Thanks to everyone who attended Robot Opera as part of Performance Space Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art. We got great critical feedback on the show and it was a resounding success.
And that’s a wrap
Robot Opera tickets on sale
We’re counting down to the opening night of Robot Opera at Bay 17 in Carriageworks in Sydney. Presented by Performance Space as part of the Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art, we have one final development week next week before it opens on October 22, running until November 1. This is a creatively and technically ambitious performance work for 8 non-humanoid robot performers which promises to be really something.
http://performancespace.com.au/events/liveworks-robot-opera/
CREATIVE TEAM
Artist Wade Marynowsky
Music and Sound Design Julian Knowles
Lighting Design Mirabelle Wouters
Dramaturgy Lee Wilson
TECHNICAL TEAM
Electrical Design Ben Nash
Programmer Imran Khan
Programmer Adam Hinshaw
You can see the whole program for the Liveworks festival below
http://issuu.com/performancespace/docs/liveworks_brochure_web_singles/1?e=2989306/30124008
Robot Opera Creative Development
I’m currently working on the music and sound design for a major new robotic performance work by Wade Marynowsky called ‘Robot Opera’. The project is funded by a Creative Australia grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. We’ve just completed a 3 week creative development period at The Red Box in Lilyfield, Sydney.
Developed in collaboration with contemporary performance group Branch Nebula, Robot Opera features eight larger than life-sized rectangular robot performers in a one hour work co-presented by Carriageworks and Performance Space at Carriageworks Bay 17 in October 2015
http://performancespace.com.au/events/robot-opera/
CREATIVE TEAM
Artist: Wade Marynowsky
Music and Sound Design: Julian Knowles
Lighting Design: Mirabelle Wouters
Dramaturgy: Lee Wilson
Electrical Design: Ben Nash
Programmer: Imran Khan
Programmer: Adam Hinshaw
You can read more about this project here
Gig at 107 Projects – December 18
I’ll be playing a show this coming Thursday night at 107 Projects in Redfern, with Hinterlandt Ensemble + Godswounds.
Date: Thursday 18 December 2014
Time: 8pm-11pm
Address: 107 Redfern St, Redfern NSW 2016
Entry: $9
I’ll be playing a set of my ambient processed guitar work, with a network of primitive analogue sound processors destroying the sound in pretty ways.
Hinterlandt Ensemble will be dedicated to an acoustic sound aesthetic. The group features Bronwyn Cumbo and Stephanie Zarka on violins, Simeon Johnson on cello, and Jochen Gutsch on acoustic guitar and trumpet. The ensemble will be performing original material composed by Jochen, brought to life by the players with their own artistic personalities.
Macrophonics at ISEA 2013
International Symposium on Electronic Art and Macrophonics present:
MACROPHONICS II
Thursday, June 13. 8pm
Bon Marche Studio, Sydney
http://www.isea2013.org/events/macrophonics-ii/
Macrophonics II presents new Australian work emerging from the leading edge of performance interface research. The program addresses the emerging dialogue between traditional media and emerging digital media, as well as dialogues across a broad range of musical traditions. Recent technological developments are causing a complete reevaluation of the relationships between media and genres in art, and Macrophonics II presents a cross-section of responses to this situation. Works in the program foreground an approach to performance that integrates sensors with novel performance control devices, and/or examine how machines can be made musical in performance. The program presents works by Australian artists Donna Hewitt, Julian Knowles, Alon Ilsar and Wade Marynowsky. From sensor-based microphones and guitars, through performance a/v, to post-rock dronescapes, movement inspired works and experimental electronica, Macrophonics II provides a broad and engaging survey of new performance approaches in mediatised environments.
Initial R&D for the work was supported by a range of institutions internationally, including the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Queensland, STEIM (Holland) and the Nes Artist Residency (Iceland).
Curated by Julian Knowles and Donna Hewitt.
julianknowles.net
donnahewitt.net
marynowsky.net
alonilsar.com
Macrophonics video
Julian Knowles is a composer, performer, media artist and researcher specialising in new and emerging technologies. His creative work spans the fields of composition for theatre, dance, film and television, electronic music, sound design and media arts, popular music and record production. His practice-based research demonstrates a long-standing, high-level engagement with technologically-mediated music and sound practices and the relationships between audio-visual media. This has resulted in the creation of more than 50 innovative works that have been disseminated by high profile record labels, broadcasters and art institutions internationally. In the course of his career Julian has worked with many of Australia’s best-known musicians in the experimental music scene, and has been a member of the Australian electro-environmental audio group Social Interiors since the mid 1990s. As a solo artist, his music and audiovisual works have been presented at events and venues such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Experimental Intermedia (New York), What is Music?,Australian Perspecta, Liquid Architecture, the Melbourne International Film Festival and Sydney Opera House.
Donna Hewitt is a vocalist, electronic music composer and instrument designer. Her primary interest in recent years has been the investigation of new ways to interface the voice and movement with electronic media. Her work has attracted funding from the Australia Council for the Arts, most recently with all-female collective Lady Electronica. Performance highlights include: Lady Electronica Live, Queensland (2012); TES2012, Toronto, Canada; Brisbane Festival’s Under the Radar(2011); SEAM2011, Sydney; Understanding Visual Music 2011, Montréal, Canada; ICMC (USA, Ireland, UK); Liquid Architecture 7, Sydney; and The Great Escape, Sydney (2006, 2007). Donna holds a PhD in music, and is currently lecturing at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Sydney-based artist Wade Marynowsky works across art and technology to develop new audience experiences. His work critiques the way in which ‘new’ media art has engaged – or failed to engage – with an audience. Forged in the artistic legacy of conceptual and performance art of the 1960s, the work is fundamentally concerned with questioning classical spectatorship and performance. His robotic / media installations combine both artificial life and live art, causing technology to perform within a system of programmed parameters that allow the work to continually unfold and evolve. His works “straddle humour, high-camp and a host of unnerving thematic orientations to absorbing effect” (Dan Rule, 2012).
Alon Ilsar is an instrument designer, electronic producer, experimental percussionist and composer. He is currently doing a practice-based research PhD at UTS in designing a new interface for electronic percussionists. He completed his Bachelor of Arts with majoring in Music and Philosophy at Sydney University and continued on to complete his Honours in Music on creative online collaboration. He has also been heavily involved in theatre include performing in Company B’s Keating! the Musical, performing as a drummer for Eddie Perfect, Meow Meow, Tim Minchin and Spontaneous Broadway, touring with Circus Monoxide as musical director, and composing and sound designing for Bondi Dreaming, In The Air, Closer, The Interview, SET and Emergence. Most recently Alon wrote, directed and performed in a choose-you-own adventure style musical game piece called The Colors Interactive Comeback Show. Other diverse projects he has been involved in include The Colors Tribute Band, Gauche, Trigger Happy, Foley, Darth Vegas, Gl;tch Jukebox, Aronas,The Renovators, The BZNZZ, Killsong, Faulkland, The Rescue Ships, Magnetic Heads, Brian Campeau, Pugsley Buzzard and The Tango Saloon.
Event Photos:
Donna Hewitt sound check. Oxygen Thief – with new wearable interface.
Event Review
“A common theme over the last seven days of ISEA2013 has been the relationship between old and new technologies. In his artist talk (part of the panel titled Nostalgia of the New, 9 June), musician/video artist Tom Ellard was emphatic that these terms old and new are essentially meaningless. He posed the provocation: does the pencil become old as soon as you stop using it? Does something become old as soon as it is out of your visual range?” Read more
Julian Knowles. Pretty Gritty. 107 Projects. Sydney. Feb 24, 2013
Here is a small video excerpt of me (captured by Jordan Dorjee) playing live at Pretty Gritty, a performance series curated by sound artist Gail Priest at 107 Projects in Sydney. I’ve been developing a new live setup and series of approaches based around processed electric guitar, tape loops, and lo-fi auto gain cassette deck audio circuits.
The video material has been incorporated into a documentary project called ‘Sampling Sydney’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRa5UDN6ZZA&list=PL08FBEDA70AFB2838&index=9
Sampling Sydney: Parts 1 and 2
Sampling Sydney: Part 3
Vivid Ideas talk: The Making of the Future of Performance
Vivid Ideas: The Making of the Future of Performance
Speakers: Patrick Nolan, Julian Knowles, Donna Hewitt, Timothy Ohl
Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia
6 June. 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Tickets:
General – $20.00
Industry – $15.00
Student/Educator – $10.00
In late 2012 the artist collective Macrophonics visited internationally-recognised physical theatre company, Legs On The Wall, to experiment with sensor-based technology and how it can be adapted specifically for live performances. What emerged was a tool for creating live art, one that uses both the body of a performer and the space they move through. Now Macrophonics and Legs On The Wall offer audiences a glimpse into what comes next – the creation of a new work that transforms the dancer into the conductor, the musician into the actor, and the stage into the interface.
This presentation will feature Professor Julian Knowles of Macquarie University’s Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies and Patrick Nolan, Artistic Director of Legs On The Wall, and a demonstration of the Macrophonic’s technology with performer Tim Ohl.
THE MAKING OF…
In a series of fast-paced, one-hour tag-team sessions, creative teams from the worlds of television, gaming, music, and animation take us behind-the-scenes to introduce us to the people and processes that make huge creative projects a reality.
These sessions explore strategies for making international real-time collaborations work, find out what tools are essential for co-ordinating multi-part projects, and meet some of the world’s most interesting companies and creatives.
http://www.vividsydney.com/events/the-making-of-the-future-of-performance/
Radio Interview with Julian Knowles – 2SER Sydney, Australia (from 17:20 onwards)
[mixcloud width=”600″ height=”100″ iframe=”true”]http://www.mixcloud.com/stages-twoser-fm/stages-2ser-fm-june-5th-2013/[/mixcloud]
Legs on the Wall – Open Source – putting it together
The accelerometer and wearable work progressed smoothly, without significant hitches. Donna’s wearable was completed in the final week. A few issues are worth mentioning here. She found the use of conductive thread and ribbon to be somewhat problematic. Great care needed to be exercised to prevent thread touching and shorting out (which reset the boards) and the high resistance also posed some issues. This caused Donna to make a decision to replace most of the conductive thread with conventional insulated hookup wire. Whilst initially concerned about appearance, the hookup wire actually looked great. Take a look.
A second issue was the total power draw of the sensors and Xbee wireless system. Donna found that the single AA battery could not supply enough power to run the system properly. With insufficient time to source and fit a higher capacity battery system before the public showing of our work, she decided to power the system from a USB cable and make the necessary modifications to the battery system following the residency.
To everyone’s surprise, when we connected the wearable to our test audio and video patches for the first time, the results were beyond our expectations. The wearable was highly responsive, ‘playable’ and Donna reported that she felt a fine sense of control over the media. She felt immersed in the media and the interface was highly intuitive, providing a rich set of possibilities for gestural control. Here is a video showing the initial hookup of the wearable interface to a test audio patch with the triaxial accelerometer and flex sensor mapped to audio filter parameters.
Macrophonics – first wearable trial
In the final week we experimented with a range of sensing techniques that picked up the position of performers on a stage. We experimented with the cv.jit and with Cyclops systems within MaxMSP. Both proved to be excellent. However given that they are video tracking systems they are inherently light dependent and so their output and behaviours are fundamentally affected by changing light states and conditions.
All of this is manageable with precise light control and programming (or the use of infra red cameras), however in the absence of more sophisticated lighting and camera resources, we decided to use ultrasonic range finders on the stage to locate the position of performers.
Two of these devices were placed on either side of the stage, outputting a stream of continuous controller data on the basis of the performer(s) proximity to the devices. These sensors were connected to Tim’s computer via an Arduino Uno. This allowed us to have a simple proximity sensing system on stage. The system was robust in respect of light, but suffered from occasional random noise/jitter that would last for a few seconds without obvious cause. This meant we had to apply heavy signal conditioning to the source data in Max/MSP to smooth out these ‘errors’ which in turn resulted in a significant amount of latency. Given these constraints, we used these sensors to drive events which did not have critical timing dependencies and could ramp in and out more gradually.
I spent a number of days in our final week programming the relationships between the sensing systems and the video elements, working with ‘retro’ 70s scanline/raster style video synth processing and time domain manipulations of quicktime movies. My computer also operated as a kind of ‘data central’, with all incoming sensor data coming in to my computer and from there being mapped/directed out to the other computers from a central patch in MaxMSP+Jitter.
I’ll post some documentation of the final results once we have an edit.
Legs on the Wall – Open Source Update 2
While Donna Hewitt works on building the wearable top with sensors, I am working on making ‘musical scenes’. These scenes are modular, with a range of musical elements which can be triggered or manipulated in an improvisational manner. They are designed for non-musician physical theatre performers/acrobats. The wearable top will have a Triaxial Accelerometer (reading X, Y, Z axes) mounted on the right arm, a flex sensor on the left elbow and some buttons. I have been using a Wii remote to simulate the accelerometer and buttons so I can work on parameter mapping and prototype some a/v scenes while Donna is working on building the wearable interface. The Wii remote can act as a hand held device which contains much of the functionality of the wearable (accelerometer and buttons)
I’m using the fantastic software Osculator to take the bluetooth Wiimote data and convert it to midi. I then stream the midi into a patch in MaxMSP which allows me to condition, scale and route the data streams before they get sent to Ableton Live to control audio.
The system is very robust and today I had it working to a distance of over 15 metres. Let’s hope the wifi from the Lilypad is as solid. Here is an example of the wii remote being used to control audio. The accelerometer XYZ outputs control various audio filter processing parameters and volume changes, while the buttons are used to trigger audio events.
Macrophonics. Open Source. Wiimote test from Julian Knowles on Vimeo.
On the video side, I’ve been building a realtime video processing system in the Jitter environment.
The following example shows the wii remote accelerometer XYZ parameters mapped to video processing. No audio processing is taking place in this example. I’m just listening to some music while i program and test the video processing system. In this example the wii remote is driving a patch I have written in Jitter. A quicktime movie is used as input and the wiimote is driving real time processing. I have also extended the jitter patch to allow me to take live camera input.
Macrophonics. Open source. Prototyping video processing with wii remote
Donna has been working away on the wearable interface that will contain the functionality of the above (plus more). She has been designing the layout of the sensors and working out how to connect everything within the given constraints of the LilyPad system. The conductive thread that can be used to sew the sensors in and connect to the main board has quite a high resistance, and so runs need to be kept short. Likewise the run between the battery board and the Lilypad/Xbee board needs to be short, so as to keep maximum current available. Runs of conductive thread cannot be crossed over or they will short out.
We’re hoping to get the wearable interface completed in the next day or two so we can start to test it out with the modular musical materials. For the purposes of the showing, we’ll demonstrate three a/v ‘scenes’ in sequence, demonstrating different approaches and relationships between gesture and media.
The first scene will be drone/video synthesis based (with the performers stage positions driving processing). This state will have a very strong correlation between the audio and video processing gestures and will allow for multiple performers moving in relation to ultrasonic range finder sensors.
The second scene will involve the wearable interface, with direct/detailed gestural control of audio and video elements from a solo performer.
The third involve a complex interplay of sensors and parameters. The wearable interface will perform time domain manipulation and transport control on quicktime materials whilst driving filters and processors in the audio domain. The scene will also make use of physical objects sounding on stage, driven by the wearable interface. The interface data will be used to control signals flowing through physical objects (in this case cymbals and a snare drum) and audio/spatial relationships will unfold between the performer’s gestures, proximity to objects and sound behaviours. Tim Bruniges is taking care of the actuator setup.
Ultimately we are aiming for a fully responsive media environment. The aim is for the stage performer(s) to drive both audio and video elements and feel immersed in a highly responsive mediascape.
Legs on the Wall – Open Source Update 1
We’re now well into our Macrophonics Open Source creative development project at Legs on the Wall in Sydney. Lots of experimentation going on at this stage and we’ll start to resolve things down during the week before our stint in the theatre next week. We’ve opened out the exploration to sounding objects – driving audio signals into snare drums, cymbals and other resonant objects to set them off acoustically. The idea is that certain parts of the stage area contain assemblages of resonant objects and, through video and hardware sensing, performers will be able to activate the array of objects within an auditory ‘scene’ that we create. These auditory scenes will contain flexible sonic ‘modules’ – collections of sounds and musical motifs that can be recombined freely.
At the moment, we’re experimenting to find the resonant frequency of each of the trial objects. We also want to get a sense of how the objects behave with different input signals. At the moment, we’ve set up the input to the ‘actuators’ to run from discrete sends so that they can be blended/balanced with the signals from the main loudspeakers. From a control perspective, we will compare wearable sensors (using the Lilypad Arduino platform) located on the performer, with video tracking from above the stage. The wearable sensors have the advantage of being robust in respect of different lighting states, but need to be protected from damage by the physical theatre performer. This could prove challenging. The video tracking approach is robust from a physical point of view, but highly light dependant – so changing light conditions can affect the threshold settings for the tracking patches so that tracking becomes less reliable through changing light states.
The plan is to use the accelerometers on the wrists of the performers so that arm movements and rotations will output X,Y,Z co-ordinates. We’ll also be trying out light sensors on the performers, flex sensors and some heat sensors. The Lilypad is a great platform for wearable computing – the main issue is the small number of analog inputs, so we will need to investigate the potential to have multiple Lilypads sending data over wifi (via the Xbee platform) to a single computer. If this poses an issue for us, we could mount a second Lilypad/Xbee set up and have it transmitting to a second receiver at a second computer. As we have not yet established an approach to data mapping and distribution to the media performers, this second model may actually be more ergonomic. We shall see.
In the shot above you can see the Lilypad Arduino connected to a Lilypad Xbee board which takes care of the wireless communication of sensor data to an Xbee receiver at the computer. The Lilypad Xbee is currently getting power from a USB cable, but will soon be powered by an AAA battery. Once all the sensors have been connected up and prototyped in this way, the whole thing will be sewn into a garment and the sensors will be connected to the board via conductive thread.
