Mikro is a series of improvised performances using the immediate surroundings as raw material: A microscope captures everyday objects and surfaces like wallpaper, coins, clothing, furniture, newspapers and transforms it into an explosive universe of textures. Contact microphones and electromagnetic sniffers pick up unhearable sounds to create the live soundtrack.
Mikro is a collaboration between HC Gilje (video) and Justin Bennett (sound).
Performances so far:
Paradiso (Amsterdam), IMAL (Brussels), TAG (den Haag), DNK (Amsterdam), Bergen Kunsthall Landmark (Bergen), Laznia (Gdansk)
The Aleph installation reminded me of the installation Cloud that David Rokeby recently completed.
“Cloud is a monumental kinetic installation hanging suspended in the Great Hall at the Ontario Science Centre. One hundred identical sculptural elements, arranged in ten by ten grid, are rotated at slightly differing speeds by computer-controlled motors. The elements slowly shift in and out of synchronization. When the motors are just out of sync, huge waves ripple across the space. When completely in sync, the work appears almost solid then suddenly almost invisible. When far out of sync, the sculptural elements float in apparent chaos. “
On Friday May 4th, I perform the piece Synk with Kreutzerkompani and Justin Bennett on sound. Synk was originally made in 2002 for the Ultima festival, but has been played quite a few times the last five years.
The idea of Synk was that no prerecorded video or audio would be used, only material sampled during the performance was allowed, to investigate live as raw material : to impose a structure on a live situation to allow for unpredictable results within that frame structure.
It creates a dialogue between the physical space on stage and the mediated space from the screen and speakers, and the relation between the memory and the present of a space.
nodio composer is a composer/sequencer for realtime multichannel video and audio, developed in maxmsp and jitter.
The nodio composer system consists of 4 modules:
The client is installed on each node, and does realtime processing of image and sound.
The motor talks to the clients and coordinates them, and it sets an saves the state of the whole system, and plays back sequences.
The composer is the gui for the motor, so it allows the user to set and save the state of the system and to program and play sequences. the motor sends feedback to the composer about the current state of the system and the sequencer.
The simulator is a fully working simulation of the system. It contains the three clients, and shows the three screens and pans the sound according to which client generate the sound. It is a slight modification of the node clients, but is made to be easy to replace with updates of the clients. As with the node
clients, simulator communicates with the motor.
The system is intended to be operated in 4 different modes:
composer, standalone, performer and composer_offline.
composer:
each node has a client application, one of the nodes contains the motor, the
composer is on another computer.
standalone installation:
each node has a client application, one of the nodes contains the motor.
performer: each node has a client application. The motor and the composer is on another computer.
performer: each node has a client application. The motor and the composer is on another computer.
composer offline:
When the network or individual nodes are not available, it is possible to run the composer and motor together with a simulator on the same computer.
Here is a video with documentation from one composition and a brief description of how it works:
Drifter is a 12 channel audiovisual installation: 12 nodes, each with a computer,flatscreen and speakers, are placed in a circle. The nodes are connected over a wireless network, but each node only relate to its neighbour: It knows when a image is coming and knows where to pass it on to. Images travel clockwise across the network. The images leave traces. The image and traces are processed in realtime individually on each node and a sound is generated from the video, based on a given frequency. There are 4 base frequencies for the sound distributed among the different nodes, creating chords.
Each node has the same set of rules for how to behave, but they make individual choices (using the dice analogy, all the nodes follow the same rules for what happens if they get a 1 or a 6, but they throw their own dice, which will get different results on the different nodes).
There are also a few states or moods which change on a global level: the change happens on all the nodes simultaneously, switching between nervous, relaxed or more intense behaviour.
The overall result is an everchanging surrounding audiovisual landscape.
The first version of drifter was developed for my solo show at Trøndelag Senter for Samtidskunst in march 2006, and then in april at Rom for kunst+arkitektur.
A documention video from TSSK:
A video explaining the principles of the installation:
A doublesided videoprojection on six vertical strips of half transparent material at different depths in a blackbox space. One projection creates downward movement and the other a movement from side to side, thus creating a video weave on the projection surface where the projections overlap. The audio is generated by the changes in the video, one a dry chirping sound which pans with the horizontal movement of the video, the other is created by the downward movements of the other video, creating a very loud, deep sound resonating in the space. Moving around in the space is like walking inside a videomixer, perception of image and sound changes dramatically as you move inside the installation.
The installation was comissioned for the opening of the 2006 season of Black Box Teater in Oslo, and was developed during my residency at Tesla, Berlin in autumn 2005.
