reConstruction

This is a clip from Ryan Wurst's performance on prepared piano:

Prepared Piano - clips, screws,balloons...

For those of you who don't know, to 'prepare' an instrument means to attach objects to the strings on an instrument.  When you play it, interesting, somewhat random timbrel effects happen.

CU New Opera Workshop

Sister Carrie - 3 screen projectio

This was an impressive display of talent by the student performers, writers, and crew members.  At the beginning of the (2) week(s), the operas were read for the first time and performed by the end of the week.  I don't think I need to describe the difficulty of this.  Short operatic scenes were shown each night and each week featured a longer opera.  "Sister Carrie" composed by Robert Aldridge is the story of a woman achieving the American Dream. "Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" was composed by Herschel Garfein.  The second week's performance was the premier of "Autumn Orchard" composed by Daniel Kellog and librettist J. Michael Martinez.  It features the powerful story of Garcia Lorca's imprisonment during the Spanish Civil War.

For the performance, I projected on to three 8' x 24' vertically mounted screens for scene changes.  Instead of using MAX/MSP/Jitter as I normally would.  I experimented with Isadora which was simple enough to manipulate the scenic images created by Andrew Metzroth.  Many of Isadora's tools are helpful (especially for video), however, I would still prefer to use MAX/MSP/Jitter.

Congrats to Leigh Holman - Producer, Andrew Metzroth - Technical Director, and Halley Albers - Stage Manager

ATL&S Spring 10 Shows

The Black Box was very busy this spring with everything from world-wide electronic jam sessions to extreme multi-media collaborations. Here is a short summary of the shows I assisted with. There is more information about each show in each link.

2010.02.27

Hullo, My Name is Lily Foster

Hunter Ewen

2010.03.12-14

Gunther fest – blOrk, Psychoangelo/Safari Trio, [NYU, KAIST] link

John Gunther and Synthia Payne
CISMAT : Center for Innovative Studies in Music, Art, and Technology

2010.04.02-3

There Came a Voice/She

Jacob Herold / Esmeralda Kundanis-Grow

2010.04.16-18

Communikey Electronic Arts Festival
Produced by Kate Lesta, hosted by Communikey.us

2010.05.01

Tethered/She Waded in Time

Maximilian Shiffman / Nicole Dagesse and Tara Rynders

She Waded in Time/Tethered

“Tethered” was a special show for me because Maximilian Shiffman asked me to be a technical director and sound designer early in the process. “She Waded in Time” was an MFA Dance collaboration between Nicole Dagesse and Tara Rynders. Both contained very different scenic elements, but performers participated in both shows. This collaboration is definitely worth watching and reading about.

Check out these flickr streams for SWIT and Tethered for more pictures and video.

Communikey 10

Wow, Communikey 10 was a blast.  This year I was a member of the technical support crew.  I assisted with the planning and performance of the Artificiel performance "POWEr" as well as the other performances and workshops in the black box.  This was the third installment of the festival, and Communikey 11 is already being planned.  Other events I was involved with included the Lucky Dragons' workshops, "Make a Baby", D Numbers' "Chop Shop", performances by White Rainbow, Lissom, and a special guest performance by the eccentrically brilliant Xavier van Wersch.  Peter Kirn also gave a lecture about Processing.  You can see more about the many other events and performances on the Communikey 10 website.  I also have lots of documentation of the event.

There Came a Voice/She

The last few shows of the semester were dual projects. The first two were individual performances involving a number of interesting technology interactions. Jacob Herold’s “There Came a Voice” was a jazz performance with score for electronics and vivid projections to accompany each section. The musical theme of the piece is very memorable, and use of projections was a crucial visual element.

SHE

The second portion of this show was a live dance and video collaboration produced by Esmeralda Kundanis-Grow with video work by Mara Tasker and Nathan Minatta. The show followed a ”Tarantino-style femme fatale” theme and explored the Black Box space in an interesting way. The ceiling grid was used as scenic element and the video was an excellent performance element.

Tuning Up

For the Spring blOrk performance I composed a piece about how a laptop orchestra tunes up compared to a true orchestra.  I had a few concepts I wanted to try, one was musical and the other was more performance.  Since we have 6 blOrk stations, I wanted to simulate tuning each of these to the desired frequency, 440 Hz.  I also wanted to turn on each computer separately using a MAX object (aka.booklight) that allows you to change the brightness of the screen.  Incidentally, this is how the apple logo on the back of your laptop is lit.  So by switching the screen from completely dimmed to full brightness, it appeared that the laptop had turned on.  In fact, it was already on and ready to run my program.

Gunther fest – blOrk, Psychoangelo/Safari Trio, [CU, NYU, KAIST] link

Psychoangelo

John Gunther’s 3 day technology fest was a huge success. We participated in collaborations of every variety and pushed the limits of the Black Box Space. Day 1 was a performance with Michael Theodore and Glen Whitehead's  band Psychoangelo followed by Gunther’s Safari Trio. Day 2 was a collaboration between blOrk and members of the Safari Trio.  I also performed a piece Tuning Up which is about warming up a laptop orchestra. Finally Day 3 was a live dance, visual, and musical collaboration between NYU and KAIST university in Korea over Internet2 entitled "Memory and the Internet." Doing this all in one weekend was a technical challenge to say the least.

Hullo, My Name is Lily Foster - Hunter Ewen

Hullo, My Name is Lily Foster is a multi-media extravaganza conceived by Hunter Ewen. Extraordinary projections, paintings, poetry, and music by Hunter centered around a semi-fictitious character ‘Lily Foster” played by soprano Elizabeth Comninellis. There were live musical excerpts, aeriel dancing, and a theatrical story of a young girl coming to terms with her sexual abuse. Projections were designed in Jitter and Processing

Video Wall/Paintings

There was also a video wall with quotes to and by the fictitious Lily.  Hunter (Lily's) paintings were also showcased. 

Flickr Stream

I've been organizing a Flickr stream. Check it out, there's a lot of cool videos and pictures and drawings.
Someday this will all be integrated.... Muh, ha, ha, ha, ha...

ATL&S Fall 09 Shows

Michael Theodore was appointed the director of the new Center for Media, Arts, and Performance (formerly CAMP). He has brought a fresh perspective to the space along with collaboration with Michelle Ellsworth. As a result of the work involved in such a change, the number of shows this semester was lower than usual.

Gabe's Percussive Toothpicks

Samantha Keehn’s trombone recital featuring multi-media work inspired by William Carlos William was well received. Notable performances were with the Tesla Quartet and blOrk, and the CrumbFest, which the composer George Crumb actually attended. There were also a number of other shows which I was not involved with.  Namely, Mark McCoin's brilliant thesis performance "Gifts from Unknown Islands".  This program featured superb staging, aerial dancing, fascinating projections and performance.  Gabriel Todd was the main performer, emerging from the depths of a primordial beginning, and evolving into a technological being.  At one point, toothpicks were dropped on to his character creating a unique percussive effect.  Michelle Ellsworth performed in a suspended orb surrounded by projections recorded and created live by Mark.  It was even brought back for a two-week film shoot for full documentation.

Filming setup

"We work towards revealing something important, perhaps something about our nature or past that is meaningful, and if were lucky, universal."

~Mark McCoin

Vocalise with Carter Smith

Carter Smith, a recent CU grad, asked me to accompany him on guitar with the Rachmaninof’s Vocalise.  While this was very difficult for me, seeing as I am not a performance major, the experience was valuable.  Carter plays double bass and arranged the guitar part which I accompanied on a nylon string guitar.

Listen to this clip from the performance:

Vocalise by iEEEj

This is also my first experiment with SoundCoud.  You can leave messages at certain points in the song... kinda neat.