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.

The Secret Garden

Towards the end of May, I was asked to provide sound reinforcement for a production of The Secret Garden produced by Parlando in the ATL&S Black Box. It proved to be both technically and mentally challenging; running from June 12 - 28, 8 shows a week, 21 in total. The main feature (aside from a cast between the ages of 10 and 22) was a three-screen projection system that occupied close to 2/3 of the Black Box Studio space. These incredible 3D-surrealist projections were used to quickly change scenery, and provided entrances for actors in the gaps between them. All the technical details are after the break.

Don't take Everything so Seriously

I saw this squirrel lounging on my tree and I managed to capture a picture of it. Just a good little reminder to kick back and enjoy life every now and then. (Click on it to see the full size)

Image by E.J. Posselius © 2009

Piano Wizard at the Boulder Autism Society Picnic

Earlier this week I worked with Allegro Multimedia (Music Wizard Group), makers of Piano Wizard at the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Conference. We made some valuable contacts, and it was good to work with MWG again. I was also given the opportunity to work another event later that week.

I was asked to demo the product at the Boulder Autism Society picnic. This was an extremely rewarding event - I had a handful of children who were glued to the game. One particular student, Abby showed a tremendous amount of progress, despite the unexpectedly cold and cloudy morning, not to mention a number of other distractions. The company was friendly and I learned quickly that special needs parents are very sharp, and so are their children. This event was extremely rewarding, and I look forward to working with MWG again.

'The Interactive Piano' TAM Capstone Thesis Installation

The Technology, Arts & Media (TAM) certificate is [was] a 21 credit hour program that the ATL&S building offers. [It is now a minor known as MTAM] It consists of classes on digital/social theory, specific graphic/web/video/etc software programs, and a Capstone class. For my thesis installation, I chose to design an exhibit using the building's player piano. You can read about it and see videos and pictures HERE.

This was an extremely interesting project that involved an exciting new blend of technology, music, and networking. I sent hundreds of emails to jump through all the red tape for arranging the specifics of the project and getting various permissions. But, in the end it was worth it, as I was awarded the 'Best in Show' award for the best Capstone exhibit. Check out the vids and pics (at the link above and the video below), this was a very rewarding project to pull off.

Check out Paul Hembree, Anthony Green, Hunter Ewen, Nathan Wheeler, & Matthew Browne

ATL&S Spring 09 Shows

This Spring, I was fortunate enough to land a job working for the Center for Arts, Media, and Performance (CAMP) in the ATL&S building at CU Boulder. Here's a quick rundown of the some of the events I got to help set up and run:

I helped run sound for everything from the Italian Theatre's puppet-reality show, to the Conference on World Affairs, and the Multi-Dimensional Dance Performance Thesis 'Toeplitz'. The artistic and erotic interdisciplinary performance 'Sweeping' was a fresh experience -- we only had the performance day to set up... so when we saw the show, it was for the first time (instead of the usual 5th).

The three musical highlights included Michael Theodore's What I Saw at the Apocalypse, Paul Hembree's The Antikythera Mechanism, and the Boulder Laptop Orchestra's (bLOrk) performance:

Janet Feder in front of the Second Life performance

Communikey 09

Communikey is an annual electronic art and music festival in Boulder that happens on Earth Day weekend.

Normal One's setup

The ATL&S Building hosted a number of electronic music workshops and I attended every one that I could... except for SuperDraw, which I missed for the Wooten masterclass. Morgan Packard's Ripple featured an Evolver - 8 floating point bits that "evolve" over the [8] iterations. The Max for Live preview was the highlight of the workshops for me as I was able to see the future of the software months before the release.

Darwin Grosse, from Cycling '74 gave the preview and showed how MAX/MSP objects will now be able to interact with the Ableton Live environment... I'm very excited to say the least. Next was a screening of the film Speaking in Code, the story of people who devote their entire lives to electronic music. I unfortunately had to leave early to go downstairs and set up for the concert that evening.

NoiseFold Projections

NoiseFold gave an amazing show with layers of evolving sound and visuals, and Gudren Gut was the headliner for the evening. We set the room up for 5.1 surround (for the Normal Ones) and there were some cutting edge electronics being used throughout the performances. There was also an Ableton workshop on Saturday held by Christopher Willts.