Create Digital Music » Laptop Orchestras Proliferate, from Princeton to Moscow

Jan 01 2007

Laptop Orchestras Proliferate, from Princeton to Moscow

Okay, cool — but when will Princeton let these folks play the football games?

Move over, marching band: laptop orchestras are here. Princeton’s laptop orchestra PLOrk will be the featured guest at dorkbot in New York this week, but it’s not the only “laptop ensemble.” The Electronic Music Foundation’s Arts Electric notes laptop orchestras span the globe from New Jersey to Russia:

PLOrk @ Princeton

Moscow Laptop Cyber Orchestra

Moscow’s Laptop Cyber Orchestra

Oddly enough, these pictures seem to go against the zeitgeist of readers here on Create Digital Music, many of whom prefer to stow their laptop out of the way and focus on physical controllers. I’m hoping that occasionally these laptopists (?) get some more physical interaction with their machines. But there’s no question laptops open up new possibilities for ensemble playing. Challenge: find a way to build rhythms as intricate as those in Indonesian gamelans, only with new wave sounds. Not easy, huh?

Anyone got some other computer music ensembles? I saw Berklee School of Music’s ensemble (a school that also has a turntable ensemble), so that’s at least one, but I expect readers here know of / play in / direct others.

Flash-Powered, Animated Musical Painting: Visual Acoustics

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9 Comments

divbyzero

Prof. Cook (my favorite professor, founder of PLOrk, falling asleep in the top-center of the picture) has for the past year been pushing the notion of writing computer code in realtime as a form of musical performance. That’s why the laptops have just keyboards and mice as their control interfaces. For other projects, however, he builds quite a few cool custom hardware-based controllers.

January 2, 2007 @ 11:47 am

Peter Kirn

Thanks! I wondered if there might be some reason, especially given the other stuff he’s done with controllers! Live coding … yikes, I’m slow enough coding with hours and hours of time. :) But more power to you.

Other ensembles, anyone?

Peter

January 2, 2007 @ 3:37 pm

Andrew Sorkin

Berklee also has a “Tekno Rave Ensemble” taught by Dr. Boulanger. This is closer than the turntable ensemble, but you don’t have to use a laptop (altough it’s pretty common).

January 2, 2007 @ 11:38 pm

Peter Kirn

That’s right. I knew there was another ensemble I’d heard but forgot which. Does either ensemble have a web home?

January 2, 2007 @ 11:52 pm

Linkage - Laptop Orchestras Proliferate, from Princeton to Moscow - blueverticalstudio

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January 3, 2007 @ 4:48 am

lilly

Queens University Belfast has BLISS, the “Belfast legion for improvised sights and sounds”.

They do about everything, even they seem to be mainly a laptop ensamble, on any given performance you can witness “traditional” laptop improv, circuit bending, realtime coding, use of physical/emotive interfaces, etc.

http://www.sarc.qub.ac.uk/~bliss/

January 3, 2007 @ 9:31 am

kevin

is it just me or does everyone in this picture look hella bored?

January 24, 2007 @ 9:08 pm

phhat

Hello there,
Here our contribution to the network and realtime composition kind with one of the first laptop orchestra to have developed such work.
Based in Tokyo since 2002 -will perform at Kennedy Art Center, washington dc, and other cities in February 2008 .
more info, sounds and videos on http://laptoporchestra.net

April 2, 2007 @ 4:04 am

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