hicksm@spock (Michael Hicks) (11/28/89)
Hello. My name is Michael Hicks and I and others are preparing a performance art piece to be presented to the general public of Tucson Arizona. Even though the project itself is not quite completely defined at this point we have re- served the band shell in the park for next july and later this week are scheduled to meet with the Director of Arts for this town's park department to discuss our plans and the possibility for public funding. I have had very little experience in putting together projects like this so I would like to describe what we have in mind and ask for comments and any sug- gestions and ideas. We intend this to be an multi-media piece of computer graphics and music with a high degree of audience interaction (both passive and active). We intend to use an AMIGA 500 as our main computer. I don't own a computer at the moment but might by a cheap XT clone (I'm on a shoestring budget) and use it as the MIDI controller. Other hardware should come in as we assemble a work group. We would like to come up with inovative but simple ways to interface ourselves and the audience to the process of creating . It's fundementally important to us that we entertain our audience. The performance will be divided into many sections which individuals will have reposibility to develope and also should include sections of live performance. We thought this would be a good way to divide the work up so that the indivduals involved would have thier own room for personnal expression but the final decision on weither or not it shall be included in the performance shall remain with the working group as a whole. Though personnally I enjoy things with a slight twist to the and that make me think (Eno and Anderson are good examples) we in no way want this to become an excercise in intellectual hobnob. We want everyone to get something out of this. Even those with no real exposure to performance art, electronic music, computer graphics, or anything with an advant-garde bent. I have kept things a bit schetchy is this notice in part because it is schetchy right now but also because I do not wish to color your comments and suggestions which I hope you will find time to send us. In particular we would like input on: -Anyone's past experience with similar projects -Ideas on interfacing techniques -Ideas on hardware and software for both the graphics and the music aspects I invite you to respond. Yours sincerely Michael Hicks
chymes@zug.csmil.umich.edu (Charles Hymes) (11/29/89)
Charles Hymes
garym@ulysses.UUCP (Gary Murphy) (11/30/89)
In my previous incarnation as a computer artist, I was involved in many
such shows in the Toronto and Hamilton area. These events were
invariably orchestrated by our premier Happening Architect Udo
Kasemets, so I can't really relate much detail about the problems of
the show, the funding &c, but I can describe some of the more
successful participants in these events.
Easily the most popular item we ever displayed was David Rokeby's
various environment pieces. These permit audience interaction in mass
or may be controlled by more 'serious' performers. His first big hit
was an item called Narcissus, which consisted of a 'well' made from
old circuit boards - the well captured sounds in its immediate
vicinity and ran these through various frequency shifters and the
like. The effect was very subtle and it was a joy to see people when
they finally discovered what the source of the sound was (themselves).
His second big work, and I forget the name he uses, consists of four
homebuilt cameras which relay the stage scene to an Apple II where the
signals are parsed for the formants of movement. These are then
mapped to a DX-11 (?) FM synthesizer. One performance consisted of
two installations, one in NY and another in Paris, networked over
phone lines: once familiar with the kinds of movement to sound
mappings, one could be in NY and, from the sound, imagine the activity
happening on the Paris floor. This work has the advantage of
including the audience (cameras in the lobby) or of being controlled
by one or more dancers (close feedback loop!).
One of my own more successful shows was actually a score by Marcel
DuChamp, which I performed as part of the centennial last year. This
involved a Lionel model train which passed under a hopper collecting
stones and then dumped the stones on an A:D converter. The converter
then passed the digital values to a PC where they were converted to
pitches and durations. In one version, the resulting score was
displayed on a monitor for the pianist (Gordon Monahan), and in a
second version, we used the signals to drive a homebuild 16x4 audio
mixer connected to continuously varying sine-wave generators. The
audience had a huge train layout to browse and the whole room became
both stage and (what do you call where the audience sits), one of my
favourite themes.
In a nutshell, I guess I'm recommendings the all-at-once, trade-show
pandemonium presentation style, where each participant is free to
focus on any aspect and the aspects placed and chosen to fit. I've
never been fond of the attitude that, "we are artists so shut up and
listen!", and I've always found Udo's format of multi-ring circuses to
be a perfect vehicle.
--
Gary Murphy decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!garym
(garym%cognos.uucp@uunet.uu.net)
(613) 738-1338 x5537 Cognos Inc. P.O. Box 9707 Ottawa K1G 3N3
"There are many things which do not concern the process" - Joan of Arc
--
Gary Murphy decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!garym
(garym%cognos.uucp@uunet.uu.net)
(613) 738-1338 x5537 Cognos Inc. P.O. Box 9707 Ottawa K1G 3N3
"There are many things which do not concern the process" - Joan of Arc