For those of you in London in late November you may be interested in this forthcoming performance. It features Mark Bokowiec one of the researchers at CeReNeM (Centre for Research in New Music) at the University of Huddersfield and Julie Wilson-Bokowiec, a lecturer on the MA in Interactive Sound Design (Max/MSP). The concert features interactive works using Mark's own Bodycoder system, an interactive wearable performance tool he has been continually refining since the late 90s. The Suicided Voice was created during a residency at the BANFF Centre and Etch during a residency at the Confederation Centre for the Arts on Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia. The sound world is extremely beautiful in all of the works featured.
Mathew Adkins
Head of Research for Music and Music Technology
University of Huddersfield
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BODYCODER - VOICE at the WATERMANS Art Center, LONDON 22nd November 2007
@7.45pm Box Office Tel: 020 8232 1010
www.bodycoder.com
www.watermans.org.uk/live_events/22112007/bodycoder___the_voice/
HAND-TO-MOUTH (for performer/vocalist, the Bodycoder System & live MSP)
Only the energy, breath and raw fractured tonalities of the voice are
employed to populate and animate the soundscape of Hand-to-Mouth.
Mouth/Larynx and the hands of the performer engage in intimate dialogue in
an act of sonic puppetry and ventriloquism. This dexterous piece of sound
manipulation is an overture to the full embodiment of sound manipulation in
the following pieces.
AMERA (Tape: Electro-acoustic music)
THE SUICIDED VOICE (for performer/vocalist, the Bodycoder System, live MSP,
video streaming & computer graphics)
In this piece the acoustic voice of the performer is ³suicided² and given up
to digital processing and physical re-embodiment. Dialogues are created
between acoustic and digital voices. Gender specific registers are willfully
subverted and fractured. Extended vocal techniques make available unusual
acoustic resonances that generate rich processing textures and spiral into
new acoustic and physical trajectories that traverse culturally specific
boundaries crossing from the human into the virtual, from the real into the
mythical. In The Suicided Voice the voice, transformed and re-embodied
within the interactive medium, becomes a fluid originality that is defined
only by its own transmutations.
CHIMERA (Tape: Electro-acoustic music )
ETCH (for performer/vocalist, the Bodycoder System, live MSP, & computer
graphics)
In ETCH extended vocal techniques, Yakut, open throat, overtone and Bell
Canto singing are coupled with live interactive sound processing and
manipulation. ETCH calls forth forna building soundscapes of glitch
infestations, howler tones, clustering sonic-amphibians, and swirling flocks
of synthetic granular flyers. The visual content for this piece is created
in a variety of 2D and 3D packages. In ETCH video content is manipulated on
the screen by the performer using the same interactive protocols that govern
sound manipulation. Visual content is mapped to the physical gestures of the
performer and its live manipulation forms a significant part of the piece.
As the performer conjures extraordinary voices out of the digital realm, so
she weaves a multi-layered visual environment. In ETCH sound, image, and
gesture combine to form a powerful Olinguistic intent¹. Etch was created in
residency at the Confederation Centre for the Arts on Prince Edward Island,
Nova Scotia.
TECHNICAL & AESTHETICS
BODYCODER - VOICE features the Bodycoder System© the first generation of
which was developed by the artists in 1995/6. The Bodycoder interface is a
flexible sensor array worn on the body of a performer that sends data
generated by movement to an MSP environment via radio. Movement data can be
mapped in a variety of different ways to the live processing and
manipulation of sound. All processed sound is derived from the live and
acoustic voice of the performer. The Bodycoder also provides the performer
with real-time access to processing parameters and patches within the MSP
environment as well as control over the sensitivity of sensors. In this way
all vocalisations, decision making, navigation of the MSP environment and
qualities of expressivity are selected, initiated and manipulated by the
performer. The primary expression functionality of the Bodycoder System is
Kinaesonic. The term Kinaesonic is derived from the compound of two words:
Kinaesthetic meaning the movement principles of the body and Sonic meaning
sound. In terms of interactive technology the term Kinaesonic refers to the
one-to-one, mapping of sonic effects to bodily movements. In our practice
this is usually executed in real-time. There are no pre-recorded soundfiles
used in the live pieces of this program and no sound manipulations external
to the performer¹s control.