It may have something to do with my age; I hit my teens in the late ‘80s and at that time I was obsessed, not specifically with music, but with music video, in particular a show on the ABC network, ‘Rage’.  Every Friday and Saturday night I would set [...]]]> AKA: the position of researcher

It may have something to do with my age; I hit my teens in the late ‘80s and at that time I was obsessed, not specifically with music, but with music video, in particular a show on the ABC network, ‘Rage’.  Every Friday and Saturday night I would set a VCR to record in extended play, as much of the show as would fit.  From these recordings I would isolate the artists to obsess over, for their image not just their song.

In ‘Timeshift: on visual culture”(1991) Sean Cubitt states that “music video is heir to both the referential qualities of music and older visual elements of performance and spectacle.” (p. 46) This world of the MTV cliché held more magic than a glimpse at the rock ‘n roll lifestyle.  I witnessed micro-narratives, identities deconstructed, puzzling imagery and a number of hotel rooms trashed.  In the article ‘Images of performances, Images as performances.  On the (in-) Differentiability of music video and visual music’ Markus Weiß describes the development of music video as an economic move by the music industry “…intended to replace costly live appearances.” (2009)  Considering the relative lack of critical dialogue on the influence of music video in AV performance, one might consider them merely a form of advertising, unworthy of reflection, yet they “…can also be seen as a kind of televisual music theatre” (Ibid).  The mythologising of both artist and practice is a recurrent feature of music video assisted by broad cultural sampling and trans-media referencing.  The location of a popular music artist within their field is an evolving identity, distinct from reality.  The combination of sound and vision projected a vision of the artist as beyond regular humanity, conflating them with the stars of Hollywood, in ways lavish and gritty, garish and mysterious.  Of the recurrent directors, many refuges from the experimental cinema and video scene established an occasional payday, like Derek Jarman and Bruce Connor.  There work would help bring what was avant-garde into more mainstream acceptance, and in works like Bruce Connor’s video for Devo, ‘(It’s A) Beautiful World’ that we see a clear example of the way sound and vision, in juxtaposition, can draw out a deeper, more satisfying meaning.

When thinking about the representation of sound, a question I ask myself (and others) is “what does this sound make me (think I) see?”  The consideration that sound might inspire the imagination towards iconic identification is a theme extrapolated from Richard Wagner’s theory and application of the leitmotif, a repeated musical phrase associated with a person, place or idea.  Where synaesthesia is the by-product of a specific neurological condition, audio-visual syncretism is a learned perceptive ability more readily connected to cultural objects.  As John Whitney describes in ‘Digital Harmony’ (1980):

Some visualise… descriptive images while others falter with literal “realities”; associating music with images of conductor, performer, opera star, rock star – even the occasionally lurid images of pop music lyrics. (p. 14)

The connections are not arbitrary; they are culturally defined, relating to the tacit knowledge accumulated from years of exposure to integrated media.

Via email correspondence, Ian Andrews explains further that “when images and words come into music… that changes everything. There is the possibility of meaning, the opportunity to say something, or not say something. One can either take up that challenge or retreat into hermetic abstraction.” (2010)  In my history of making what is now comfortably called “Sound Art”, I’ve always been more concerned with the images and thoughts that a piece of music might conjure; the possibility for meaning, if not a direct statement of intent; than notion of pitch, duration or tonality.  I see myself as a primarily visual musician, composing works with texture, colour, language, and imagery in preference to pitches and durations.

‘Let’s hear it for the Vague Blur’, created with Joe Musgrove as the outfit Diaspora (2004) began life as a fairly solid 40-minute soundscape; yet we felt it needed a different trajectory than a de-rigueur release on CDR only to then disappear into the file-sharing aether to be forgotten.  Together we constructed imagery of an Abstract Expressionist nature that would suggest without leading audience interpretation.   Originating with a series of stills generated by ‘GoogleSynth’, a program that creates mashed pixel-scapes from one or more images sourced through Google’s image search function, we then motion-tracked across the results in an animation style similar to the use of a Rostrum camera setup in documentaries.  The slow moving, blurry mess of colours when synced to the soundscape was intended to emulate a hypnagogic state, the point between wakefulness and sleep where abstract hallucinations are often projected on the back of one’s eyelids.  As the video screened at a number of festivals in Australia and abroad, we started receiving audience reports asking us to confirm their individual narratives.  Many of these narratives, as retold by different audience members, possessed a startling similarity, outlining what could be an example of the cultural form of AV communication.  Absent of the traditional structure and content of a preset language, we had unwittingly created a cryptographic cinema that substitutes narrative for a linguistic puzzle.   Musical sounds, associated with visual symbols for the audience, producing a meaning that is neither exclusive to sight nor sound but to what Michel Chion, in Audio Vision (1994) calls “transensoriality” (p. 136).   From this point on, my work has invariably used or referenced transensoriality in some form.  Be it the composed sound of a film without actors on the Room40 CD release, ‘Mise En Scene’(2006); the construction and use of artificial life algorithms for real time AV composition; or the continued experiments into hypnagogic syncretism through the N4rgh1l3 AV performance duet with Andrew Thomson (see below).

My place within this research is, as a sound artist, working with predominantly visual ideas.  I’m interested in exploring effective modes and approaches to audio visualisation and see integrated digital AV performance as a vital alternative to traditional engagements with sound and image.  I believe this field could certainly approach the kind of universality that Whitney aspired to, but that it currently lacks direction is down to critical dialogues concerned with the parts of AV and not the sum total of the performative experience.  My research is therefore focused on the construction of a typology for audiovisual performance that demonstrates, reflects and explains the nature of current practice, through a consideration of the divergent influences on the hybrid field with respect to successful approaches deployed by active practitioners.

Over two nights, the vacuously named “Queensland Terrace” became a science fair of experimental music machines and sound sculptures including Rod Cooper’s superb “Vessel” augmented by a group of manipulators and Anthony Magen’s [...]]]> Recently N4rgh1l3 performed at the State Library of Queensland as part of the Douglas Kahn / Other Film presentation “Wireless Imagination“.

Over two nights, the vacuously named “Queensland Terrace” became a science fair of experimental music machines and sound sculptures including Rod Cooper’s superb “Vessel” augmented by a group of manipulators and Anthony Magen’s playful use of data projection.

Saturday night was an ungainly pile-up of where all performers grabbed a space and commenced braying to an increasingly diminished audience of fair-weather intellectuals. Within this morass we found an abstract corner jutting out into the night to project a new work entitled “Aurora Magnetica”.

n4rgh1l3 : A Roarer Magnetica pt1 from Andrew Thomson on Vimeo.

Technically this is not a projection mapping as we had not mapped the surface prior to setting up, however the abstract nature of the visuals suited a non-standard boundary and the play between shape and outside elements (mirrored ceilings, city backdrop) change the nature of the composition. The section above was recorded during a “showcase” segment where each of the artists were encouraged to solo. For us it worked much better on the second night as the material (sonically at least) was designed to function as part of a greater whole.

The setup for this performance utilised Ableton Live 8 and VDMX from my trusty Macbook Pro laptop. I setup the software as a split screen to enable Andrew to work the video section with mouse/keyboard while I could still see through to Live and manipulate sound elements with the APC40 controller. All sound to image correlations are imagined in this case as there was no synchresis: the audio analysis was not working effectively in VDMX so we shut it off. To reflect the theme of “Wireless Imaginations”, which riffs off Kahn’s interest in electromagnetic interference, I used the sounds of machines humming and buzzing alongside some of our Wired Lab recordings to construct the soundscape in real time. Source footage combined our usual obsession with saturated plays with shadow and light reduced to greyscale and combined with a number of choice renders from Artmatic Pro; a software purchase that I feel will become my holiday game as I remain as fascinated as I am baffled with how it works. An unintended consequence of projecting on a dark olive surface is that the greyscale transformed into a monochromatic green redolent of 80s IBM DOS display.

n4rgh1le: A Roarer Magnetica pt2 from Andrew Thomson on Vimeo.

For the second night the idea was to focus on short sets from each of the performers and so we prepared more connective tissue between sound and image. Aside from a messy mid section and relative lack of communication between Andrew and I regarding changes this variation is slightly more “together”, though I wonder if engagement will dissipate outside of real time in comparison to the first piece.

So in all this practical work i’ve let the theoretical and ethnographic sides of my research down a little and i’m hoping to make amends with a couple of upcoming engagements. So as not to make this blog a wall of text I will deal with these in the next post.

Turkish group Cotton AV (seen working above with Volkan Ergen) are one of many groups around the world exploring the live manipulation of audio visuals. One of their previous musical partners started up an interesting argument on the Audiomulch discussion list about [...]]]>
VOLKAN ERGEN // POOLPOOLPOOLPOOLPOOLPOOLPOOL // PART-2 from VOLKAN ERGEN on Vimeo.

Turkish group Cotton AV (seen working above with Volkan Ergen) are one of many groups around the world exploring the live manipulation of audio visuals. One of their previous musical partners started up an interesting argument on the Audiomulch discussion list about the use of Visuals in live experimental music performance.
The following is an excerpt:

Korhan Erel:
I hope my words did not imply that I find all laptop performances dull. That’s not what I think.

Don Hill:
It wasn’t that you said it. Plenty of people (and not even here) I know have expressed the opinion that it’s hard to tell what’s going on. “Are they manipulating parameters? Effecting the incoming sound of the room/audience? Actually writing code? What, is this another guy with iTunes, checking his e-mail?”

I know what goes on. I have plenty of friends who do music/sound-artthis way. Doesn’t bother me if they’re staring at their screen.

I have seen a lot of LT artists using video or collabing w/ VJs lately. That’s the road I think I’ll take. For me it’s more a matter of insecurity. I’ve played bass for crowds as big as 5000+, no problem. Put me in front of 10 people where I’m the center of attention, and I’m all thumbs and left feet. :^P

Korhan Erel:
Actually, my first solo laptop performance in years was two weeks ago. It was based on a video of the Turkish prime minister babbling how fucking great he is. What I did was use the Kaosspad to control a few
effects here and there and use a keypad to trigger some samples. As I wanted the audience to focus more on the video, I placed myself and the laptop away from the audiences view. There was no reason for the audience to see me (and if someone was really desperate to see my fat face, they could slightly lean to their right and reach salvation).

Yiorgis talks about actually facing the speakers while performing solo. I have been thinking about that – to sit among the audience, preferably in the back rows. However, then there is absolutely nothing to look at for the audience. This may be desirable from a puristic perspective, but the audience in Turkey is fairly new to experimental, avant-garde music and there is a danger of alienating them when you give them nothing to relate to except for the music. Using video or working with VJs provide a practical solution to this, but I would prefer either to prepare the video myself or design the whole performance from scratch with the VJ.

Yiorgis Sakellariou:
By using visuals it’s like admiting that music just isn’t enough to sustain the audiences interest. Working with a visual artist for a specific concept is always a good idea but again I feel that music loses it’s unique power and the opportunity to live the excitement of “pure” sound. A friend who doesn’t use visuals told me once, in
sarcasm: “I can watch TV at home!”

Korhan Erel:
If you use video just to give the audience something to look at, yes.
That’s why I said I would not work with a random VJ in an improvised
manner. I had the pleasure of seeing Rechenzentrum, a german band with
two musicians and one video artist, twice and I loved their use of
video. I also watched a video / sound performance called Tempelhof by
Tom America in Amsterdam, which was another great example of merging
music, spoken word and video.

Club music is another story. There’s a driving beat and the audience
reacts to it in many different ways, ranging from bobbing one’s head
to jumping around like a lunatic Mouse on Mars is great at that
too, though their performance isn’t only laptop.

As I said in the previous mail, I would never put visual just for the
sake of giving the audience something to look at. That’s absurd. It’s
like the text most electroacoustic tape music composers feel obliged
to provide to their audience – full of abstractions, metaphors, etc
which aims to ‘conceptualize’ the sounds/music.

Just a handful of opinions relating to the use / abuse of video in experimental electronic performances.
On one hand we have the suggestion that laptop based performance needs something beyond mere sound production in order to entertain the audience (visuals being one kind of extra). The other suggestion is that performers should not have to adopt extraneous performative tropes in order to satisfy a fickle audience; as if that might be cheapening your art somehow.

On publication (in September 08) this discussion was one of the catalysts behind my drive to commit to research in this area. The area of gestural control and performance aesthetics within electronic music have a theoretical basis going back over a decade now. What i’m interested in challenging is the separatist notion that audio and video, remain separate entities with one leading the other. The arguments broached focus on sound as the primacy whereas my focus is on a form of synaesthetic composition incorporating both equally.

P.tree verz from Andrew Thomson on Vimeo.

I come from a background in Film, Multimedia, Music and Education. My sonic work has consistently explored notions of cinema and I have on occasions produced visual work to support my sonics. To my mind it feels comfortable and makes sense to combine elements I have interest in without lending priority to any one medium.

When Andrew Thomson and I started collaborating as n4rgh1l3 we were initially at a loss to really produce work that was really iconic, representative of our combined creative talents and of any real interest or quality. It was, after a period of reflection that we came upon the notion that our mutual appreciation of Abstract Expressionist images and sounds might be unified to produce a unique and representative performance aesthetic.

When generating the audio and video content we are conscious of working in similar fashions with both types of media. Sound elements are recorded from natural and occasionally synthetic sources are processed and filtered in order that they work to fulfill a role within a broader soundscape. In a similar fashion still images and captured footage are sequenced, filtered and composited in order that when combined they will provide an interesting visual landscape. Sound and Image are then combined in preproduction and both sound and image are mixed and manipulated live in software (currently Isadora Windows Beta and Audiomulch.) In addition to the software we use external midi controllers to allow for useful gestural control and design our performance interfaces with this in mind.

At this stage I feel that there is little inherently new in what we are producing. The production and performance aesthetic harkens back to the mid-late 90s when both of us earned our stripes producing and performing post-industrial drone/noise/electronica within the burgeoning Brisbane Noise Scene.

It is for me however very satisfying that the tools exist to be able to create what is for me a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk. The kind of total experience that i’ve always thought much live electronic performance seriously lacks. In this state of mind i’ve been lead to consider what this means to the art of electronic musical performance and how I see the relationship between the art, the performer and the audience. I share as much enthusiasm for Visual Music, the work of artists like Stan Brakhage and expanded cinema types as I do for the ideas behind the performative act as it relates to popular (and relatively unpopular) music of the last century.

Consider the following with reference to a laptop performance:

• sound and image exist as data/assets on the live performance HD
• neither has any obvious priority depending on what software you are using (Isadora, Pure Data and Max/MSP/Jitter amongst others consider them all to be media files for reproduction)
• processes for generating, manipulating and reproducing both assets share obvious semiotic connections (opacity=volume / colour=tonality / cuts, sequences, loops etc…)

Given these simple few assumptions my goal with my work and research is to examine the frameworks applied by other practitioners who work with live AV to see if, and how they apply similar semiotic connections. While modern laptop musicians are more readily adopting gestural control systems that add considerable value to the use of computers in a live context, i’m concerned that this push to connect the historic notion of live musicality and virtuosity with computer based performance is ignoring developing areas within the field.

Is the performing audio-visualist a musician with videos or a visual artist with instruments?
A director, as in the cinematic sense?
As a form within forms there has been much development in content, awareness and technology over the last couple of decades. Has performative AV finally reached a point where it can finally leave the legacy of a stage bound performative act and strike out in the world with a new focus and original set of priorities?