Category: music

music performance and recordings

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wilding AI in Montreal

To wild: to make wild. To see and hear the wild underneath the tame, to know it is there and embrace it fully, pull it out from under, with love.

I am honoured and grateful to be part of a cohort of artists and thinkers in the research cohort Wilding AI. Over the last few years, we have met in different locales – online and around the world – to think about what it means to work and create in this so-called algorithmic moment.

We all have (as collectives do) many differing ideas and interests (I’ve written about our residency at Fiber Festival in Amsterdam earlier this year in a blog post here). We recently finished a residency at Université de Montreal’s Laboratoire formes · ondes, and presented a collection of works at a sold-out show at SAT Montreal.

This project was a rubber-meets-the-road of our many discussions, Google Meets, emails, scholarly articles, residencies, dancing, meals, hugs over the last few years. It was the first time we all sat down to make something that we could share with others.

The process of discussion between us, and the many open labs we have hosted around the world has been an incredible watering of the soil. We’ve wrestled with software, with plugins, githubs, jet lag (so much jet lag), Google Colab and Jupyter notebooks, microphones, the world on fire, speakers, guitars and drumsticks, our own bodies and voices in the moment of making. We’ve all approached what it means to make with tools that are (supposedly) efficient, that prioritize efficiency and automation and want us to see and use them in that way.

Some of us did that, some of us didn’t (or maybe it would be more accurate to say we all did to varying degrees).

But what we also did was to invite ourselves and each other to be wild: to ask ourselves what is down deep, what is wild in our own minds, hands, bodies, ears, hearts, and to allow that wildness to sing in our making with the machine. Each song was different; each song was wild. And the discussions we had among ourselves and with others was wild too.

Every moment we talked with others about being wild in this machine space – about rejecting some part of the workflow, or listening to the composition and what it needed despite/beyond/outside the math, to hear the algorithm break down and embrace the possibility of that endpoint – I saw it land with people. I saw it dawn on them that there is room, that the machine imperative can be lived with instead of lived under. I saw it land that they can listen to their bodies and their ancestors, that they can be slow, they can be human and live in the gap between machine math and the mess and wildness of what it means to be on this earth, together.

And that is what we, WAI, did in Montreal – we were together, on this earth, listening, sharing and being wild.

(the image for this post comes from SpatGRIS, the spatialization software used at the Laboratoire. More info here).

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radical sonic futures

What does “radical sonic futures” mean?

To me, it’s a term about what it means to consider or reach for radical outcomes as regards our relationships to sound and what we hear it offer us. Outcomes that are not yet present, but nascent, humming tones that are dimly sensed.

And through that listening, that reaching, we come to a deeper understanding of what it means to inhabit the world around us, now, in this present moment. That we seek a path to engage with our world as it is, not as something outside ourselves, but through being a part of it, in it.

And that the future is the place and time where they blossom. And the things they blossom into are radical, much more radical than our relationship to sound and each other in the present moment (and especially in the present moment).

And when I say “the future”, I mean the tick, the moment, the sample after this one.

I was recently commissioned to write an essay on the topic of “audible futures” for an upcoming publication – a massive project that will involve many current (and radical) voices in the field of sound studies. I thought a lot about what that word “future” meant. What did they mean by “future”? What do any of us mean? I thought too about what it might mean to be invited into this community of sound people, many of whom I knew as names on a page, writing ideas that drive the things I think about and share with you here. What can I offer as part of this gathering? What can I say that hasn’t been said before, and better?

To their credit (and my endless gratitude), the editors wanted to hear what I thought, rather than defining the term or the circumstance for me*. They were clear that they were asking me to imagine, and they spoke passionately about the community of thought they were trying to build. They urged me to reach for a fantastical dreaming of our aural future(s), something hidden or around a corner.

So I thought about it. What is around the corner, present but just out of sensing? What is hidden? How can I share it?

Thinking, I keep coming back to the thing I always come back to: that sound is a way for us to connect to the moment, to the reality of being, to being in relationship. It is a way to forge new understandings and openness. That to be open to sound, to receive it with all your senses, is to be attuned to the universe in a way that reveals the rich interconnectedness of atoms we call reality, that we call friendship, that we call the sunshine on our skin, that we call joy, that we call love.

You know: radical sonic futures.

*

We all know that defining terms can sometimes collapse them – see the beautiful “listening protocols” article from Dr Salome Voegelin et al’s project Listening Across Disciplines at the University of Arts London):

“…the aim to compile such a vocabulary soon collided with the desire not to stultify listening and hearing in a lexical definition. In other words, not to turn the heard into a visual object and not to deprive the sonic of its fluidity, ephemerality, and even unreliability, upon which, after all, its particularity and its knowledge gain relies. And so, while there was a desire to develop shared words, to improve a cross-disciplinary understanding and use of the sonic, there was also a caution against what words do or do not permit the doing of, once written down and lexically defined.” (Voegelin; link)

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working in tandem, in immediacy

where we started
where we ended up

I’m working with visual artist Tazeen Qayyum on a new performance project with sound and performative drawing. Tazeen’s practice stems from her training in Mughal miniature painting, and she has taken this tradition and exploded it outwards to many different expressions. One of her modes of working results in her performative drawings that she constructs in her studio, but also live. She works by minutely drawing one word, inscribing it 1000’s of times in patterns, resulting a document of meditation that is incredibly striking.

We’ve long been fans of each other’s work, and have been looking for a way to work together, me with my instruments and electronics and her with her drawing. What was particularly interesting to both of us was not just performing in the same space at the same time, but looking for with some kind of possible way for us to communicate and transform our practices together. What we did at her most recent (as of time of writing) exhibition was host an open rehearsal, where we actually exposed the process of investigation to outside viewers in real time.

This was an absolutely extraordinary experience, to share our thoughts and ideas out loud with others present. It was so interesting to involve and incorporate people’s observations of what they experienced as we tried new strategies in working together.

I am tremendously excited by the project’s potential. We’ll be doing a lot more of this (our schedules permitting) and there are many new paths to discover.

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Travels

I spent some time as a guest composer at Elektronmusik Studion (EMS) in Stockholm recently:

It was a tremendously inspiring time, and while I was there for 10 days, I never really got over my jet lag, going into the studios at all hours. There were a number of fantastic spaces there, all of which had slightly different capabilities in terms of gear and sound.

The thing that I thought so incredible, though, was the very strong commitment from the staff that EMS was a public good. This went beyond the funding they received from the Swedish government (the studio celebrates it’s 60th year this year), but is rooted very strongly in the genesis of the institution (housed initially in a worker’s building and undergoing many shifts in outlook and equipment). At every turn I heard and experience the studio as being a gathering place for new sounds and ideas. The composers-in-residence do not have to pay anything for access to the studios, and are invited on the basis of the ideas they wish to explore at the studio.

As a result, you get a very broad range of practices and age groups, and the potential for cross-inspiration is great. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, not just for my own work but for the conversations I had with the staff and the artists there.

Looking forward to working on the piece I started there. Stay tuned.

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Subharmonies

Putting on my touring musician hat again after some time to play at Cluster in Winnipeg. I’ll be performing my quadraphonic Rückstreuung project, which made its debut at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto. Here’s an excerpt from that performance:

live excerpt of the quadraphonic project rüstreuung @ MOCA, Toronto in 2022

As you can see from the video, it’s really about architecture and space. The quadraphonic dissemination is explicitly chosen to allow for the tones to intersect and create rhythms and to allow the listener to discover tones that are located in specific places. Moving from one space to another reveals different sound interactions.

The project was created at Akademie der Künste during a residency at the Studio for Electroacoustic Music, where I was able to experiment on the venerable Subharchord, one of the few still functioning:

the subharchord @ Akademie der Künste SEM

Here’s where I ended up (thanks to Robert Lippok for taking the video):

Since I don’t have a Subharchord (boo) I’m using a Moog Subharmonicon, which uses the same principle of audio synthesis. The “sub” in both those names refers to the fact that instead of overtones from a fundamental pitch (which is what many synths do), these instruments divide the frequency to create subharmonies to the fundamental. Tuning these sub levels results in intersection of tones, and the use of a filter further allows one to shape the quality of the sound.

I’m really looking forward to going back to Winnipeg. I’m playing at a venue that I was at the opening of, the West End Cultural Centre – in fact, I think my mom performed at that opening. I’ve played there many times since, and it’s going to be nice to go home and explore that space with sound.

See you there?

UPDATE: I found this so I’m going to try and build it in Max/MSP. It’ll probably take me a year. ↓

quasi schematic from subharchord.com

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i have nothing to say and i am saying it

I like to tell stories. I’ve begun to see a pattern in the many projects I undertake – a desire to tell stories. These are not always the stories that have a beginning, a middle and end – sometimes they are the stories that I carry in my body and hands.

I recently played a concert that was the kind of presentation that is more conventional than the ones I often find myself in – a large hall, filled with people and with a band on stage. I realized that even here there is a story I am telling when playing a piece of music as part of an ensemble. It is the story of the years of practice, of (sometimes) frustration and (often) joy, and the slow dawning of the realization that I cannot be all things, I can only be myself.

I used to feel bad that I was “untrained” and feel that technique was lacking. That may be true, but in the many many years that I have been working at my craft and art, a kind of understanding has arisen, an understanding that I, myself, have a voice and a story to tell as part of the accumulated experience of my heart, mind and body. And that story is one that is worth sharing, because it is unique – mine and only mine.

So the theatre work that I do, the many artists that I collaborate with, the sound art and radiophonic works I create – they are all part of this unique story of me. And while this post is in danger of sounding self aggrandizing and egoistic, this is only because I cannot put into words properly what this story means in the larger world around me. It has meaning, and it is only one small cell in the giant organism of sound and being.

 

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new year

I suppose that basically every blog on the Internet is going to be doing a post such as this, but anyway: happy new year, and I hope to post more regularly.

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sound and performance

there is a lot about digital sound, a particular kind of sound world that holds much fascination for me. in many ways the fascination is expressed in the act or process of making the sound around us audible, the exposure of the mystery that is in our atmosphere all around us, every day.

but being a musician, and maybe more so a percussionist, also demands a kind of engagement when i make and construct this sound into a work. and in the end, the process is fulfilling but not visceral—an important part of my connection to creating sound is lost through the keyboard, the midi controller, the mouse.

which is why i am so happy to have built tetsuo kogawa‘s radio transmitters, thanks to the help of naisa and hector centeno. for the first time in many years i have direct access to working with this world, a way to engage my whole being in the exploration of this mysterious realm.

enjoy.

http://soundcloud.com/debsinha/radiotransmitterimprov1

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20120826-163319.jpg

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7000 Oaks

the 7000 oaks project (knuckleduster version) is underway.  a re-mount/-imagining/-mix of the original joseph beuys installation in kassel, we decided to make it a part of the knuckleduster haus der kulturen der welt concert commission we recently did. the concert series was part of the programming HKW was doing around sustainability, and the 7000 project was meant to be part of our concept/contribution to the program, along with our concert and video.

a nice idea—interesting concept, long term life, etc., etc. fine.  a minor part of our life as a band, something to keep track of and occasionally do.  one of the many small things that we as artists take on in our practice—a responsibility, but not a pressing one.  occasionally irritating, often neglected.  not one that makes a huge difference but worth keeping alive.

until we planted the first tree.

going out into the urban wilderness, dragging our seedlings, a small shovel.  some water.  moving through the weeds and broken bottles, my daughter in tow.  finding a place, somewhat sheltered for the little plants, but with enough room for them to grow.  digging in the dirt, soil under our fingernails.  the rich black colour of the earth, the smell of it.  and then the trees, nestled under the bushes, drinking in the water and sun and air and our hopes that they grow and shade many small children.  the trees carriers of our future hopes.

this could be one of the most important things i ever do.