VIX Sound+Light+Motion

The Waldorf Hotel pub is quite a nice venue and it was really fun to play with the Mud Bay Blues Band. This band has been around for many years and the players have a smooth familiarity with each others playing styles.

A friend of mine came down to enjoy the music and took a few photos – check them out here. It was very generous of him to document the event as he usually specializes in nature photos and not people.  I guess we were down to earth enough for him to accept us as part of the scenery.

This Friday night was really fun, as I had the opportunity to play my original music that is closest to my Blues heritage.  I hope I have another chance to play with this group and I will post future events in advance.

Tonight Paul is playing at Performance Works as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

Everywhere is Vancouver there is evidence that the Olympics are here. From the eternally crowded transit to the spotlights lighting the night sky, this party for the world cannot be ignored.

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.

There are no words that can express the feeling of the concert that will be happening at The Roundhouse Community Center on Sunday, January 31, 2010 starting at noon — you will have to be there to hear the music. Money is no object, as it is a free 8 hour long concert that brings together Anthony Braxton’s 12+1 tet and an ensemble of approximately 50 of Vancouver’ improvising musicians.

With Anthony Braxton reeds/composition, Taylor Ho Bynum cornet/trumpet/flugelhorn/bass trumpet, Nicole Mitchell flutes, Andrew Raffo Dewar, James Fei reeds, Steve Lehman saxophones, Sara Schoenbeck bassoon, Jessica Pavone violin/alto viola, Mary Halvorson electric guitar, Reut Regev trombone, Jay Rozen tuba, Carl Testa double bass/bass clarinet, Aaron Siegel drums/percussion/vibes.

The concert is presented as part of the PuSH Festival in association with The Coastal Jazz and Blues Society. The Coastal website has a lot of information about the Genome Project world performance premiere on their site. The image that appears here is linked from the Coastal site as I have taken no photos yet. According to the press release, this piece was conceived as a recording project and this is the first live performance. A CD of the recorded Genome Project is already available.

I am excited and honoured to have been accepted into this ensemble and I will be playing with computer and vocals. There are already several guitar players, including my friend Paul Plimley, so I think this instrumentation will be more useful in creating unique textures.This is the largest instrumental ensemble I have ever been in, although I have sung with larger choirs, this will be a once in a lifetime experience. Please come down sometime during the 8 hours of music to enjoy the space and be part of the energy.

The Vancouver New Music Society brought Phil Minton to lead the Feral Choir, a group made up of local volunteer singers. This program of  improvisational vocal workshops leading to a performance has been popular at locations all over the world and there are samples of audio and video on the official site from several sites in Europe and Australia. We were very lucky that he chose to return to Vancouver to share some of his expertise with us.

The last time I saw Mr. Minton in Vancouver was with Maggie Nichols, a longtime collaborator, who is also from the UK. As I was doing my usual Jazz Festival volunteer shift as Crew Chief at the Ironworks, I had the opportunity to share in the fun as the duo warmed up in the green room. The show was very inspiring and opened up vocal areas that I had not previously concentrated on.

Phil Minton in action

I was looking forward to the workshops and performances and I signed up early. There is no audition and Phil’s workshops are open to anyone who wants to sing, so there were many people attending who I do not know. Singers I did know included Kate Hammett-Vaughn, Carol Sawyer, Soressa Gardener and DB Boyco among others.

Phil Minton and his Vancouver Feral Choir 2010

I did take photos of the rehearsal such as Phil in action and the pre-performance  at Ironworks, but my daughter, Jhayne Holmes, took this group photo (above) with my camera. The low light conditions are difficult for the Nikon D50 with the kit lens — we will see what her newer Nikon photos are like.

There are more photos to come, but I will send them to the performers through Vancouver New Music as I did not get specific permission to post them.  Perhaps they will post and I will link.

I did record the concert with my Zoom H4 and  Vancouver New Music recorded as well. One of the choir members was recording at the rehearsal for CBC broadcast, so it might be part of a radio show soon. There may be some sonic samples of the amazing choral sounds that were made today.

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.

I am always curious to see and hear what other Vancouver based electronic media artists are involved in. There are many interesting developments happening in Vancouver and Surrey campuses and one of the academic intersections occurred tonight at the  Surrey Art Centre. Graduate students from Emily Carr and Simon Fraser University School of Interactive Art and Technology were showing some of their work in media arts and a musical performance titled “Acoustic Illusions”. The music performance was described as:

 A series of sound works that experiment with sensory illusion of the aural field.   . . . the performers are Martin
Gotfrit, Peter Bowles and Yota Kobayashi with Mark McGregor.

Martin Gotfrit is a very accomplished electro-acoustic performer/composer and I have heard Mark McGregor play flute at New Music concerts many times before, so I thought it would be worth the long Skytrain ride to get to the event. I had never been to the Surrey Art Centre, even though it is quite close to Vancouver, but the completion of the Canada Line Skytrain, located close to my home, makes it much more convenient to travel to the ends of another municipality.

Another reason I was curious to attend the show is that Brady Marks, who taught the Pure Data classes at Vivo that I recently attended, graduated from the Surrey campus of SFU. Full of anticipation, I read through the list of events.

Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Featuring graduate student projects by Morgan Rauscher, Miles Thorogood,
and Lois Klassen from Emily Carr University of Art + Design; Arefe
Dalvandi, Diego Maranan, and Benjamin Unterman from the School of
Interactive Art and Technology, Simon Fraser University, Surrey; along with
Scott Billings and Julio López from the University of British Columbia
Department of Art History, Fine Art and Theory.

The presentation was held in conjuction with (but not part of) The Interactive Futures Conference: Stereo 09 that gets underway Friday and I may attend more of the events. (continue reading…)

Charlie Haden is Paul’s friend, and I had the opportunity to meet him and listen to him play in Paul’s studio about three years ago. His wife, Ruth, is a wonderful singer and we chatted at the session. I was looking forward to seeing them again.

As Paul is my duo partner in You Are Here and I am his recording studio engineer of choice, we went to the film “Charlie Haden: Rambling Boy” together on Thu, Oct 15th 6:30pm.

Official image linked to the Vancouver Interntional Film Festival Site.

(continue reading…)

It is the time of year when all of Vancouver becomes culturally categorized by which films they have seen or are about to see at the Vancouver International Film Festival. For a list of where the cool kids are going, see my daughter’s blog, Dreampepper.

The big news for me was that the film about Trimpin was going to be screened and there was a talk with the artist and the film creator, Peter Esmonde on Friday at 5:00pm. The name of the film is “Trimpin, The Sound of Invention“, a very apt titleconsidering the wonderful sonic projects Trimpin has created over the years. I went to see my friend Trimpin and the director/producer of the film, Peter Esmonde,  at Pacific Cinematique.

The talk was really informative as I had no idea the Trimpin has collaborated so closely with Conlon Nancarrow, the master of player piano composition. When the film excerpt showed how Trimpin had saved Conlon’s work so it could be enjoyed by future generations I was amazed. I found this photo of Trimpin (foreground left)  and Conlon (right) and I linked to the Minnesota Public Radio site to show it to you.

Re-posted from Minnesota Public Radio Site

(continue reading…)

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). (continue reading…)

Podcast (girl_can_dream): Download

Third Podcast in the Girl Can Dream Series

The previous two podcasts were about my heritage music, gospel and blues.  This third one features some of the work I do using the computer and effects. All the music in this series is written and performed by me, Victoria Gibson, and I have imposed the limitation that I be able to perform it in a live solo concert. I am playing with a computer in one of these examples, but I still count it as a solo work.

The title, “Echoes of You Far Away” comes from the memories of the interesting people that I spent time with this summer who are far away now. The style is a recollection of the naturally echoing space called “The Cistern Chapel” that I speak about in the podcast audio.

In May, I met Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster and David Gamper, the trio known as The Deep Listening Band, in Port Townsend. This ensemble first recorded in the cistern 20 years ago and many sound artists have followed them down the narrow entrance to experience the 45 second reverb since then.  My mission was to document the 20 year anniversary return of the Deep Listening Band to The Cistern Chapel located nearby in Fort Worden with video and photos and to assist with the audio recording.

I journeyed to the location on my Yamaha FJ1200 motorcycle loaded down with all the required gear.

The video and photos that were taken of the band may be released by The Deep Listening Institute as a DVD or on their website, but I am giving a preview of the photos I took of the Cistern Chapel.  I do not include any photos of the band as some of them may be used in the commercial release and we have not finalized the details. The audio was recorded by Jonas Braasch, a colleague of Pauline’s from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, School of Architecture, Architectural Acoustics Program who is a fine saxophone player. The audio of my experiments was recorded by me using my Zoom H4.

This slideshow gallery includes photos of my trip and some of the cistern itself. It was very dark under the ground and the feeling in the place was unique.

[Show as slideshow]

Thank You.