digital arts conference season

Lots of travel and interesting events over the last couple of weeks. I visited the very spooky Sydney College of the Arts (University of Sydney) for a PhD seminar.

Once a mental institution, now houses academic artists and designers (!) - very beautiful historic building, wonderful artwork and artists, but I'm positive its haunted. 'Nuff said.

Back to Brisbane next, to present a paper 'Authority 3.0' at the fourth annual international CreateWorld 2009 conference on Brisbane's beautiful South Bank.

A great turn out again, with artists from all over the country, from New Zealand and the US. This time, with a new AUC CreateWorld blogsite and well as CreateWorld09 on Twitter.

On the Tuesday (1 Dec), one of the CreateWorld keynotes featured an iChat hook-up to New York with Bill Duckworth and Nora Farrell, talking about their latest Sonic Babylon project and new iPhone app:

Right after the CreateWorld conference, I flew back to Sydney again on 4 Dec to present at the ICoMCS2 conference (that's the second International Conference on Music Communication Science), at the University of New South Wales.

My paper was about a recent album recording project 'Foreign objects & the art of interpretation'. Overall, the conference presented fascinating interdisciplinary collection of people, from psychology, music, education and science.

Xmas soon. Best wishes to everyone for the holiday season.

eResearch Australasia 2009

Its conference season here in Australia once again. Now in beautiful Manley, Sydney for the eResearch Australasia 2009 conference, 10–12 Nov.

This year's theme is No Boundaries. What challenges are raised by a world with no boundaries? What potential can we unlock?

The conference features speakers and demonstrations from the Australian and international eResearch community, aiming to provide:

• A catalyst for innovation and collaboration, by bringing together researchers, practitioners, and educators from diverse disciplines;
• A forum to support the development, enhancement, and harmonisation of national, regional, and discipline-specific eResearch infrastructures and services;
• A showcase for innovative science and research enabled through these technologies and services.

Here's a few snapshots of this:

What's all this got to do with music and the arts?

Well, interestingly the 'humanities' sessions are some of the most widely attended, with a range of interesting presentations about this work on line, and particularly in relation to understanding new digital data sets captured and modelled accordingly, then to the new kinds of research questions and projects that arise. A range of these with abstracts and contact info can be found on the conference program, here.

For example, here's one interesting project about the performing arts from AusStage – an accessible research facility for investigating live performance in Australia. It was built by a consortium of universities and industry partners with funding from the Australian Research Council.

AusStage and the Aus-e-Stage Project: Collaborative eResearch in the Performing Arts. This session presented researchers demonstrating innovations in performing arts eResearch, new research applications for the AusStage database and raised questions about the implications of visual interface design and collective approaches to data curation for research in the performing arts.

Elsewhere, there have been a range of sessions about training Research Higher Degree students, increasingly interested as they now are in using the web for their own variants of e-research, and increasingly wishing to model different kinds of modelling, and different kinds of exegesis (including interactive, web-based and the like). Here's a few related presentations:

eResearch Training for Higher Degree Students (University of Melbourne)
eResearch practices, barriers and needs for support: Preliminary study findings from four NSW universities.
eResearch Education and Training.

QCRC videos

Here's a nice little widget from vimeo, for all of our Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre (QCRC) videos.

A Glorious Dawn

A lovely piece from colorpulsemusic.com: A musical tribute to Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking: 'A Glorious Dawn - Cosmos remixed'. Almost all samples and footage are taken from Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's Universe series.

Lyrics:

[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some when-else in time

The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky

But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes
it generates abstractions

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has it's own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world

[Hawking]
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit

From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas

[Sagan]
How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we've waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting

The long drive to Melbourne & back

Just back from Melbourne, a 1700k driving trip either way from Brisbane (!). Beautiful weather, wonderful Saab 93 cabrio, and glorious country – some pictures from the trip are available on MobileMe.

The main reason for the long drive was to show our visitors from New York, Bill Duckworth and Nora Farrell around the country – especially the outback and some wonderful towns on the slow drive back to Brisbane, including Rutherglen, Katoomba and Bellingen.

In Melbourne, we stayed in the glorious Paramount Apartments overlooking the city.

Bill Duckworth gave lectures about his work at RMIT and at VCAM (Victorian College of the Arts & Music, UniMelb). Here's a video of his lecture from VCAM's cross media workshop (to VCAM's Mark Pollard – thanks so much for the hospitality!):



We also went to SIAL (RMIT's Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory) where Bill also delivered a lecture, but also got to tour their facilities with Lawrence Harvey. Of note was their wonderful studio 'pod', a purpose-built room-within-a-room that looks incredible:

Lawrence and Bill – inside The Pod.

Bill & Nora out front

Thanks to Lawrence, Bill, Nora, Jenny, Glyn, Margaret, John, Mark, Sue, Ian – and the Saab – for a great trip and wonderful memories of Melbourne and the Australian outback.

Longplayer

Came across this intriguing project on Daily Dose (courtesy of Nora Farrell):

Longplayer combines an interactive sculpture and a systems-theory experiment in the service of a 1,000-year-long musical composition.



An ambitious project for anyone who ever wondered about humanity’s ability to pursue trans-generational art, Longplayer was launched in 1999 by composer (and Pogues member) Jem Finer and an advisory board that included Brian Eno. In 2000, the project was turned over to the Longplayer Trust, a compendium of experts dedicated to its preservation until the 2999 completion of its first cycle.

Rain

Came across this wonderful piece from Perpetuum Jazzile. Enjoy!

Volume

Just back from Melbourne, where I came across VOLUME, a fantastic installation in Federation Square.

The installation is the brain-child of the UK's United Visual Artists, known for their work with U2, Massive Attack, The Arctic Monkeys and others. With a soundtrack arranged by Neil Davidge and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, this incredible fusion of light and sound is realized through a forest of luminous LED columns which light up Federation Square.

The columns respond spectacularly to human movement and visitors walk, crawl, jump and dance their way through this interactive installation.

The first installation was performed in the UK at the Victoria & Albert Royal Museum's John Madejski Garden last winter 2006, with a wonderful video posted here:


VOLUME is part of a series in 'The Light in Winter', Federation Square's annual winter festival for Melbourne centred around light. Directed by Robyn Archer, The Light in Winter brings together artists, designers and communities to explore their ideas of light, enlightenment and hope.

For more 2009 Light in Winter events, see their program, here.

Sonic Bablyon

We welcome back to Brisbane, New Yorker internet music pioneers William Duckworth and Nora Farrel who were with us for the iOrpheus project in 1997.



This time, they're here to inaugurate a multi-year project titled Sonic Babylon, an art project planting gardens of sound around the world; invisible gardens hanging in the air and heard on mobile devices when visitors pass through.


Occuring from July to September 2009, these gardens include the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre's Media Gardens in Queensland (Cairns, Noosa, and South Bank), The National Film and Sound Archive's Permanent Sound Garden and National Sound Day 2009 in Canberra, and a Sound Garden Happening at the Apple Store in Melbourne (tbc, September).


Tweets at timecurve (Bill), hypnotone (Nora) and sonicbablyon.

APAR (Artistic Practice as Research) Projects

A couple of ongoing projects at the QCRC (Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre) here in Brisbane. Both form part of the work within the Centre's 'Artistic Practice as Research' cluster.

The Art of Interpretation
A collaboration between Stephen Emmerson (pianist) and Paul Draper (sound producer), this excerpt from Schoenberg’s 3 Piano Pieces Op. 11 draws upon on various interpretive strategies including analysis, reflection, and the use of Schoenberg’s paintings to highlight certain aspects of the performance and recording. The project is based on the premise that a recording is not ‘music’ itself, rather, is a virtual artefact through which an interpretation can be manipulated and enhanced through deliberate interference in the recording and post-production processes.



The piano itself was tracked using some sixteen microphones spaced at different positions throughout the hall which enabled ‘multiple perspectives’ to be attained, then in post-production was 'vertically arranged' and through the use of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) in ways similar to that of orchestration. In contrast to the usual practice where classical piano recordings maintain a single sound and perspective, this project explores the ways in the researcher's interpretation of the music can be expanded and communicated through these manipulations of the sound recordings.

Foreign Objects
This is an excerpt from the new album 'Foreign Objects' by Vanessa Tomlinson and Erik Griswold aka 'Clocked Out', presenting new compositions that pay homage to two giants of contemporary music: Terry Riley, the master of expanded space, and Morton Feldman, the master of intricate patterns.



Produced by Paul Draper, after spending a week of recording in the IMERSD studios the project then moved directly into a live concert event in the Ian Hangar Recital Hall to premier the works, and where these performances were also recorded remotely in IMERSD. The final results are arrangements, edits and integrated sound productions that combine both environments, where the musicians extend the sound landscape of the keyboard through prepared piano to the world of ‘found object’ percussion. Mixing bowls meld into cardboard preparations, roofing tiles into buzzing screws, toy piano into miniature bells.

The QCRC also maintains a Vimeo Group at vimeo.com/groups/qcrc/videos

Musical Futures

Sunday, 10 May 2009 saw a host of performances of asian musics at Brisbane South Bank. Entitled 'Musical Futures', this launch was part of a Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre initiative set up to support the outcomes of a five year international research project, Sustainable futures for music cultures: Towards an ecology of musical diversity.

Prof Huib Schippers (Director, Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre)

The project is funded by the Australian Research Council and involves ten partners across Australia, Europe and the US, including the International Music Council founded by UNESCO in 1946. It aims to increase understanding of the mechanisms of musical sustainability by closely examining ten different music cultures: how musicians interact with communities,how the music industry and governments affect musical life, as well as underlying values and attitudes. It will deliver an online resource, freely accessible to everyone in the world, to assist in improving the chances of survival and success for music cultures.

Here's a couple of videos, shot on the Sunday:

Asia-pacific musical performances, including Gamelan, Kathak dance, Indian ragas, Korean, Vietnamese and Fusion musics

Prof Huib Schippers (Director, QCRC) and Dr Richard Letts (President, International Music Council)

For more about the Musical Futures Foundation, contact l.flenady@griffith.edu.au

Kodak Zi6

We've just purchased a couple of Kodak Zi6s for our research centre at the Queensland Conservatorium. Terrific little unit that shoots in HD, directly to SD-Ram in H.264 format.

Comes with software for Windows, records .movs and so can also be easily used in Apple iPhoto or iMovie. USB flip out allows easy direct transfer to computer and on to web. In this case I've created a Vimeo group at http://vimeo.com/groups/qcrc

'The cast' of our recent Musical Futures events.

Great for interviews, PhD projects, ethnographies, etc.

Inside Music

New public lecture series commences this year at the Con. Entitled Inside Music, these intimate presentations by Conservatorium lecturers and guest artists invite the audience to explore what happens ‘behind the scenes’ as musicians prepare prepare their work. From 11 Mar 2009 in the Queensland Conservatorium's Ian Hanger Recital Hall, comes these thoughts from Gerardo Dirié:


Gerardo Dirié is currently Head of Music Studies at the Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane, Australia.

He has been active in bringing Latin American music to a wider audience, not only through his work as composer and educator, but also as Assistant Director of Indiana University's Latin American Music Center, first under the direction of Venezuelan composer Ricardo Lorenz, and currently directed by Venezuelan conductor Dr. Carmen Téllez. He assists orchestras, soloists, ensembles and scholars from around the world in programming and studying Latin American music. For more about Gerardo and contact information, see www.gerardodirie.net

Playing for Change

I came across this wonderful video, a kind of remix of street musicians-meets web2. See what you think?



Turns out this is from a series by an organisation, Playing For Change: Peace Through Music, the first of many songs around the world being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic "Stand By Me by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe:

Can't help but notice though, no activity yet in the Oceania region. Hope we may be able to get involved in Australia, in music, the arts and the Asia Pacific. Terrific project.

And so to 2009 . .

Just back from some leave spent in beautiful New Zealand.

Some more pics here at mobile me, New Zealand North Island: Bay of Islands, Auckland, Napier, Gisborne, Rotrua, Copthorne.

Upcoming concerts calendar:

Greatly looking forward to Jeff Beck touring Australia after a very long absence. He's in Brisbane next week (29 January), accompanied by wonderful musicians, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, David Sancious on keyboards and the sensational young Australian bassist, Tal Wilkenfeld.



In February, Grammy Award winning pianist-composer-bandleader Chick Corea and guitarist John McLaughlin tour Australia and New Zealand - joining forces for the first time, I believe, since they were both members of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew era band over forty years ago. Playing music with Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride and Vinne Colaiuta, the Chick Corea and John McLaughlin Five Peace Band should be amazing. Unfortunately, not coming to Brisbane, but at the Sydney Opera house, on 20 February.



Have a good year, everyone!