If you are not able to come to the show Rise Up, Fallen Angel — Please watch on the Center for Performance Research UStream channel.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/cprnyc

This is a big night — we have had many technical challenges setting up 3 screens of projection and surround sound, then streaming it all on to the internet.

Tonight is our open rehearsal, see you there.

Share on Facebook

Rise Up Fallen Angel – Thurs 5/26-Sat 5/28 – www.cprnyc.org – Brooklyn, NY from Christina deRoos on Vimeo.

I am in NYC working hard on the show with my collaborators.

Christina deRoos, my collaborator in the visual projection aspect of the show, made a video yesterday and posted it on Vimeo as a demo.

I hope you like it.

Click here to View on Vimeo.

Tickets available on Brown Paper Tickets Here — only $12.

Share on Facebook

Rise Up, Fallen Angel will be exhibited at the Centre for Performance Research on Thursday, May 26 through Saturday, May 28th. There will be an artist’s talk by curator, Victoria Gibson on Saturday afternoon.

The exhibit will consist of three screens with projected images placed in a non-linear improvised narrative and music from Play the Moment Composers’ Collective.

IMPORTANT: There is no text or language in the images or audio content.

361 Manhattan Avenue
NY 11211

Please sign up to submit your work. You will receive a confirmation e-mail letting you know we have received the form. If your image or video is not on a site where it may be downloaded, then please e-mail a small copy of the image or a description of the video to vixmedia01 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you have a problem with the form on this web page, please try this link.

Thank you for participating in the show,

Please read the full Call to Artists before submitting — by submitting this form you understand and agree to the terms and conditions in the Rise Up, Fallen Angel International Call to Artists — please click on this link to view or download a pdf copy  RiseUP-FallenAngel_Call-to_Artists3

Share on Facebook

The video shows some of the work in progress and the techniques that we used to develop the pieces.

I have been a member of Dance-Tech for about a year and I enjoy the great dance and technology videos and interviews. I was quite surprised to meet Marlon at EMPAC, but I was happy to be able to thank him in person for providing lots of interesting content.

Marlon also provided a link to a video documentary about Mark Coniglio’s work with Troika Ranch on their latest production, “Loop Diver”. I was touched by the devotion of the company to perfecting the production and the message of breaking free from our familiar loop patterns resonates with me.

Watch the video here

It was great to see the documentary, but it makes me want to see the full production. I hope is is presented again so I can see it!

Share on Facebook

My first week in New York city has been so busy that I have not had much time to do a retrospective of my eventful week, from August 15th to 22nd at EMPAC in Troy, NY.

I am happy to report that I was successful in creating a “visual music” presentation on 3 screens with one of the aspects controlled in real time using gesture control.

Adafruit shipped my Arduino boards to EMPAC and I was able to research on the internet and receive help from others in the workshop to understand how to make the system work. I chose the infra-red distance sensor and used information from the Adafruit website to help me program the board. My trusty Ubuntu computer handled all of the Arduino code uploading while I ran the Isadora program on the Macbook.

My performance was thrilling for me, but I was inspired and informed by the work that everyone else in the class showed on Saturday, August 21, 2010.

The first work we saw was by Joff, a theatre instructor who has a company that puts on plays in Second Life. The work included a grassy field with images of human figures that were short videos. The figures would fade in, seem to be sleeping, then move in some way, then fade out. We were invited to interact with the figures, but I found it fascinating just to watch them.

It was eerie and engaging as an installation and Joff might develop it further as a performance or to be more interactive.

There were two other installations, one by Ian (pronounced Ion) that consisted of a table and two chairs with a set of seemingly random objects on the table. The screen that faced the participants in the chair included a delayed video of individuals who had visited in the past mixed and overlaid with video of the present visitors. The more people that participated the more interesting the exhibit became as the past visitors would show up on the screen seeming to sit opposite the live participants.

Ian also staged an interactive performance and he was very generous in assisting with coding other people’s projects.

I hope to have more time to process the photos I took and I hope that Johannes (pictured here enjoying interacting with Ian’s installation) will be able to produce some video excerpts from the documentation of the Saturday events.

It was a full schedule and everyone worked very hard to create interesting and innovative work.

One of the largest collaborations was Sarah’s (shown activating one of the messages left) project. This was a complex installation that interacted with the visitor. As the person moved on the lighted squares the text and the audio would respond by changing. This process required complex programming, audio and text preparation and a lot of testing. The final showing was a great demonstration of the power of collaboration and the strong idea that Sarah realized.

Victor contributed to many projects as a programmer, electronic music composer and performer and finally, he revealed his own powerful statement.

Victor is a karate master who tracked his movement with a light controlled with infra-red tracking. It was a surprise to everyone who had watched all of the other projects evolve during the week with Victor seen as a helpful computer coder and audio designer. Victor amazed everyone with his grace and intensity as he put on a very effective performance.

More information about the activities of the busy week can be found on the workshop blog titled, EMPAC Live. Media+Performance Lab.

I do have more material, but no time at present. When I return home and I am shut in during the rainy season, memories of this wonderful week will pull me back to share more with you.

Share on Facebook

Guru Mandala -- Victoria Gibson

EMPAC — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center

My application to attend the summer intensive workshop has been accepted. August will find me in New York at one of the most advanced media arts centres in the world learning sophisticated control technologies. This workshop is intensive, going from 10am-10pm for 7 days on campus in residency.

LIVE.MEDIA + PERFORMANCE.LAB

8/16 – 8/22

The workshop addresses emerging and professional art practitioners, scientists, researchers, and students from different backgrounds in performance and new media committed to sharing their interest in developing a deeper understanding of composing work focused on real time, interactive or time-based experiences and multidisciplinary collaborative processes (video, sound processing, projection design, lighting, choreography and directing).

This workshop will assist me in realizing my Immersive Environment Instrument (IEI) and possibly lead to collaborations with other media artists that attend. An opportunity that has come along at exactly the right time to help me create my vision requires some pre-production consideration.

A Macbook Pro looms in my future, but I will still try to program and control my sensor array with Ubuntu.

Share on Facebook

Photo Credit: Jimmy Katz

The evening of May 1st I experienced the Orchestrion Project, conceived and directed by Pat Metheny at The Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver. I obeyed the request not to take photos or make recordings, so I will offer the readily available ubiquitous You Tube examples and links to official sites where some images are available. Pat Metheny has provided some photos by Jimmy Katz on his site (left). The first part of this post is a comment on the memorable guitar collection and the second part on the automated Orchestrion.

Pat Metheney’s Guitars

Pat Metheny is one of the world’s most skilled guitar players and it was a pleasure to hear him stretch out. I loved the guitar collection that was on display and it was heartbreaking to see two different guitars fall off the stands on to the stage at different times  during the show. The guitar tech gave a feeling like Japanese Bunraku, as the ever present controller of the brightly coloured puppets. He acted as a puppet master to the guitars because as the guitar tech he controlled the appearance and condition of each guitar presented placeing them quietly in the background. He was always present, a shadow behind the guitarist. A master manipulator who did not take a bow or receive performer credit, but who performed the essential dance of guitar control for the many instruments that were played. On several websites Carolyn Chrzan is credited as being guitar tech, but this is unofficial information for this show.

The show opened with a solo piece on nylon string guitar and I noticed that Pat really seems to like that percussive edge that comes from playing nylon with a pick. It is an aggressive sound for the instrument and I can understand the choice. I know I will not be following this example because of my studies with Michael Strutt, I would not be able to concentrate on my playing because echoes of his instructions for approaching the instrument would be louder in my head than the music. This is my conditioning, as many fine guitarists use a pick on nylon — even Chet Atkins used a thumbpick to maintain his usual famous style — even though the nylon string is a different instrument historically than the steel string. Finger style picking soon replaced the pick and I was able to hear the full beauty of the instrument shine through. I assume this was also a Linda Manzer guitar, although I don’t know for sure. It was a fine example of the craft of guitar making and was used extensively thoughout the show.

The signature Ibanez soon replaced the acoustic and we were treated to some very fine jazz/fusion work with the speed and precision the Metheny is deservedly famous for. A Master Class in technique and melodic styling combined with tasty chords. This was the most used guitar for improvised playing and seemed to be most comfortable for Pat to get his sound.

The multi-neck Linda Manzer “Pikasso” guitar was used for one piece and I could finally see the point. This strange instrument has multiple necks and sympathetic strings that offer different tonal possibilities. In performance, Mr. Metheny tuned all of the strings, except the regular guitar neck, to open chords with extended harmonies. The regular guitar neck was put through an octavider or a bass synth to create bass tones at least an octave below the usual tuning. The ability to play bass lines and strum huge open extended harmonies gave a pianistic quality that was overlaid with picked melodic lines. More than an interesting visual item for a collector, this was a viable instrument with a unique sound that extended a guitarist’s ability to play multiple timbres and parts simultaneously.

Another unique guitar contained automation that allowed foot pedal control of strumming somehow. Pat placed his feet on two volume pedals and was able to atomate a second guitar part, while he played the first. I would really like to see this up close to understand the concept. The guitar body was considerably larger than a stock guitar and I suspect some control machinery was inside. The two parts were explored during one piece after Pat was gracious enough to explain a bit about the process.

It is obvious that Pat Metheny loves to play with technology and he deserves strong praise for taking a chance and touring with the Orchestrion. Of course, much of the audience would have gladly attended a solo concert of the guitar legend, but this event pushed boundaries for much of the audience.

The other guitar I noted was a synth that seemed to be similar to my old Ibanez X-ing guitar (circa 1986) with multiple controls on the body. I always found that guitar heavy and awkward to play, but this was a Les Paul shape that seemed updated. The Ibanez used Roland guitar synth technology that I know Metheny has used in the past, but I have recently been using a Godin that tracks much better and is more fun to play.  This mystery guitar I remain curious about as it was the main controller for feeding data into the Orchestrion during the show.

The Orchestrion

Here is the Official Orchestrion site with all of the You Tube Video interviews and information from Pat Metheny.

CD cover

This post is naked without photos so I post the CD cover and  embed the EPK here.

If Pat had come on stage and just played the samples with his MIDI guitar, it would have sounded very similar, but the audience response would have been very different. Mr. Metheny is facing the same problem that I have been talking about with my instrument development project. If  the audience does not know how the sound is being produced, they do not connect the player with the sound being played, so the intention is not conveyed even though they hear the sound. Gesture is very important to focus attention and seeming the stick hit the drum may seem simplistic, but it is effective.

To physically carry all of this equipment, set it up and troubleshoot the connections is a huge task. Racks of fragile, glass bottles; filled with measured amounts of liquid for tuning purposes, are not easy to transport! This was a beautiful addition — an automated jug band — oops I mean, “bottle ensemble” built by the Peterson Company in Chicago. These two racks of tuned bottles were blown by a machine (similar to a human blowing over the top of a bottle) to activate a sound similar to a pipe organ, but with a softer, chimey timbre.

My main interest was in Pat’s TWO Disklaviers. The studio that I work in as mastering engineer and artist,Waterlou Studios, has a 7 foot Disklavier and I had despaired of ever running MIDI in or out of it due to latency issues. The piano works really well to control the internal sounds and records every gesture and dynamic of a performance, including pedals. It will play back any performance by itself perfectly, BUT if I try to use it as a controller or feed MIDI information into it in real time, the latency is almost a second.

Absolutely unusable latency, but here was Pat, and he can play that guitar with amazing speed, feeding lines into a Disklavier that jumped to attention and played back in real time!!!!

. . . And there are several Disklaviers involved in this project. Yamaha has been incredibly supportive of the project and has provided me with an instrument for the recording that’s beautiful, way better than my at-home model. And their technology is sort of the standard in a way that I’m measuring everything else to.

Waterlou Studios will be investigating this to see if there is a way of upgrading the current instrument. I really love the piano part of this Yamaha, so I do not want to replace it. The bass is the best I have heard in a recording studio in Vancouver and the sustain has surprised more than one recording artist. I can be eloquent about this piano because I have recorded it so much with such great results.  Paul Plimley knows pianos and he selected this one after trying every expensive piano in Vancouver for over a year. The electronics work perfectly inside the unit, it is a communications upgrade that is required.

The other automated  components that were essential to the performance was the bass and mallet instruments. Several constructions, similar to ones I have seen Trimpin constructing in his studio for an installation, played bass and operated the mallets. It is impossible for me to talk about automated instruments without mentioning my friend Trimpin, he is a legend in the field and worked with Colin Nancarrow. He is best known locally for creating IF VI WAS IX: Roots and Branches, the sculpture of guitars that plays (and self-tunes) in the lobby of the Experience Music Museum in Seattle.

At the Rambling Bay movie, I remember Charlie Hayden joking that he offered to be a robot to play with Pat in this ensemble. That is quite a compliment to Metheny’s musicianship to have such a great talent wanting to play and I missed the tonal variation and sensitivity of Charlie Hayden’s energy in supporting the guitaristic flights of fancy.

The percussion instruments required most of the room on stage and I really felt that if any percussionist Pat hired to play the gig overplayed to this degree, they would be fired on the spot. The box of tuned jingles was used as a metronome several times and percussion instruments that would normally be occasional accents in a quiet moment or a steady, supportive pulse were used as sporadic accents. As a percussionist, I usually play counterpoint or a pulse and only in selected sections emphasize certain areas with doubling. The density of percussion sometimes created a situation where the accents could not he heard, although you could see the instrument moving,  because so much percussion was going on in general. Perhaps some volume differences or panning could have separated out the component parts to make everything more audible.

The drums were basic, a bass kick drum, toms, snare, hats and cymbals and the occasional electronic addition.  The cymbals tended to wash across the sonic landscape and the patterns tended to be repetative, without enough human sensitivity and dynamics and could have been produced by a good sampling drum machine.

The mallet instruments were mostly doubling or looping Pat’s lines and added to a dense texture that was further complicated by two pianos. I know this is Mr. Metheney’s first major foray into loop based composition and I was drawn to offer my services as a real-time editor and arranger of these types of materials. He really has some great ideas melodically and his harmonic language is more advanced than mine on the guitar. He has inspired me to practice for speed again, as he plays quickly to deliver a message, not just to babble unintelligibly.

This concert was one of the most expensive I will attend this year and 100% worth it. I really learned from Pat Metheny’s work on guitar and it was inspiring to see the development of the Orchestrion. The responsive Disklavier was a revelation and I am glad that Pat is bringing this technology out to popularize with audiences. His explanation was very helpful to the general public and he has generously provided a lot of information on his website.  The show is enjoyable for the Pat Metheny fans among us who love to see great guitar work and for those curious about the Orchestrion, Pat’s commissioned developments in automated music making machines.

Share on Facebook

Paul and I went to see Laurie Anderson last night at The Playhouse, playing at the same time next door at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre was Neil Young with rumours of Lou Reed being in the group. As we walked to our ticketed event, we passed pavillions with free shows going on continuously.

There is so much going on, it is hard to choose what to see. So far, I have participated in Sonic Genome with Anthony Braxton, attended Yaletown Live on my way to see the ticketed event Sound Gallery at the Roundhouse, danced to the sound and light of the Drum & Light festival hosted by John Kosrud and Hard Rubber Orchestra and walked past really long line-ups into other pavillions.

Friday, Feb.19, at 8pm I will attend Marathonologue, a fusion of Javanese gamelan, Scots highland bagpipes and Japanese Taiko drumming. This is Michael O’Neill’s full-length performance piece, which also features Alexanra Dulic and Ken Newby contributing their visual projections. There has been a dominant theme of visual projections as there are large led and flat screens everywhere you look.I will add photos to this post, but now I have to go to work.

Share on Facebook

UniverCity Net - digital art by Victoria Gibson

Research into the Immersive Environment Instrument (IEI) continues and this post is about the visual surround aspect of the presentation. For background information on this project click here. There are lots of links to examples, but none I have the right to re-post. My digital artwork, UniversityNet, has become a kind of logo for the IEI, so I post it to break up the text heaviness of research.

My goal is to bring the cinematic experience of film into live performance within a virtual reality simulation. Exploring a non-linear narrative that references three time periods — past, present and future, to construct a communication that is open to individual interpretation. Resonating with an audience on an emotional level, the performer improvises each show as a unique construct. Using a sensor array, events are triggered with dance-like motions that communicate emotional intention through gesture.

The University of California,  Santa Barbara is the host institution for the AlloSphere, an incredible facility designed by Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin.  Dr. JoAnn Kuchera Morin assembled a team that included world renowned architect, Robert Venturi, to design and construct this feat of engineering. She talks about her work on TED with a really interesting video.

In 2000 she began the creation, design, and development of a Digital Media Center within the California Nanosystems Institute. The culmination of her design is the Allosphere Research Laboratory, a three-story metal sphere inside an echo-free cube, designed for immersive, interactive scientific and artistic investigation of multi-dimensional data sets. She serves as Director of the Allosphere Research Laboratory and Center.  . — XMedia Lab

There is a lot of interesting research in Santa Barbara that may apply to the construction of the Immersive Environment Instrument, but it is not portable and it was designed to facilitate research, not performance. There is no room for an audience, but compositions could be shown on video as seen on the TED site. The challenge would be to translate as much of the effect of this multi-million dollar facility into a portable touring show.

Many of the elements of the IEI have been used in performance before, as the idea of surround sound has been in use since the introduction generally credited to Stockhausen. The idea of surround video has been used by a collective, Workspace Unlimited, among others. Their example, Hybrid Space 360, is really interesting because it has already been presented at EMPAC – Experimental Media and performing arts Center Rensselaer in New York, 2008. There are photos on their site, but as it in Flash, you have to navigate yourself, click on projects to view the data . . .  I cannot even link directly.

Their interesting concept is of an interactive installation, not a performer controlled environment. The Immersive Environment Instrument will tour with Victoria Gibson in Girl Can Dream, the first composition for the instrument. Later, other musicians will be invited to join Victoria to expand the sensor array and integrate other personality styles.

A lot of recent development in software has made still photos panoramic and there are even very inexpensive point and shoot cameras that offer the ability to select the nodes (nodes are individual photos — see Wikipedia) required to stitch together photos in this way. With the proper viewer, an on-line panorama can be achieved. See the Apple VR site for examples of Quicktime panoramas (plug-in required) .

Ubuntu Users — The most promising thread in this area seems to be freepv not found in a repository by Synaptic yet. Build instructions on the site.

Anyone with the quicktime plug-in can view movies made of panoramic photos on this company’s site — Studio 360. These examples are not the photo itself, but a movie of the panoramic photo.

The concept of surround video is tricky, so I propose to set up separate nodes, the same way panoramic photos are really separate photos. This will also give me more flexibility in using lights to soften the edges of each node to aid in blending or to use the nodes a unique, distinct images. I do not expect surround video to be available soon as large studios are having enough of a challenge with Imax, Omnimax and conventional 3D films.  I think that it is more cost effective and realistic to project each node independently and let the instrument create a Cinematic Virtual Reality (CVR) illusion. Cinematic Virtual Reality is a term I created for the visual component to the Immersive Environment Instrument.

Share on Facebook

UniverCity Net – digital art by Victoria Gibson

As an Integrated Media Artist, I have many project ideas that I am constantly working on. My most recent project proposals have been seeking support to develop a new instrument for me to play in performance. My current goal is to develop a performance instrument that works using gesture control and sensors to create an alternative reality environment.

Although my core training is in music, I have studied dance and motion and have spent years of my life in on-stage performance as a musician. In my recent presentations, I have played computer based instruments and I realize that a lot of the impact of musical presentation is about the gesture of producing the sound.

If I am to continue to use the computer as a performance instrument, I need to develop a controller that responds to dance-like movements. The vision of being able to focus physical energy through dance and control audio and visual elements was crystallized into my need for an Immersive Environment Instrument (IEI).

My research into this topic has been detailed and I will construct a page to organize information about the IEI. [UPDATE: Find it Here] This post is to show the work that is already being done by Arizona State University, School of Art, Media and Engineering that uses motion tracking technology and dance with light and projections.

Here is a link to their Gallery page, I have no permission to repost, and I am very sensitive about these issues. So you have to go and look from their site — it is worth a visit to see the dancers and the light responding to their movements. Video and photographic documentation is available from the link.

What I want to do is different because it is based in Integrated Media performance where dance is a significant portion, but it is used to focus energy that results in other events. My concept is to immerse the audience in an environment that surrounds them with sound+light+motion to create a beautiful virtual reality experience that brings dream to life.

Screens will surround the audience to the limit of their peripheral vision and surround sound will envelope them; because we cannot see behind us but we hear in 360 degrees, there is no need to completely surround  with the visual elements. The artists will become part of the projection as the light will be projected on to them and their shadows create a similar effect to the shadow play of Indonesia as they move.

The most practical scenario for the screens that I can envision is for them to show images in panels, with each panel having an individual projector, so that the image/video can can be changed in location or a fresh image brought forward in real time.

The light will fill the areas between the projections with colour that I also want to control in real time. Parameters like diffusion, colour, intensity and brightness can all be computer controlled with vari-lites.

The sound will surround the viewer from all directions and will be generated using traditional sound sources such as voice, percussion and guitar augmented, effected and accompanied by computer generated sound and pre-recorded samples.

The musicians will use dance-like gestures to control all the parameters simultaneously. Some parameters may be cross-linked to allow simultaneous activation of related image/video/light/sound events.

Once I have the IEI constructed I will compose works that will use pre-organized materials and ideas presented in an improvised flow that responds to the energy of the moment.

To truly realize this concept, I plan to link all performances to a virtual reality computer world, such as Second Life, so that the performance may be shared in mixed reality. The virtual reality may also be projected for the live audience to share the unique effects that can only be experienced virtually. This will be accomplished using the amazingly low latency software developed by Stanford University under the direction of Chris Chafe. This software is based on the jackd audio connection software used in Linux OS, such as the Ubuntu kernel that I use. The software that is used for Telematic concerts, such as the one I wrote about in the post about Chris Chafe, is called jacktrip. This software can be used to link musicians in remote locations with very low latency — depending on the speed of the connection. Before I arrived in Banff, John Adams had recorded a multitrack session using 24/96 sampling rate. This astounded me and the results I witnessed myself, at a lower sampling rate, were exceptionally good.

Due to the interesting work done by dance technologists in the world of motion tracking, I have now joined dance-tech.net and you can visit me there. I am freeing my inner dancer after all these years of trying to limit myself. In the music world all the business people and sucessful artists on panels tell you to limit yourself and categorize your work in a recognizable way so you can market it sucessfully. I did try, but at this point in my life, it has become important to me to do the work as I perceive it. Commercial success has become a lot less important than the satisfaction I get from achieving my goals.

Go to Immersive Environment Instrument Page

Share on Facebook