Andrew Hill - New work (acousmatic)
Bret Battey - Clonal Colonies (I – Fast Runners; II – Soft Strata) (audio-visual)
Weiwei Jin - La solidificacion de la memoria (acousmatic)

Entry Free!

Neal Spowage: The Dys-Appearing Body Project

Doctoral student Neal Spowage has composed music for a short film that has been produced by Ania Sadkowska as a part of her MA degree in fashion at DMU. The project is an attempt to stimulate discourse about how the human form is represented by the fashion industry as it ages. It is called the Dys-Appearing Body Project and will be presented at the Faculty MA show 6th-11th September.

John Richards: New Dartington Commission and Video

This summer John Richards completed and premiered Charge/Discharge, a commission from the Dartington Summer School. Recently completed doctoral student Andrew Hill created the following documentary on the development of the work and its performance by a special Dartington incarnation of the Dirty Electronics Ensemble.


Charge/Discharge (2012) by John Richards [Documentary & Performance] from Andrew Hill on Vimeo.

Neal Spowage: Gestures, Affordances and Sculpture

Doctoral Student Neal Spowage recently co-authored a paper, "Gestural Musical Affordances", which was presented at the Sound and Music Computing 2012 conference, held this year in Copenhagen. The paper documents a study that he devised jointly with staff and students at Newcastle Culture Lab. It compared the physical, gestural and cultural attributes of two modern design classics, the iPhone and Wii Remote, as Live Sound Control Interfaces.

On the 8th September, Neal will be performing sib Conduit (video available here). This is his recent collaboration with London based Choreographer Danai Pappa from the Agony Art collective. It will take place at the Live Interfaces conference, Leeds University School of Music. 'sib Conduit' explores the gesture and movement that is generated by sonically indeterminate sculptural instruments.

Hallucination Machines, Psychogeophysics, and Recrystalisation

Doctoral student Ryan Jordon ran over nine solo and eight collaborative workshops over the last year, while organising eight other workshops held at noise=noise/nnnnn. Here's a small sampling: More details on the workshops and projects can be found at Ryan's homepage.

Luca Forcucci Exhibition in Basel

Doctoral student Luca Forcucci will be part of an exhibition entitled Sensing Place, which will be held in Basel, Switzerland, at the House of Electronic Arts. The performance will occur on the 25th of October and will feature field recording works from the Brazilian Amazon and the city of São Paulo. Participants will include the MIT Media Lab and Christina Kübisch. Link.

Simon Emmerson - UK première - 25th June


Kings Place
90 York Way, London, N1 9AG.
Box Office on 020 7520 1490.

Jane Chapman: A Shimmering Microcosm
Out Hear Music / Monday, 25 June 2012 - 8:00pm / Hall Two

Mark Wingfield/Jane Chapman Parallel Time*
Roger Redgate Residua (First complete performance)*
Duncan Macleod The New Atlantis
Sohrab Uduman Derrière le Mirroir*
(Live visuals by Jon Barraclough)
Images by Norman McBeath (during the interval)
Stockhausen Nachtmusick (Aus den sieben Tagen)
Simon Emmerson Dreamscape**
(Live visuals by David Bickerstaff)
Wingfield Smouldering Bridge*

*World premiere **UK premiere

Performer(s):
Jane Chapman harpsichord (percussion)
Kate Ryder piano
Mark Wingfield electric guitar

'There came a moment of madness when the feeling harpsichord thought that it was the only harpsichord in the world, and that the whole harmony of the universe resided in it.' Diderot (1769)

Pioneering harpsichordist Jane Chapman brings together ground-breaking performers and visual artists in a unique collaboration, exploring ideas of existence and reality through state-of-the-art technology and dramatic innovation.

Jane Chapman gives the first complete performance of Roger Redgate's Residua, unadulterated essence of harpsichord, and continues her 'cinematic' collaboration with electric guitarist Mark Wingfield, in a sensual symbiosis of resonating strings stretching the edges of sound. Sohrab Uduman and Jon Barraclough explore the energy generated from the fusion between live performance, live computer transformation of sound and moving image, bringing to life an aural and visual theatre of gesture, movement and allusion. In Duncan MacLeod's The New Atlantis the harpsichord is suspended in a utopian world. Pianist Kate Ryder and harpsichord then play a strange sonic game in Simon Emmerson's Dreamscape for live electronics and vocalisation, with interactive visuals by David Bickerstaff. Performers come together in text inspired works by Stockhausen, and Norman McBeath shows vibrant and luminous images.

"Cinematic eloquence" (Wingfield/Chapman)
The Guardian

"Britain's most progressive harpsichordist"
Independent on Sunday

"Her virtuosity commands attention"
BBC Music Magazine

http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on-book-tickets/music/jane-chapman-a-shimmering-microcosm

Anna Meredith with Dirty Electronics Ensemble

De Montfort University,
Music, Technology and Innovation
Events Series 2011-2012

Dirty Electronics with Anna Meredith
'Light, Paper, Sound'
Wednesday 30th May
7.00 pm
PACE Studio 1, Richmond St, Leicester
FREE


Anna Meredith joins Dirty Electronics with a new commission for electronics and large group. Small intimate jewellery boxes, each with their own unique character, house oscillators and lights, and are opened and closed by performers to create choral-like chords, sequences and flashes of light. The concert will also feature a premier of Light, Paper, Sound by Jim Frize (for multiple optical pianolas), a performance with the Dirty Electronics 7-Segment Display, and new work by Max Wainwright.

Meredith is one of the UK's most in-demand young composers. Her music is widely performed around the world and she is a regular judge, guest and commentator on BBC Television and Radio 3 and 4. Her most recently piece - HandsFree - a no-instruments piece for the National Youth Orchestra has been called "mesmerising" and "exhilarating" by The Times, "a tour de force" by the Guardian and "wicked" by the Independent and will continue to be performed by NYO throughout 2012 as part of the 20x12 Cultural Olympiad commissions. As well as her acoustic commissions, Anna has recently turned her focus to performing her eclectic electronic music and has already supported These New Puritans, James Blake, Shlomo, Broadcast and Mira Calix, performing material from her debut EP - Black Prince Fury.

www.annameredith.com
www.dirtyelectronics.org

New Multimedia Tools Symposium 3 Wednesday June 20th

As part of the AHRC funded project ‘New Multimedia Tools for Electroacoustic Music Analysis’ directed by Simon Emmerson and Leigh Landy (Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester) – and hosted by the Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities at DMU.

Symposium 3: Wednesday 20th June 2012
Theme: ‘Analysis: application, workshop, discussion’

Location: Clephan Building, Bonners Lane, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH (Room 0.01)
Time: 10.30-13.00 and 14.00-17.00
Chair: Simon Emmerson
Invited participant observer: Gary Kendall (Queens Belfast)

10.30-13.00 Application
Contributions from -
Leigh Landy (DMU) - The Next Step
David Hirst (La Trobe, via Skype) - The SIAM Framework: Segregation, Integration, Assimilation and Meaning
John Ferguson (Kingston) - Some initial thoughts on ‘Wig Wag’ (Waisvisz/Sehnaoui)
Simon Emmerson (DMU) – Capturing interaction and response
Andrew Hugill (DMU) - Towards an analysis of Papa Sangre, an audio-only game for the iPhone/iPad
Mike Gatt (DMU) - The future of OREMA

14.00-16.00 Workshop
Pierre Couprie (DMU): EAnalysis demonstration & hands on workshop
(http://logiciels.pierrecouprie.fr/?page_id=402)

OREMA participants travel bursaries available.
(http://www.orema.dmu.ac.uk/)

16.00-17.00 Discussion
Project summary, critique and future developments.

All comers welcome!
Your participation in this Symposium presupposes your consent to it being video and audio recorded.
Your contact: s.emmerson@dmu.ac.uk

Xenakis & Co with Amelides and Tzedaki

The audiorama in Stockholm is presenting a two-day tribute to Xenakis on May 4 & 5, 2012. One concert is dedicated to young Greek electroacoustic composers, including pieces by DMU postgrads Panos Amelides (Ritual Attacks and Agoras I) and Katerina Tzedaki (Reverberations).

Visible Bits, Audible Bytes


Music, Technology and Innovation
De Montfort University, Leicester
New Media Events 2011-2012

Wednesday April 25th, 2012 7pm
Phoenix Square (Film & Digital Media)
Midland Street, Leicester, LE1 1TG

Visible Bits, Audible Bytes 2

Join Phoenix Square for a compelling showcase screening of works from an eclectic group of audiovisual artists from around the world. Ranging from the playful and sensuous to the edgy and experimental, these artists and their works are redefining the potentials of sound and image in the 21st century. Curated by Bret Battey and presented by the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre at DMU.

Flat-E (images) + Ultre (music): Ionisation (2005)
Jean Piché (images and music): OCÉANES (2010-11)
Bret Battey (images and music): Clonal Colonies (2011)
Glenn Marshall (images) + Peter Gabriel (music): The Nest That Sailed the Sky (2009)
Candaş Şişman (images and music): FLUX (2010)
Jean Piché (images and music): Ange (1979/2012)
Numbercult (images and music): EVE (2009)
Robert Seidel (images) + Heiko Tippelt & Philipp Hirsch (music): _grau (2004)
Candaş Şişman (images) + Egidija Medeksaite (music): EFF-FLUX (2011)

Tickets: £6 (£3.50 conc. - £2.50 for DMU staff and students) please call the Box Office (0116-242-2800) or book online (http://phoenix.org.uk/).

Luca Forcucci "Formant / Forms of Listening to Forms"

Formant / Forms of Listening to Forms, a collaborative sound art project with members of the Shanghainese scene & doctoral student Luca Forcucci, opens in Shanghai on March 30. The exhibition is part of ongoing work by Luca Forcucci and Yin Yi to advance the development of sound art in China. It will include sound art works, talks, and concerts from Yan Jun, Yin Yi, Zhang Ding, Lawrence English and Luca Forcucci.

Luca will also play at NOISHANGHAI, curated by Torturing Noise. Appearing on the same bill are G.A.F, Tupperwear, AnastasiaAx & LarsSiltberg (Sweden, Spain and Beijing).

meta-1

Wednesday March 28th, 2012 7pm
PACE Building, Studio 1, Richmond St., Leicester

 
meta- 1

Current undergraduates are joined by recent alumni and friends to present a concert of experimental ambient electronica, live looping, soundscape, techno, house, dubstep and more.

Muted Fnord (David Dhonau, Andrew Johnston, Ola Szmidt, Jim Tetlow)
sleuf & envelope (Adam Chetty and Tim Matthews)
Plutonic Pleasure (Dean Sharman)
Plans for Montiga (Paul Mansell)


Entry Free!

MTI-team extended – Frosinone – Montréal


Wednesday March 14th, 2012 7pm
PACE Building, Studio 1, Richmond St., Leicester

MTI’s Panos Amelides and Adam Chetty are joined by composers from our exchange partners Frosinone (Italy) - Dario Amoroso, Gabriele Paolozzi, – and Montreal – Sébastien Lavoie - to perform a concert of acousmatic works.

Dario Amoroso                         Mac vs PC
Gabriele Paolozzi                          Vocal Mutations
Adam Chetty                         Ecological Harmony: Public (I)
Sébastien Lavoie                         In My Camaro
Panos Amelides                         Alexandros (excerpt)
Mirko Ettore D'Agostino              Super Mikro World
Luca De Siena                          Telephonie


Entry Free!

MTI Symposium at Cultural Exchanges Festival

‘Extending analysis: emotion, brain, computation’

As part of the AHRC funded project ‘New Multimedia Tools for Electroacoustic Music Analysis’ directed by Simon Emmerson and Leigh Landy (MTI)

Wednesday 29th February 11am-1pm & 2-5pm
Clephan Building, Bonners Lane - Room 0.01
Free
  • Keynote speakers: ‘Emotion, Cognition, Computation’ Gary Kendall (Queen’s University Belfast): “Meaning in Electroacoustic Music: Feeling, Emotion and the Aesthetic Experience” Michael Young (Goldsmiths, University of London): “Why now? Contingencies and Identities in Interactive and Generative Music” Simon Durrant (University of Lincoln): “Write it how you hear it: how neuroscience and psychology may help inform electroacoustic music analysis”
  • Also Leigh Landy, Simon Emmerson, Pierre Couprie (EAnalysis), Michael Gatt and OREMA contributors Ben Ramsay, Manuella Blackburn, Panos Amelides, Andrew Hill, Ambrose Seddon
Box Office - to book a place -
Tel.: 0116-250-6229 Online: dmu.ac.uk/culturalexchanges

MTI Events feature in Cultural Exchanges Festival


Thursday March 1st, 2012 7pm
PACE Building, Studio 1, Richmond St., Leicester

Leigh Landy 60th Birthday Concert
With Jos Zwaanenburg (flute)

A series of three radio-based spatialised and very humorous works (French, English and German – with subtitles) are presented with two live works for flutes and recordings performed by virtuoso flautist, Jos Zwaanenburg in which musical sounds can be heard from Europe, Africa and Asia.

Oh là la radio (2007), To BBC or Not (2008), Radio-aktiv (2011)
Wolken Wind Schermen (Clouds Wind Screens 1976), Ceci n’est pas une flûte (1989-90), both revised 2011 – for flutes and electronics.


Friday March 2nd, 2012 7pm
PACE Building, Studio 1, Richmond St., Leicester

Light, Space and Shadow  - John Young 50th Birthday Concert
With Xenia Pestova (piano)

The programme includes three recent works: Smoke and Mirrors, a 16-channel immersive soundscape commissioned by Radio France in 2008, Are You Everybody? an audiovisual collaboration with photographer Lala Meredith-Vula and X for piano and electroacoustic sounds featuring Welsh- based pianist Xenia Pestova.


Presented by the composers.

Box Office - to book a place -
Tel.: 0116-250-6229
Online: dmu.ac.uk/culturalexchanges

Oded Ben-Tal on the Emerging Digital Improviser

Oded Ben-Tal (Kingston University) visits MTI and the Institute of Creative Technologies on Wednesday, 8 February to discuss "From algorithmic composition to live electronics, or an emerging digital improviser". Ben-Tal will describe his mixed (acoustic + electronic) compositions. He will start from pieces with fixed tape parts generated algorithmically, but will focus primarily on the implementation of simple machine listening strategies for live, interactive work. At issue will be the question at which point (if at all) does this become an improvising system.

1pm. IOCT Lab, Gateway Street, Leicester

DJ Sniff and Dirty Electronics Concert

Takuro Lippitt (dj Sniff) (STEIM, Amsterdam), with members of DMU’s Dirty Electronics Ensemble and Music, Technology & Performance students will present a concert of pieces that explore STEIM's new CrackleHack and pieces for motors, ostrich feathers and air fresheners. The concert will also feature turntablist Amit Patel.

Friday February 3rd, 2012 7pm – Note change from normal concert day. PACE Building, Studio 1, Richmond St., Leicester

Entry Free!

Trevor Wishart – Encounters in the Republic of Heaven

Trevor Wishart will present Encounters in the Republic of Heaven ... all the colours of speech ... in concert at MTI on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 — as part of MTI's New Media Events series.

Encounters is an 8-channel sound-surround piece based on speaking voices recorded in the North East of England where Trevor Wishart was A.C.E. Composer-in-Residence 2006-2009, based at the University of Durham. The piece is constructed in 4 Acts of approximately 20 minutes each, combining portraits of individual speakers (accompanied by sounds and imaginary instruments derived from the voices themselves) with computer animation of the entire community of voices - speech that waltzes, speech that locks in harmony, clouds of speech that circle the audience, culminating with speech that transforms into song. The piece was finally completed on January 1st 2011.

The concert will be in the PACE Building, Studio 1, Richmond St., Leicester. Admission is free.

Beams and Sonorities: The Electronic Dumbell

Photo: Sally Trussler
Doctoral student Neal Spowage appears in the news section of the winter 2011 edition of Computer Music Journal, performing with his Electronic Dumbell at the BEAM 2011 festival.

His piece sib Conduit, which he composed for his Electronic Dumbell in collaboration with choreographer Danai Pappa, has been accepted to the Sonorities 2012 Festival at Queens University, Belfast.

John Richards Featured in "The Wire" and "Future Music"

John Richards' Dirty Electronics featured in the #335 January 2012 edition of Wire magazine. In addition to an interview in the print edition and inclusion in  Office Ambience #335, there is also a Dirty Electronics Web Exclusive for the Wire that includes a piece for the Mute Synth and video of a Dirty Electronics performance at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London.

John Richards also featured in a two page interview in the January 2012 edition of Future Music magazine.