Continuing our insight into this view into electronic music performance and art through the lens of BodyControlled in Berlin, we’re joined by guest writer Kristin Trethewey. Kristin, a Canadian-born video artist and curator, takes another look at LEAP and BodyControlled, on the eve of its second installment. She gets straight at the question of what “BodyControlled” means, and what it can mean for sonic performance and creation. And I wanted to make sure to subtract myself from this write-up, seeing as I was playing – but see the excellent timelapse of the evening, above. -Ed.

LEAP is one of these spectacular Berlin venues you’ve been hearing so much about. It’s a huge, raw space with a view of Berlin’s landmark TV tower, hosting interesting art events with cheap drinks and the potential for a late-night party. But it’s unique, too, in its focus on electronic arts. And unlike other media arts centers, it’s not filled with computers and half-finished electronic projects. I’ve truly gotten lost trying to find this place (it’s tucked away in a mall), so I would recommend watching the timelapse video LEAP shot that guides you to the entrance before attempting to go there. Tonight is the second edition of BodyControlled, a new bimonthly performance series at the space. This installment, called “matter incompatible,” is held in conjunction with the Transmediale Festival under the satellite program, Vorspiel.

BodyControlled is a series focused on the intersection of performance and electronics. You can expect future programming to focus around ideas of “feedback” and “bio” related electronic performances. In its first installment back in November, a packed LEAP gallery witnessed performances by Robert Henke, Peter Kirn [editor of this site], Stephen Cornford, and Paul Whitty. The event was called “Other Spaces” and took the physical architecture of the gallery as a point of departure. Having the space filled with people made for a secondary concern of space: its use. In a series whose title mentions the body, I witnessed one performance engaging the bodies that were filling the space. Robert Henke’s twelve-hour set activated interactions between the audience, performer, and environment. He moved around, listened and mingled with the audience, even though he had this amazing, souped-up control station complete with ambient lighting.

Other artists put more emphasis on the manipulation and dislocation of space through the use and abuse of electronics. Kirn worked with a custom rig with tablet-controlled original software built in open-source software Pure Data (Pd), controlled by a tablet running Konkreet Performer. Excerpt:

Excerpt – LEAP Gallery Berlin, 26.11 by peterkirn

Whitty and Cornford actively deconstructed electronics in front of the audience:
it pays my way and it corrodes my soul (2011)

Stephen Cornford & Paul Whitty’s performance “it pays my way and it corrodes my soul” seeks out musical material by physically dismembering playback equipment. A reel-to-reel tape recorder is switched on and its mechanism amplified with a variety of microphones while it is taken to pieces. The sounds produced are then fed through an array of pedals: the machine’s belts, gears, switches and casing becoming an instrument subjected to a live audio autopsy

Excerpt:
Excerpt: Stephen Cornford & Paul Whitty, LEAP Berlin, 26 November by cdm

Cornford was also interviewed by LEAP for his installation work, featuring repurposed tape machines:

As João Pais, co-curator of the event with LEAP’s Daniel Franke, puts it:

“BodyControlled means the main direction of the series, to present performance and installation works that have a strong, corporal identity. This can be manifested in many ways, not only implying a “moving performer”. The purpose is to avoid the extreme of abstract performances made by a laptop-er, sitting down as if writing emails. In the first event, this idea was shown by interpreting/filling the space of LEAP through a sound-performance (Kirn, Henke), or an installation (Cornford, Mathy, Oliver).”

See also my write-up for ARTSCARDS from last month:
Other Spaces Generates New Spaces Through Sound at LEAP

The second event, “matter incompatible,” draws reference to the Transmediale theme: In/compatible, acknowledging the less clear, even dark forces at play in the artistic and political climate today. Matter Controlled questions the idea of the object or anti-object within sonification. See CDM’s write-up from yesterday:

Watch Artists Talk About Making Sound From Matter; Thursday Event and Stream in Transmediale Prelude

From the Transmediale podcast, some explanations of the theme of the larger festival:

Jacob Lillemose on the exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times by transmediale

Kristoffer Gansing elaborates on the festival theme in/compatible, as well as the in/compatible symposium: systems | publics | aesthetics.
Tatiana Bazzichelli is the curator for out new project reSource of transmedial culture and speaks about its concept.
Jacob Lillemose speaks about exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times which he is curating for transmediale 2012 in/compatible.
Sandra Naumann is the curator for this year’s performance programme The Ghosts in the Maschine, which she explains a bit more in detail.
And Marcel Schwierin tells us about his concept for the video programme he is curating for transmediale 2012 in/compatible.

Performances by Echo Ho, Mario De Vega, Alex Nowitz and Ignaz Schick will investigate this blurry region between the immaterial and material. I am curious to see what objects they will bring to play with. As they potentially seek liberation from the physical objects, by reimagining their sonification, I wonder how they are also reliant and maybe even drawn towards their objectification. Bringing these disparate emotions into play is at the heart of tonights investigation. In today’s climate fractures exist between so many aspects of our lives. These performances seek to bring some of them together, compatible or incompatible as we might discover.

You can watch the proceedings via live Internet stream, for the majority of you not in Berlin for the live show.

www.leapknecht.de

More Photos

About the Author

Kristin Trethewey is a Canadian video artist, cinema performer, and curator. She holds an MFA from Brooklyn College in Performance and Interactive Media. A multi-disciplinary curator and artist for the past ten years, she has recently completed a residency at the Node Center for Curatorial Arts, was co-Director/co-Curator of the INDEX Festival. She currently lives in Berlin.

In late September, CDM travels to Amsterdam and the legendary STEIM, a hub for research and experimentation in electro-acoustic music. The Patterns + Pleasure Festival will explore live electronic music practice and more, from controllerist laptop musicians like Edison and Moldover to the likes of sculpture-trained artist Nina Boes working with drawing and video instruments. The afternoon of September 28, we’ll have an open celebration of DIY electronic music culture with a special installment of Handmade Music.

If you’re in the Netherlands or nearby, we hope you’ll stop by. And if you have something you’d like to share, for show-and-tell, performance, and mingling with artists participating in and attending the festival, we have an open call for works.

You can see our video from last time. The video doesn’t really convey what a blast we had. Don’t be afraid by the crackles and whistles, either; I love that there’s a range of sound in electronic inventions, from the crackly experimental to instruments that work in more conventional contexts, too.

This installment already promises to be far bigger. I can’t wait. And if you’re far from the lovely winding canals of Amsterdam seen below, we’re working on extensive coverage so you can feel like you’re there from anywhere on the planet.

Here’s the call for works; feel free to spread it around:

Open Call:
Handmade Music at STEIM

As part of the Patterns + Pleasure Festival
28 September 2011
14:30 – 17:30
Frascati Theater, Amsterdam
Deadline: Friday 9 September 2011

Hosted by createdigitalmusic.com and STEIM; curated by Peter KIRN with Takuro Mizuta Lippit

Attention, makers of things that make music! Be part of an open laboratory, a science fair-style show and tell of work. We want to see your creations, including but not limited to:

Custom circuitry
New custom synthesizers
Creative controllers
Open source hardware and software
Audiovisual software
Original acoustic and electroacoustic instruments
Sound art/sculpture
Circuit-bent designs
Instruments and composition and performance tools made with game technology, mobile technology, Kinect cameras, and the like

The essential element is that you’ve built something yourself, in hardware, software, or both.

Please be prepared to show a self-contained presentation of your work. Some display/projection and amplification will be available, but we encourage you to bring your own displays and speakers if you can.

We will setup works for show-and-tell style exploration, as well as brief (5-minute demos) and short (5-10-minute), variety style performances and jams. We’ll also lead a discussion with artists and engineers, and encourage you to meet other makers and exchange ideas and techniques.

We are unfortunately unable to provide expenses for travel, so you will need to provide your own transportation to and lodging in Amsterdam. All projects will be covered on createdigitalmusic.com.

Please submit:

1. Your name, as you’d like it to be listed
2. Your project name
3. If applicable, a link to a project site
4. Photos of your project (a link to Flickr, Picasa, blogs, etc. is fine)
5. (Mandatory) Video and or audio documentation of your project in action (Vimeo, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc.)
6. Space requirements
7. Technical requirements (power / audio / safety concerns if applicable)
8. A brief description (two sentences is fine) of your project.
9. If you wish to propose a performance, please describe in short how you perform with your tool.
10. Your contact information, so we may respond

Submission form:
http://cdm.fm/pt99dq

We prefer to capture information on the submission form, but if you have difficulty with it, please email peter (at) createdigitalmedia [dot] net directly with the subject ‘STEIM HANDMADE MUSIC’

patternsandpleasure.com

The Bleep Labs 198X, a mini analog synth co-designed with the band Neon Indian, is now here. It’s a pocketable three-oscillator synth – all triangle oscillators – that in addition to three knobs and light sensors lets you plug in control voltage or other devices and sensors in order to modulate its sound. That makes for some good, bleepy, party-clearingly noisy fun.

And then there’s the Neon Indian-produced promo video, which is … insane. So there’s that.

The synth itself you get as part of a $50 package that also includes vinyl, a CD, a t-shirt, and a poster. Hopefully you’re a Neon Indian fan.

If you’d like a slightly less-psychedelic look at what this synth does, Bleep Labs have produced some more down-to-earth samples and videos. Behold:

Instructions…

With a modular …

On SoundCloud …

PAL198X by Dr. Bleep

And one more from Johnny, combining a modular …

And if this all looks a little familiar, it’s because the Neon Indian custom synth is a new, improved, expanded instrument based on Bleep Lab’s Pico Paso, which is in turn inspired by Forrest Mims’ classic stepped tone generator “Atari Punk Synth.” I love the new variations.

PAL198x @ Bleep Labs

Circuit bending has a reputation as involving far-out, unstructured experimental noise, of real violence and distortion done to instruments. And there’s probably a place for that. But Reed Ghazala, circuit bending’s spiritual father and electronic practitioner, takes a more organic, evolutionary approach.

Reed recently told me about his favorite application of his iPad, apart from exploring new experimental soundscapes with tools like the brilliant granular app Curtis. He brings it with him into the forest, using GPS for location, and tracking plants and animals, identifying the sounds of bird and beasts.

In our electronic ecosystem, fowl and beast are finding their own electro-diversity. Circuit bending, then, is giving electronic devices a gentle push toward becoming something else, into taking on a unique and individual personality. It’s evolution. So, it’s fitting that New York’s Bent Festival has become an eclectic gathering of musical makers, espousing no singular philosophy or aesthetic.

For a sense of how broad that notion spans — both in Reed’s own head and at Brooklyn’s festival — our friend Kaley at VICE points us to their Motherboard.tv series on Reed, and his 1967 breakthrough of circuit bending, as well as their coverage of last year’s Bent. The Bent Festival, for their part, provide the remaining schedule if you happen to be in the area. At bottom, the classic “what is circuit bending” video by DrRek, featuring monome artist Daedelus.

If you happen to be the area, on behalf of CDM and in recognition of my lack of a) an inexhaustible budget or b) the ability to be a pan-dimensional creature in all places at once, please take photos and videos and notes and let us know what you see! (That goes for artists, too! Find a friend!)

We’ll be at Bent today before hauling off some makers yet deeper into the woods and wilds for the Solid Sound Festival. (Well, okay, metaphor stretched, broken, and beaten — at least further afield than the middle of Brooklyn. It’s Friday. I’m letting my metaphors take the rest of the day off.)

Sound Builders: In 1967, This Guy Invented Circuit Bending [Motherboard]

Bent Festival 2011

Also, notably organizing venue The Tank is again homeless and in need of support:

“Viable spaces for artistic research and development pop up as unpredictably as wild mushrooms, and sometimes vanish just as quickly. The Tank, a hardy nonprofit arts presenter formed by recent college graduates in 2003, has adeptly navigated a terrain in constant flux, taking root in a series of locations around Manhattan.” – Steve Smith, New York Times.

Their campaign to work in conjunction with other organizations to keep programming moving forward: http://do.nr/2sX

What are those alien, otherworldly sounds coming out of the iPad? That’s not GarageBand. It’s what happens when Reed Ghazala, the father of circuit bending some decades ago, meets the iPad. Not that it’s his first encounter with products from Apple – he’s been approaching that company’s hardware as he does everything else, prying unexpected life with modifications and experimentation.

But just as “circuit bending” need not be seen as “breaking,” here, too, Ghazala’s modifications make the device more humane, more musical, and – for all the shouting about how the design is perfect – far, far more usable. A breakout and controls mean that you can finally extract sound and video from the iPad in usable form, without the usual, fragile, impractical connections. Reed sends the details to CDM; I can’t wait to see readers build some of these. (I may wind up building two – one for my Apple tab, and one for other hardware experimentation with whatever Honeycomb Android tablet I pick up, which at this point is probably going to be a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It’ll be doubly important, as apparently Samsung in their infinite wisdom juggle the usual pinouts on their 30-pin connector.)

Whether your sounds tend in this vein or somewhere else altogether, Reed’s DIY instructions look to beat promised commercial offerings from the likes of Akai. (The Akai dock, for the record, hasn’t shipped yet, so it’s no contest for the time being.) As Reed describes it:

I’ve been sneaking around Apple’s garden for a long time, dating back to the Apple II motherboard hacked into my code-munching poly-synth of the early ’80′s. I’ve modded iMacs, towers, endless accessories, and I’ve drastically bent mac-centric code with wonderful result. This movie loosens another brick in Apple’s wall, and opens the iPad’s usability tremendously.

I know I’m not the only individual appreciating the experimental music apps available on the iPad. I’m anxious to support the developers’ fine work. But for musicians, the iPad’s interface can be frustrating. Do you really want to use dongles, mini-jacks and flimsy wire to get in and out of the thing?

This audio breakout solves these problems, is easy to do, and is inexpensive.

No bending here, just a quick, theory-true hack based upon iPad docking charts I found online. Not a superdock. No competition for the Alesis breakout. But if you want a slick, basic and functional DIY audio desk, on the cheap, check this hack out!

The breakout board is available at kineteka.com

Be sure to see the photos and REVISIONS, and pick-up the printable schematic at my iPad Audio Desk flickr gallery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonbear3325/sets/72157626688587705/

This audio desk is really fun to use. Hacking the apple is always a good thing. I hope you’ll enjoy the movie! (Let it download for full-screen 1080).

Instructions in the final slide of that Flickr deck:
iPad Audio Desk Schematic

If someone would like to be commissioned to write a step-by-step tutorial with CDM, get in touch and I can help.

Like a fresh ingredient in food, sometimes all you need is a good idea. And whether your work is digital or analog, acoustic or mechanical, compositional or improvisational, sound artist and musician Ranjit Bhatnagar can provide ample inspiration. His best idea: forcing himself to come up with one musical idea a day for a month. Of course, having mad chops in instrumental invention doesn’t hurt.

Ranjit’s creations are remarkable partly in that people can pick them up and play them as instruments, as with the 8-bit violin – a pixelated concoction of the lasercutter – seen at top in action with real fiddlers at the Thingamajigs DIY Instruments Tailgate Party.

Other creations are best seen as sound design etudes, one-off timbral amuse-bouche, and all the more delightful for it. This year’s installments, gathered in the (shorter) month of February, included a number of imaginative daily, reflective productions. A rotating corn cob became a score. A speaker cable became impromptu MIDI output. A set of gears became a mechanical sequencer – the ratios producing different tones.

I’ve collected some of my favorites below, but of course the best way to inject some Ranjit-style aural inspiration into your day is to follow moonmilk.com. True, I’m more than a bit behind as these projects were developed in February. On the other hand, only now, fiddlers are picking up the fruits of those labors – and the change of season and coming of summer (or winter, southern hemisphere dwellers) means the timing couldn’t be better.

http://www.moonmilk.com/

Now, some favorite videos – whether strictly “digital” or not being entirely immaterial:

Handmade Music is our party for people who make things that make music. If you create your own musical tools – whether acoustic instruments and soundmakers, hacks, circuit bends, custom Pd and Max patches, electronics, or code – we want to hear from you.

We’re looking for contributors in NYC, Texas, and around the world:

• Live acts and projects in New York
• Street team volunteers in NYC and to help organize and promote events in other parts of the planet
• Live acts and projects for a special South by Southwest Interactive showcase in Austin, Texas with our friends at Etsy.com

1. If you can get to Austin, TX or NYC, tell us about your project or act! And feel free to pass this along to friends, students, and the like. The calls for artists will be ongoing.

NYC + Austin/SxSW call for works 2011 – direct Google Docs form link

2. Be part of Handmade Music anywhere on Earth: Also, while we’ve hinted at this before, 2011 is the year in which I’d like to really help support people trying to organize similar Handmade Music events in other parts of the world, building on regular events in Austin and Toronto and events held in cities like Amsterdam, LA, and Porto, Portugal.

If you’d like to help make Handmade Music grow in your part of the world, you can sign up for that and we’ll send more information (and yes, we welcome volunteers here in the NYC area, too!):

Handmade Music 2011 Global Organizing

Want to know more? Read an explanation of what Handmade Music’s about.

“Your kids will love this Saw figure.” So, too, must have been the calculation of the person who decided to immortalize the film Saw with little toys and figures containing 30 seconds of voice recording, because this toy is now available in quantity for — wait for it — US$2. A $2, 30-second sampler? Now that’s a bend waiting to happen.

Circuit bending blog GetLoFi in 2008 posted a detailed set of instructions for bending the SAW III sampler. Download the full PDF, and you can make one yourself, using the $2 part from All Electronics.

In the spirit of getting everyone in on the noise-making fun, our friends who organize Handmade Music Austin are making this bend the basis of their August event. As usual, you’ll also get a happy Sunday full of learning, making, sharing, and sounds. Details on the Handmade Music blog, if you’re in the Austin area:
Austin #10

What I love about this workshop is that it’s something a lot of people could do. I’m working on assembling a set of projects for beginners so that, if you are planning an event in your neck of the woods, you have an ample set of supplies. Ideas? Requests? Let us know in comments.

New York, we’ll be back on August 29; I’ll have some details later this week.

Summertime is bringing a host of great new music to my inbox and mailbox. Here are just a few selections for this Tuesday morning. What binds them all together is a desire for truly personal expression and satisfaction, which often manifests itself as an individualized sound.

Chris Randall is best known as the voice behind cult favorite plug-in developer Audio Damage, and the opinionated, sometimes loud-mouthed pundit of his blog Analog Industries. But he’s a musician first. As better-known figures debate the merits of copyright and Creative Commons without ever having recorded a note, Chris has quietly released a lot of his own music under CC licenses — and continued to collect revenue.

Last week, he expressed his love for electronic sounds in a new EP under his Micronaut moniker, entitled Resistor. Despite his software business, it’s a largely hardware-based project. But it’s not a retro-tinged analog love note; the sonic palette is very much his own, and balances the digital and clean with the analog and grungy. I like what he says about it: “…whether you like the music or not is utterly unimportant to me. I finally feel … that I’m finding a voice for the Micronaut project that matches my internal music.” That seems as good a goal as any.

Read about the process and how he releases his work on his blog, natch:
Resistor…

And check out the album below, via Bandcamp. If you like it, you can name your price for high-quality formats, starting at one buck.

At a different end of the spectrum, Phil Archer has a short, free EP consisting of “live recordings of me playing acoustic guitar along with a circuit-bent yamaha pss 280.” It’s an organic-sounding, meditative record that’s far more tranquil than what you might assume when you hear the words “circuit bending,” and definitely a change of pace. Phil describes his goals for the sound as “sparse” and “folky.”

It’s completely free, even in lossless formats, again available on Bandcamp.

Finally, The New York Times Magazine has a terrific, if brief, interview with one-man electronic act Caribou (Dan Snaith), whose new album “Swim” is the sleeper hit of the summer.

The Times plays up the “math” angle, because of Snaith’s PhD in math. But he downplays this very take:

What’s interesting are the more emotive, unpredictable elements of music. Mathematics eventually become abstract and creative too, but it’s very mysterious as to why we like certain kinds of music.

Check out the full story for ideas on influences and process, as well as a free download of the track “Odessa.” (Another track below, via YouTube, also via the NYT.)

Asked & Answered | Musician/Mathematician Caribou

How much can you do with a suitcase full of soundmakers? Quite a lot, as it happens.

The 20th Century gave sound two great achievements. One was the successful modeling of filtering in digital software form. The other was the production of the electronic filter, first in quartz crystal form. Today, all of those advancements are available in cheap, often battery-powered devices that fit in the palm of your hand. Spurred by yesterday’s discussion of sonic mobility and battery power, Sasa Rasa points us to the recent work of Chris Carter (of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey fame).

Chris has built out a set he calls “Chris Carter’s Chemistry Lessons,” featuring a suitcase rig of noisemaking gadgets. Among other devices, this includes a new experimental, DIY noisemaker kit that came out of a collaboration with Dirty Electronics / John Richards. The setup, and accompanying performance, were recently the featured item at an event at Amsterdam’s STEIM, a hub for experimental sound. The contents comprise a veritable guide to what’s useful in mobile music making, without resorting to mobile phones or similar devices, and without, even, any use of MIDI.

Below, one of the setups, combining specialized and custom electronics with some familiar sound objects.

He describes a sample set using the rig on his blog, proudly entitling it no MIDI no keyboards:

I generated some rhythms using two [KORG] Kaossilators – going through two mini KPs, and manipulated some bass loops with a Korg KP3 pad. I had a Chimera BC16 synth (the LFO and the ADSR) voltage controlling a BC9 synth and two Eventide stompboxes. I synced and beat matched on the fly using ‘tap-tempo’ buttons on the Korgs and Eventides.

Equipment shown:
Two Kaossilators, two mini Kaoss pads, a KP3 Kaoss pad, a Tom Bugs WOM synth, Chimera BC8, BC9 and BC16 synths, two Zoom PFX-9003 effects, an Eventide Modfactor, an Eventide Timefactor, a Dirty-Carter E.S.G.I synth, a portable Edirol mixer and a Zoom H2 for recording.
No MIDI, keyboards, laptops or desktop computers were used.

Here’s that set recorded to his Zoom H2 mobile recorder:

no MIDI no keyboards by chris_carter

Is there an advantage to working this way as opposed to assembling a similar arsenal of tools in a computer? Not necessarily. But maybe that’s part of the point: whether you assemble a set of hardware sound boxes, some custom circuits and DSP processing in hardware, a Pd or Max patch on a computer, or a set of effects, you’re engaging in what is fundamentally the same process. The fact that you have all of these choices means there’s really no excuse for not finding some set of tools with which you feel comfortable, and with which you can push the envelope of your own performance style.

Not only that, but even the most die-hard computer lover is likely to find something here – the mobile recorder, one or two of the effects boxes – that would nicely complement their rig.

And what I like about Chris’ examples is that, within the “experimental” aesthetic paradigm he’s set out, there are rich compositional and sonic ideas, modeled in the flow of signal betwixt his noise gadgetry.

Lots of great ideas for useful hardware came up in comments on the battery-powered story, so watch for a further compilation.