I hope that at least the first of these events will be if interest to some
MAT-REN subscribers.
Lewis Jones.
======
Debra Pring is unable to appear in the Music, Technology and Culture
Seminar series on Tuesday 25 May as previously announced. She has kindly
agreed to make her presentation in an extended double session, with
Benjamin Hebbert, one week later (1 June).
The rest of the May-June series, at which all are welcome, is thus as
follows:
1 June: DOUBLE BILL starting at 5.15
Debra Pring (Goldsmiths, University of London)
With almost scientific precision? The depiction of instruments in Dutch
Golden Age art from object to symbol and beyond
Dutch Golden Age paintings have been used for decades by organologists
seeking evidence of seventeenth-century instrument design; and the way in
which some artists represent instruments with apparent scientific
precision would seem to justify this confidence. However, concerns with
form as well as symbolic content might mean that we should examine such
almost photographically-perfect depictions more closely, to attempt to
negotiate a role (or multiple roles?) for any object in such a painting,
particularly a musical object.
AND
Benjamin Hebbert (University of Oxford)
Andrea Amati and the vingt-quatre violons du Roi
Although in the last few years, as the five-hundredth anniversary of his
birth has passed, much attention has been given to Andrea Amati as the
father of Cremonese violin making, little has been paid in this
connection to the environment at the court of Charles IX, or to why the it
patronised a violin maker in Italy rather than developing its own school
of making in France. The objective of this presentation is to explore the
broader cultural ideologies in the French court in order to understand why
Amati’s work was special to them, what it was intended to represent in
terms of cultural capital, and how this led to the
dissemination of Franco-Italian ideas about violin music throughout Europe.
3 June (Thursday): Claudia Robles (Essen)
The use of Bio-interfaces in my interactive Multi-Media performances
At 5.15 in the Parker Gallery (ground floor), 41-71 Commercial Road,
London E1.
I am particularly interested the interaction between media (audio and
visual) and bio-data from performers or from an audience. This is done by
using Biofeedback – the process of measuring physiological data from a
subject, analyzing the data, and feeding it back to the subject. This
presentation is about two interactive performances which I created using
bio-interfaces: an EMG (electromyogram) and an EEG
(electroencephalogram). Both were programmed in real time media with the
software MaxMsp/Jitter.
Seed/Tree (2005) Installation: Butoh performance created during
an
artist in residence at the ZKM (Center for Art and Media) Karlsruhe
(Germany). In this installation there are two types of interactivity. The
first is the interaction between dance and sound in which the
performers have microphones and EMG electrodes attached to their bodies;
the breathing and heartbeat of two of the performers produce sounds that
are continuously modified by the muscular tension of the third dancer. The
second type of interactivity is that between the installation space and
the visitors: during the performance, visitors can walk freely around the
virtual forest and their presence interacts with the video
projections.
INsideOUT (2009). This project was created during an artist in
residence program at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne (Germany). The
performer, who is surrounded by sound and images, interacts with them
using an EEG (electroencephalogram) interface, which measures the
performer’s brain activity. The sounds and images - already stored in the
computer - are continuously modified, via MAX/MSP-Jitter, by the values
from two electrode combinations.
8 June: Victor Gama (Lisbon and Luanda)
Pangeia Instrumentos and the Golian Modes: another perspective on new
twenty-first-century musical instruments
Present-day digital technologies allow a dematerialization of the musical
instrument and, consequently, the composition of music without object.
Pangeia Instrumentos reconsiders the object and its symbolic content,
while using those same technologies to re-materialize the object and
promote a way of writing where its form is an additional variable in
music making. The Golian Modes, which will be introduced, are four
musical modes derived from the ancient Kongo/Angolan graphic writing
system known
as ‘Bidimbu’.
15 June: Christina Paine (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Voice, image and agency on the early nineteenth-century London stage: the
case of Angelica Catalani
This paper examines the voice and performance style of Angelica Catalani
(1780-1849), as represented in the press, in music written for her, in
sources recording her own ornaments, and in accounts which liken her sound
to that of various instruments. Between 1797 and 1830 – the span of
Catalani’s career – Italian opera privileged the female singer, valuing
her above the ‘artwork’. Singers of Catalani’s generation were co-authors
and collaborators who realised works in performance in an individual way.
They had high agency, both on and off stage: composers wrote works for
their distinctive strengths and singers added
ornamentation and used other expressive devices as they saw fit. Later in
Catalani’s career, composers took more control of the creative process
and this, to some extent, has led to her achievement being ignored.
Building on recent performer-centred research, I present a performance
profile of Catalani, comparing her with singers of her own and the
immediately surrounding generations. I examine her acting, vocal
expression and ornamentation, and assess the materiality and quality of
her voice, including range, intonation, loudness, and tone quality. I
consider how far voices of the era before recording are recoverable, what
can be learned by analogy with the sounds of
instruments, and how of the voice production and performance
style of these singers could inform modern-day performance.
TIME AND PLACE:
Unless otherwise indicated, the seminar meets on Tuesdays, from 5.15 to
6.45, in The ILRC Seminar Room (room CR310, approached via the
second-floor entrance to the library), London Metropolitan University,
41-71 Commercial Road, London E1 1LA (5 minutes walk from Aldgate East
underground station).
Each presentation lasts about an hour and is followed by questions and
discussion.
Open to all. Please bring these events to the attention of those who
might be interested.
The seminar exists for the study of the technologies of music, and of the
relationship of music, technology and culture.
Further information from the Convenor: Lewis Jones
[log in to unmask]; tel. 020 7320 1841.
--
Lewis Jones
London Metropolitan University
Companies Act 2006 : http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/companyinfo
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