noise=noise

15/08/2011

• bio signal noise

• music for flesh

• psychosis attacks

• the body is integrated…

ATAU TANAKA concrete corps

Concrete Corps is a musical concert performance for performer and bio-electrical interface as musical instrument. The instrument in question is the BioMuse, a sensor interface captures electromyogram (EMG) biosignals reflecting muscle tension. Biomedical electrodes make electrical contact with the skin, detecting electrical impulses of neurons as the brain commands voluntary muscle contraction. The BioMuse amplifies these analogue micro-voltages, performs analogue-digital conversion, and transmits them as digital information to the computer. Live sound synthesis software programmed by the composer create mappings that shape and sculpt sound parameters, filtering, granularizing, distorting sampled sounds in ways not possible with conventional interfaces.

The system renders as musical instrument the performer’s own body, allowing him to articulate sound through concentrated gesture. The sources are recordings of natural sounds - wolves, water, machinery, telecommunications devices, sounds of the performer’s own body - that are stored in the computer. Rather than simply trigger samples mechanically, the gestural data sculpts and shapes the original sound recordings in a continuous and fluid manner. Musical gesture express real world sounds in an instrumental fashion, musique concrète becomes corporeal.

In the absence of a physical object to consider instrument to perform upon, the body becomes the vehicle to be performed through. The trajectory of sounds articulated evoke natural yet impossible sonorities of human body as animal, the sterile detachedness of the cyborg machine, and the invasive risk of the musician’s own body sonified. The interplay is a search for the corporeal gesture idiomatic to a sound, zooming in and squeezing out the essence of the acoustic via the digital, mediated by the body.

MARCO DONNARUMMA music for flesh ii

Music for Flesh II (Marco Donnarumma 2011,present) is a seamless mediation between human biophysical potential and algorithmic composition.
By enabling a computer to sense and interact with the muscular potential of human tissues, the work approaches the biological body as a means for computational artistry. During the performance muscle movements and blood flow produce subcutaneous mechanical oscillations, which are nothing but low frequency sound waves. Two microphone sensors capture the sonic matter created by the performer's limbs and send it to a computer. This develops an understanding of the performer's kinetic behaviour by *listening* to the friction of his flesh. Specific gesture, force levels and patterns are identified in real time by the computer; then, according to this information, it manipulates algorithmically the sound of the flesh and diffuses it through an octophonic system.
The neural and biological signals that drive the performer's actions become analogous expressive matter, for they emerge as a tangible sound.

Performances and talks in 2011 include Non-Bio Boom at Inspace, Imagine Create Festival, Linux Audio Conference, ICMC and 4th Pure Data Convention.

A LIVE PERFORMANCE OF MUSIC FOR FLESH II CAN BE VIEWED ONLINE HERE: Marco Donnarumma | Music for Flesh II (Live at The University of Edinburgh, March 2011)

MARINOS KOUTSOMICHALIS sygxysis

Sygxysis (* disturbance of psychological or mental health, psychological unrest, unrestful vexation) is a study in complexity using recursive stochastic noise generators. Sygxysis attacks the audience with intense spectra to enact situations of discomfort and psychological unrest, setting this way both body and consciousness into a constant state of alert and resulting in a profound awareness shift. The audience is challenged to experience an intense but rewarding chaos and indulge into a profound exploration of one' s own self !

Sygxysis is a performative audiovisual work for supercollider, one or two channels of audio and color projection. It was composed in Heraklion, April 2011.

RYAN JORDAN channelling interference

The audio static buzz and noise is momentarily hijacked as stray pirate radio frequencies are channelled and received through human flesh and bone. The squawks of voices and distorted rhythms of music below out as the interference is carried inside the system. Approaching the phosphor coated television screen noticeable patterns begin to form and change with the bodies proximity to the radioactive, electromagnetic device. Upon contact with the screen and the skin electrons shoot from the cathode ray tube sending painful static pulses racing out into the ether, hurtling towards the earth. The body absorbs them willingly channelling them through the circuit.

Oscillations of bioelectrical feedback.

The body is integrated.

A video can be seen here

15/08/2011

8-11pm

£5 suggested donation

rough bar

nnnnn Unit 73a, Regent Studios, 8 Andrew's Road, E8 4QN

(get in the lift and go to the 7th floor, turn right and its the second unit)

ATAU TANAKA http://www.ataut.net/ Atau Tanaka, creates music for sensor instruments, wireless network infrastructures, and democratized digital forms. His first inspirations came upon meeting John Cage during his Norton Lectures at Harvard. He moved to Europe in the 90’s and formed Sensorband with Zbigniew Karkowski and Edwin van der Heide. He then moved to Japan and came in contact with the noise music scene, playing with Merzbow, Otomo, KK Null and others. Atau has released solo, group, and compilation recordings on labels such as Sub Rosa, Bip-hop, Caipirinha Music, Touch/Ash, Sonoris, Sirr-ecords. His work has been presented at Ars Electronica, he has been artistic ambassador for Apple, researcher for Sony CSL, artistic co-director of STEIM, and mentor for NESTA. He is currently director of Culture Lab Newcastle.

Atau began working with bioelectrical signals in San Francisco in the 1990’s with the BioMuse. He is the sole musician to have adopted this interface as his main musical instrument. He has worked with Ben Knapp of BioControl, Axel Mulder of Infusion, and Marc Sirguy of Eowave, to update it over the years. Since 2009, he stopped work with biosensors to focus on iPhone performances in duo with Adam Parkinson. With this performance, Atau performs for the first time with a new system based on Infusion/Biocontrol’s BioFlex electrodes and Eowave’s ZigBee based wireless Eobody HF interface.

MARCO DONNARUMMA http://marcodonnarumma.com​/ New media and sonic artist, performer and teacher, Marco Donnarumma was born in Italy and is based in Edinburgh, UK. His works are regularly presented internationally. He has exhibited and performed in 25 countries across South America, Europe, India, China and Australia (among the others, Venice Biennale, WRO Biennale, Némo, Mapping, Piksel, Re-New, Laboral, Pure Data Convention, Linux Audio Conference, EMAF, Visionsonic, Live!iXem, Carnival of e-Creativity, Netaudio). His projects have been featured on Wired, We Make Money Not Art, Rhizome, Turbulence.org and Micro Art in China. He received a BA (cum laude) in New Technologies for Arts and Performance at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, Italy. Presently, he investigates experimental paradigms for embodied interaction in performative environments at The University of Edinburgh, supervised by composer and sound artist Dr. Martin Parker. Donnarumma teaches workshops and gives talks for international academic institutions and venues on a regular basis – including NK Berlin, University of London, Glasgow Centre for Contemporay Arts, UPR Universidad de Puerto Rico, Trinity College, NUI Maynooth and Ulster University in Ireland, Gotland University Institute for New Media Art and Technology in Sweden, Academy of Fine Arts of Brera and Pierluigi da Palestrina Conservatory in Italy.

MARINOS KOUTSOMICHALIS http://www.marinoskoutsomi​chalis.com/ Marinos Koutsomichalis (b. Athens, Greece 1981) sound-artist, composer. Active internationally in both academic and non academic milieus, MK is being composing and performing exploratory sound (and sometimes visual) art since the mid '00s using a variety of mediums - computers, programming languages, acoustic instruments / ensembles, analogue electronics, loudspeakers, domestic appliances, environmental sounds or photography amongst others. He is mainly interested in how sonic/visual phenomena manifest in the space-time-consciousness complex and how he can create aesthetically intriguing artworks based on such manifestations as mediums in themselves. He has no interested in expressing or representing anything - his art aims rather at fulfilling space and at essentially stimulating one' s state of being instead. Hitherto, he has released several solo albums that were met with enthusiasm by critics by labels such as the Brtish Entr' acte or hiw own agxivatein. He has exhibited works of his worldwide in galleries, academias, festivals, churches, independent venues, etc. He has collaborated with Francisco Lopez, Z’ EV, Greg Haines, the Red Note Ensemble, N. Kyriazopoulos and others in various projects. He is an active member of the Contemporary Music Research Centre (CMRC — founded by I. Xenakis) and of various others research centers and institutions. Currently he is undertaking a Ph.D. in the Music Research Centre, University of York under the supervision of Dr Tony Myatt. He also lectures Computer Music Programming and Sound Synthesis at the Technological Educational Institute of Crete.

RYAN JORDAN http://ryanjordan.org/ Ryan Jordan (born Ipswich, 1983) is a UK based electronic artist working with self made instruments and tools for live interactive performance. His work is focused on movement and the physicality in live electronic performance, noise and underground music, hypnosis and trance states, D.i.Y culture, FLOSSArt, and illusion. He has performed and presented his work internationally in a wide range of venues from art and academic institutions to derelict warehouses and squats. Some international performances have been at Piksel Festival, Norway; 3rd International Pure Data Convention, Brazil; xxxxx, Germany; APO33, France; Coxpon Ambient Theatre, Hungary; Tweak Festival, Ireland; Royal Opera House and Science Museum, UK; MediaLabPrado, Spain; and Sound and Music Computing, Italy. In 2006 he started noise=noise, a sporadic experimental performance event, which has showcased many artists, academics, hackers, dancers, and performers ranging from the internationally acclaimed to the underground lurker. Ryan has collaborated with various people on many performances and projects including Martin Howse, John Bowers, Jonathan Kemp, Z'EV, Julien Ottavi, Geraldine McEwan, Tim Hopkins, Mick Grierson, and Andy Bolus. He directed A10Lab in 2010 which was an experimental audiovisual performance laboratory exploring free and open-source soft and hardware. Ryan has a BA Sonic Arts from Middlesex Unitversity (2007) and a Distinction in MFA Computational Studio Arts from Goldsmiths (2009). He is currently undertaking a PhD at the Music Technology and Innovation Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester. John Richards and Helena Goldwater are his supervisors.