Frank Millward on Interdisciplinarity

Dr Frank Millward is an Australian composer and new media artist based in the UK. His work includes compositions and performances for film, TV, recordings, theatre, site specific performance and multimedia productions. His musical style combines audio art, sound design, jazz, experimental, orchestral and electro-acoustic forms. His collaborators and/or clients include: international producers, TV production companies, festivals, theatre companies, established & emerging film-makers, performance artists, directors, choreographers and designers.

Dr Millward is also the Course Director of Art, Performance & Digital Media at Kingston University, London and has wide experience in research and teaching in Australia, the UK and South East Asia. He has been visiting Brisbane's Queensland Conservatorium over the last week or so and during this time, has presented to students and staff on a range of related subjects, including the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre-hosted seminar entitled Music, Sound & Interdisciplinary Collaboration in the Digital Arts with invited staff from the Queensland Conservatorium, the Queensland College of Art and the Griffith Film School. 

This seminar works through a range of contemporary issues including creative, technical, theoretical and professional aspects of creative & performing arts practice. A video of the seminar is posted here and as a podcast at the QCRC's RadioIMERSD.

For more about Frank Millward's work, see his website at www.frankmillward.com

Transforming HASS Research

Just back from a trip to (freezing) Canberra. 

Here, the Australian government is undertaking a review of the National Collaborative Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Roadmap, and which has generated a proposal for a new research capability in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS), titled ‘Transforming HASS Research’. [see The Australian /Higher Education article 20 August 2008, 'Research to cut through cackle']

The details of this proposal were included in the recently released Exposure Draft of 2008 Strategic Roadmap for Australian Research Infrastructure. As a result, the Expert Working Group for HASS which produced this proposal met in a one day workshop to assist with this process at Old Canberra House, the ANU.

From the Arts perspective (the 'A' in HASS), this means: how might eResearch in sectors such as Film, Animation, Art & Design, Music and Sound, Theatre & Dance - benefit from $.5 bil. of ICT network and grid computing research infrastructure? For example: greater interdisciplinary collaboration; curated media archives as 'data sets' to promote and drive new research questions and outputs; grid computing which has the capacity to drive (real) time-based works, nationally & internationally. 

Among the discussions and break out panels for Humanites, the Creative & Performing Arts and Social Sciences representatives, an international guest speaker, Chad Kainz (Senior Director for Academic Technologies, University of Chicago) gave an enthralling presentation.

Chad is one of the program directors for the Mellon Foundation’s ‘Bamboo Project’ -- a planning project aimed at developing shared technology services for research in the arts and humanities in the US, with important parallels to the Australian HASS-NCRIS developments.

This is a significant development, but one that requires more discussion and consultation within the relevant sectors before planning proceeds much further. Next, there will be a widening of the steering group and reference group(s) to include greater representation from Art & Design, Theatre & Dance, Music & Sound, Film & Animation. Looking forward to more & seeing what comes next . . .

Melbourne - NMIT

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of visiting and presenting a masterclass at the North Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT). A terrific heritage set of building located in the north of Melbourne, in Fairfield.


NMIT have a range of music courses there : from music industry, to sound production, to a Bachelor of Australian Popular Music. They also have a range of other programs in media broadcast, theatre and television. I had the chance to tour around and see their recording studios and labs, and also had a chance to present to many students and staff from these programs in their concert hall.

I presented a piece entitled 'Music, Technology and the Future' as part of one of their courses, Online Music Distribution. In this, I talked about the history of music technology, as a way of 'looking back', perhaps 'to see forward', based on a recent paper, Audio files, audiophiles and the reflective musician.

Looking forward to seeing some NMIT graduates here at he Con in the near future. And, many thanks to Glenn & Fiona Blair for their wonderful hospitality at NMIT. 

Music for the banal . .

Great to be back in Brisbane, and back in the recording studio (IMERSD) once again, following the first half of the year writing, teaching & travelling. This time, working with Con resident percussionist and musician extraodinaire, Dr Vanessa Tomlinson.

These studio sessions were originally intended to be somewhat of a 'warm up' for an album and a concert in September with Vanessa's pianist/composer partner Erik Griswold in their Clocked Out Duo. However, they've now taken on a life of their own, with some stunning improvisations from Vanessa. Look out for a new solo album in the near future, perhaps a parallel SAC-D release because this stuff is just made for surround.

The major work is  a 40-odd minute piece that features Vanessa using all kinds of 'ordinary objects' to make the most extraordinary sounds, rhythms and timbres. Entitled Music for the Banal, the Obvious, the Everyday, this piece moves in and out of all kinds of perspectives and harmonics - sandpaper, kitchen bowls, clay tiles, rice and bottlers, all played with a variety of sticks, mallets and techniques.

On a second, as yet untitled piece, Vanessa goes to work with water and percussion.

When we started, there were all kinds of ideas for post-production and re-interpretation in the mix. However, now its seems more like Vanessa borrows much from the electro-acoustic tradition yet performs this live. Therefore we've mic'd and recorded from a whole range of perspectives and sense that the final mix will involve more about changing perspectives in the performer's mind, and in re-interpreting this in a 'performance mix' of the piece.

Here's a few teasers. First , a section from a performance on everyday metal kitchen bowls (good for beating eggs, but also, for great percussion . . .)

Then there's playing on a whole range of trinkets: tiles, clay pot, bottles:

And finally, a small gong played in a tub of water:

Also great to see a number of student friends here: thanks to James Tonkin who has been working with us in terms of tracking the work as an ethnographic exercise. See if we can't understand a little more about the studio creative process and evolution. Also thanks to (recent PhD completion!) David Carter, who's ears and ideas are just outstanding.