WEBVTT

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 Well, hello again to our Tangent Music Lab guest lecture series.

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 I'm very glad to welcome MESHER, the US collective who is currently touring Europe and Austria in particular.

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 And so we are glad having them today also in the Tangent Music Lab performing.

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 And as usual with our guests who are performing at the Tensure Music Club,

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 we also have a lecture. We are going to share your experience and practice as an artist,

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 instrument builder, and performer. So please go ahead and let us know more about you.

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 Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. It's really a pleasure for us to be here.

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 So thanks for joining. So we usually do these talks by using our

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 like archival website and walking through it in sort of chronological but

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 also following different threads as they come up and like you guys are very

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 welcome to questions, comments, like it can be a kind of a conversation. Yeah. So we think of our practice in cybernetic terms many times.

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 And so we invite your feedback as we navigate this

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 cybernetic lecture, this lattice. Yeah.

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 So we are MSHR or

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 pronounceable as Mesher optionally.

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 And we self identify asify as a two-person artist collective

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 which was established in 2011,

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 if my memory serves me correctly.

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 For four years prior to initiating MSHR, we were part of a larger collective that had a sort of variable number

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 of members from 2007 until 2011 called Oregon Painting Society.

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 And that's where we first met and started collaborating with this larger group.

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 And we started working together.

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 A lot of us lived together in the same house,

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 and we thought it would be cool to have an art collective,

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 but we didn't really know how to do that or how to collaborate.

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 So we just started trying things.

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 At first, we were just all drawing on the same big piece of paper.

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 But we had fairly diverse backgrounds, but most of us were involved in the visual arts

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 and all of us were involved in underground music in the Pacific Northwest.

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 And so that combined with, I guess, making a collaborative situation where a diversity of voices and approaches could be combined led us to working in a really interdisciplinary and fully collaborative way.

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 And one expression of that work ended up being a lot of installations.

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 Here's an installation we did at a university

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 where Brenna studied, actually, in Portland.

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 And in our installation work,

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 we did a lot of interface-oriented, interactive sound and light.

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 And we would make these, like, kind of sculptural situations where the visitors to the installation were invited to participate.

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 But then we would also make performances where we would play the instruments ourselves.

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 So like these braids were, if you would squeeze the braid it would...

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 Make a screaming sound.

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 Which was an oscillator.

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 There was a lot of sort of world building and I would say fantasy in this collective's work.

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 Here we are performing.

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 Nice.

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 I have to show my favorite picture of Brenna.

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 So cool.

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 Yeah.

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 Maybe we show one more.

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 We did, we ended up, so we worked together for four years,

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 and we ended up making many installations like this and kind of

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 developing a world together. And maybe there, maybe just a couple more. And in our

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 performances we wanted obviously to make our own instruments and my background in my sort of studies in university had been making basically physical scenarios that acted as or that were musical compositions.

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 And to do that, I started getting involved in building simple electronics because that was really direct, really effective, and affordable.

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 I didn't have to leave a laptop in an installation for a month

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 with a fog machine blasting on it, things like that.

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 And you didn't really know how to use computers yet.

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 And I was really not that digitally literate for someone my age.

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 So analog electronics were perfect for me.

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 And that got integrated into this group.

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 And so in this work, our instruments were really sculptural and really interface-oriented or sort of symbolic in some way.

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 Here's some cross-modulating oscillators being controlled by light sensors and corn cobs. Here's a Norwegian spinning wheel playing just a contact microphone.

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 And for me, I was coming from more like sculpture and video background, but I was

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 always involved in underground music scene, but I wasn't ever playing like an instrument.

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 But playing these instruments felt like very intuitive and exciting to me.

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 So that was kind of my in to like working with sound.

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 As a sort of practical and creative thing, we used a lot of salvaged furniture.

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 In Portland, there was a culture of leaving unwanted furniture on

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 the street for free and so we would always use that and there was a housing salvage shop

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 near our house where we would buy these architectural pieces and then just install a bunch of internal

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 feedback on a simple circuit inside of whatever this is.

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 And then after we were done with the installation, we'd take out the electronics and bring it back to the salvage store.

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 The only time we left the state of Oregon was when we were invited to be part of a nonprofit art organization festival in the Tate Modern called No Soul

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 for Sale in what, 2010?

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 Yeah.

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 We had made an interface where people could play analog oscillators

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 by touching house plants, an idea that later became kind of,

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 or I guess it's kind of a perennially appealing idea in electronic music.

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 But here's our little taped off square. a perennially appealing idea in electronic music.

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 But here's our little taped off square. But we didn't have them connected to a nice sounding thing.

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 They were just connected to oscillators.

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 So everyone would touch the plants and be like,

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 why are the plants screaming?

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 Yeah, well, this person's,

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 look how happy this person is.

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 Well, the plants probably weren't very happy actually.

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 The plants were okay in this one. People were pretty sensitive. But so maybe we jump ahead. So

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 yeah Oregon Painting Society disbanded in 2011 and Birch and I decided to start Mesher as kind of a seed pod, like offshoot from the mothership.

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 Yeah, and so from the beginning,

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 we knew we wanted our work to be completely collaborative

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 and very interdisciplinary.

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 And we were really building on this kind of language

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 and methodology that we had developed

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 with the larger group.

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 And so we knew that we wanted to do work involving installation with interactive electronic systems,

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 performance with instrument systems that we would design that would be heavily based in interface. Video art with a strong emphasis on 3D sculpture, CG,

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 and sort of, I guess, hybrids of those ideas.

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 So I guess now we'll just kind of chronologically go through

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 how the work has developed mostly through like performance

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 and installation, like making systems that kind of work for both and influence each other.

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 And if there's a...

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 But yeah, if you want to say anything at any point...

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 Please chime in.

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 Just do.

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 Just interrupt us and we're happy to direct our talking towards something that you're interested

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 in.

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 Here's our installations page.

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 Maybe it's nice to just go straight into light audio feedback.

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 So our instruments have been based in analog electronics, but also heavily based in CMOS electronics,

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 which probably you're all familiar with, but it's...

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 Are you? If you are, raise your hand.

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 Well, I'll just give a brief...

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 So maybe you say it.

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 CMOS electronics are like computer logic chips, but they can be... There's sort of a tradition

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 within maybe handmade electronic music that they can be run's sort of a tradition within maybe handmade electronic music

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 that they can be run as analog circuits and their logic functions can be sent to

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 a speaker to vibrate the speaker but they can be used as they're designed to

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 be used by engineers as digital building blocks but they can be easily used by us as sort of chaotic computer synthesizer building blocks.

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 So what you have is sort of, it's hard to be precise,

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 but they're sort of a non-deterministic chaotic computer that doesn't use software

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 and does use voltage but does not use control voltage.

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 So it's somewhere between a computer and a synthesizer. Anyways, one great thing,

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 a few great things about these chips, they're really fast and they produce square waves so they have like infinite harmonics and sound

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 great I think through a speaker through a big speaker but their sounds are

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 really simple and really geometric and so we were immediately searching for

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 ways to complexify and make our sound more organic. Because at first, like, we were using these chips to make, like, four cross-modulating

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 square wave oscillators.

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 So and that's like what one of these, a couple of these are that.

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 Just one of these modules is just like four cross-modulating oscillators.

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 And it's sort of like FM synthesis, and it sounds cool, but it can sound cooler.

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 So we were quickly, quickly we wanted to replace potentiometers with light sensors.

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 And this gave us immediately a much more fluid sound.

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 And a more interesting interface.

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 And a more interesting interface.

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 And at the same time, we really wanted our systems to output light.

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 And we began developing analog light organ circuits, which just gate different channels of incandescent, in our case, originally incandescent light bulbs, based on frequency and amplitude of incoming audio.

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 And when we did this, our instruments began feeding back on our light organs.

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 And because all the parameters of synthesis were being controlled by light sensors, and

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 all the parameters of light were being controlled by incoming audio.

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 And suddenly, we had this, what had begun as sort of an interface question or a sound quality question

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 became a

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 system

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 where we had this nonlinear

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 feedback happening that was very playable and

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 much more interesting than what we had been working with before.

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 much more interesting than what we had been working with before. And the first project where we used this system, or I guess what we kind of developed

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 it for this project, was this installation series where we had the lights inside of this table,

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 and then like a transparent print on the surface of the table, and then these sculptural light sensors on top of the table

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 that visitors to the installation could move

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 around the sensors and the lights inside were, you know,

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 in feedback with the sensors.

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 So the invitation was you have this two-dimensional analog

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 light audio feedback interface

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 that's mediated by this sort of digital print.

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 I'll play a little video.

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 I'll fade in to get the volume OK.

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 Might be possible to boost the quality.

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 You can't snap.

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 No?

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 Yeah, you try it. It's just a to boost the quality. I think it's not. No?

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 No, you try it.

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 It's just a low quality video. 3Lz 5.90

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 3F 5.90

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 3F 5.90

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 3F 5.90

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 3F 5.90 So, with a control loop like this, there's no risk of, like, a volume explosion because amplitude isn't one of the parameters really.

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 But it is possible for the feedback to die out.

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 So that's why we have the strip of light that's always illuminated on the light tables.

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 So yeah, at first we made the system for installation. But then we realized, oh, if we just took out the lights

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 from inside the table, then it could become an interface

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 that we could travel around with and play as a performance

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 system as well.

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 So the first expression of this idea

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 was as the installation we showed,

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 but then we just modified all our instruments to have the ability to plug in light sensors

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 and tour it around with a literal garbage bag full of incandescent light bulbs,

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 which we would shove into overhead bins on our flights.

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 And this was great.

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 Incandescent light bulbs have such a nonlinear response.

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 They're so slow.

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 They flutter wonderfully.

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 It brought so much life to our synthesizers.

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 Then they were like illegal to sell and now we use LEDs.

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 Yeah.

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 Because they're much more practical. But they really sound different because they don't have that like kind of thing. legal to sell and now we use LEDs. Yeah, we...

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 Because they're much more practical, but they really sound different because they don't

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 have that like kind of thing.

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 Or it was, you know, it's kind of a, it was a situation where you would find a special

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 light bulb and this old, you know, light bulb that you can't buy again had a certain sound.

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 But now we don't have to travel with a voltage converter and our light bulbs never

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 catch on fire or break. So that's a big advantage too. So we kind of did variations on that

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 installation for a year or two with that system and then we started to think about what it would be like to

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 make a system that was just playing itself without the visitors changing it

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 just to set up the same kind of feedback between light and sound but in a kind of

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 spatial situation where it would perhaps slowly change over time without much input from the outside.

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 Yes, so at this same time we had our first residency which was at iBeam in New York,

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 at that time in Chelsea, and at the residency or through the residency we gained access to digital

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 fabrication tools for the first time.

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 I-BEAM is a great, it's like I-BEAM art and technology center. It's a nice place to know about if you go to New York.

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 Although they don't have a location right now but it's still a great institution.

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 Our residency was what year? 2014. 2014 and now it's 100% turnover and people working there and several locations

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 downstream. But still a very interesting place.

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 So because of our interest in digital sculpture and there

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 had been in the digital sculptural work this sort of ongoing dialogue with the electronic

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 music where we had a strong sense that the two modes or ideas were really

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 connected and yet there's no there was no linear relationship between the two. It would be possible to make one,

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 but as we were approaching the two, there wasn't.

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 And so they kind of just inspired each other

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 in a sort of like really irrational and nonlinear way.

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 But for this work, we chose to use the forms

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 that we were making as the bodies for these electronic systems.

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 And we did set up these islands where they had these spatial relationships between the light sensors and the lights.

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 This one was installed in Portland, Oregon for the Time Based Arts Festival.

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 There's a video of it running at the beginning. That was a really special light bulb. Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok That light bulb was from like early in the 20th century from the light bulbs in the front of a movie theater that hang in

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 the overhang I'm not sure what it's called our friend had gotten it for us I

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 think it might be nice to punch over to the digital sculpture from here well

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 maybe just like straight digital sculpture for a moment. Okay. Just to give context for that.

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 Which thing should we show?

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 A video.

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 This one?

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 Sure.

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 So just to give a little bit of context for our video work and our digital sculptural

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 work, here's an installation that we did, a video installation that we did in 2020.

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 These are just cell phone videos that were taken

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 by the organizers because it was 2020, we couldn't go there ourselves.

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 So this is how we saw it. But it's kind of an example of our more digital visual art side of our work.

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 Yeah.

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 So this work is made with Blender, 3D, and Super Collider for the video and the audio.

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 And it's just exploring, I guess I would say,

227
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 intuitive couplings of sound and sculpture.

228
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 Could play a moment of it, I guess.

229
00:22:56.299 --> 00:22:57.539
 Sure.

230
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 Something we haven't seen already.

231
00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:04.720
 It's not working.

232
00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:05.000
 I tried to click this, but I won't jump ahead. It's not working.

233
00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.000
 I tried to click this, but it won't jump ahead.

234
00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:12.000
 Oh, okay.

235
00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:42.680
 Sorry.

236
00:23:44.819 --> 00:23:47.000
 Maybe we don't have to watch anymore.

237
00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:52.000
 All right.

238
00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:57.000
 Oh, what's next?

239
00:23:57.000 --> 00:23:59.000
 Okay.

240
00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:07.240
 So, anyways, that's a glimpse into our software work.

241
00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:11.039
 Which later if we keep following the chronological way,

242
00:24:11.039 --> 00:24:16.880
 we'll go into more of like linear pairing

243
00:24:16.880 --> 00:24:19.460
 between the sound and visual.

244
00:24:19.460 --> 00:24:21.599
 Yeah.

245
00:24:21.599 --> 00:24:54.000
 Any questions so far? So you showed us an installation of 2017 and then like this 3D L-G-U-P until 2020 and this completely different digital work.

246
00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:57.000
 So what made you change?

247
00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:02.000
 Well, actually, we've always done both.

248
00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:11.359
 We were making digital sculpture since our work began and there are

249
00:25:11.359 --> 00:25:19.960
 elements of it in the previous works that we showed but there but that the

250
00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:25.579
 piece we just showed is like strictly like a digital video so it's kind of

251
00:25:25.579 --> 00:25:32.400
 like an out less in the center of the sphere with of influence and more

252
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:39.140
 towards the side that is like purely but we were also making these digital videos

253
00:25:39.140 --> 00:25:48.160
 the whole time we just showed this one from 2020 as an example of that whole strain of work, but I guess in this

254
00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:54.700
 talk we've been mostly focusing on the analog systems and the instrument systems because of

255
00:25:54.700 --> 00:26:00.279
 the context here. But in our talks we often, I don't know, there's like all these forking paths

256
00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:08.720
 of our projects, so we've been kind of going on this one but then we just yeah in our practice

257
00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:16.079
 we sort of conceptualize it like there's many different branches each branch we think of like

258
00:26:16.079 --> 00:26:25.700
 a evolutionary series of work and then sometimes it ends or sometimes it splits and we have or sometimes a new series begins to

259
00:26:25.700 --> 00:26:31.940
 grow and that we have lots of them happening in parallel I think maybe our

260
00:26:31.940 --> 00:26:39.279
 two projects in 2017 are good to talk about this way because we did we started

261
00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:43.680
 to I guess they were one of them was a series and one of them was a one-off

262
00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:51.220
 installation that are have some major similarities, but one is all analog and one is mostly digital.

263
00:26:51.480 --> 00:26:54.579
 We were happy with the installation that we had just showed,

264
00:26:54.579 --> 00:27:01.480
 but we felt that the sound and system didn't evolve as much as we wanted.

265
00:27:02.240 --> 00:27:05.000
 The one with the islands, the audio feedback system.

266
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 The sound, as you maybe heard,

267
00:27:06.859 --> 00:27:09.700
 or maybe you couldn't tell from the editing and the video,

268
00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:12.619
 but each island had a pretty static behavior,

269
00:27:12.619 --> 00:27:16.519
 kind of like I always think of in a river,

270
00:27:16.759 --> 00:27:20.500
 the rapids have some boulders underneath the surface,

271
00:27:20.920 --> 00:27:23.259
 and there's sort of standing waves

272
00:27:23.259 --> 00:27:27.279
 that keep a similar pattern as long as the

273
00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:28.900
 rocks aren't moved.

274
00:27:28.900 --> 00:27:32.539
 In this metaphor, rocks are like sensors and lights.

275
00:27:32.539 --> 00:27:39.519
 And so you would kind of get this one type of undulating sound that would basically hold

276
00:27:39.519 --> 00:27:49.000
 its pattern for the course of the installation. And we wanted to try to make a system that would have infinite variation

277
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:53.000
 and would be like an engaging listen forever.

278
00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:00.000
 So the way we approached this was we made a new work

279
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:08.380
 using light audio feedback in a similar way, but with circuits which would select different

280
00:28:08.380 --> 00:28:12.339
 sound-generating light-controlled circuits

281
00:28:12.339 --> 00:28:14.619
 from this array

282
00:28:14.619 --> 00:28:19.779
 and bring them in and out of the emergent

283
00:28:19.779 --> 00:28:21.240
 light audio feedback system

284
00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:24.259
 so that different patterns would emerge

285
00:28:24.259 --> 00:28:30.980
 through this recombinance. and the way that we did that was we had these human scale logic

286
00:28:30.980 --> 00:28:38.380
 gates throughout the installation and and we used wanted to use visitor

287
00:28:38.380 --> 00:28:44.480
 presence as a randomization source so it's sort of like invoking this metaphor

288
00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:50.000
 of visitors walking along an electronic trace as an electron through a gate.

289
00:28:50.000 --> 00:29:08.880
 So in this piece it's kind of like the circuit is spread out throughout the room and the person walking through is triggering the changes in the circuit by each of the gates has like a motion sensor

290
00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:12.240
 that will like trigger everything to randomize when they walk through the gate.

291
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:19.119
 This was our first use of microcontrollers having proximity sensors in the gates that

292
00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:24.559
 sent a five volt pulse to our digital logic chips that selected different circuits.

293
00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:35.119
 pulse to our digital logic chips that selected different circuits. And in this piece we assigned like particular shapes of the sculptures to specific parts

294
00:29:35.119 --> 00:29:37.200
 of the system.

295
00:29:37.200 --> 00:29:40.759
 Like do you remember what these would have been?

296
00:29:40.759 --> 00:29:44.180
 Light organ, envelope follower, oh excuse me.

297
00:29:44.180 --> 00:29:45.160
 I don't know what this one is.

298
00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:49.160
 Envelope follower, light organ. I forgot what that one is.

299
00:29:49.160 --> 00:29:55.660
 So each of the islands had like, well we kind of just spread it out throughout the whole space

300
00:29:55.660 --> 00:30:00.240
 so that they all patched into each other, but we could tell what they were by the shape.

301
00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:07.920
 And so at this time a big influence in our work has been early American electronic music.

302
00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:16.779
 Very interested in David Tudor's work as like just kind of considering that an important reference point for what we're doing.

303
00:30:17.599 --> 00:30:22.319
 And we became interested in his scores.

304
00:30:25.640 --> 00:30:33.019
 interested in his scores and so we thought it would be interesting to start making sort of flowchart or diagrammatic scores describing our work but try to

305
00:30:33.019 --> 00:30:42.799
 take a more aestheticized approach so this is the patching diagram and score

306
00:30:42.799 --> 00:30:45.319
 for that installation.

307
00:30:47.400 --> 00:30:47.519
 And in our storage unit in New York,

308
00:30:50.059 --> 00:30:51.400
 we have this is like printed out on fabric that was in the show.

309
00:30:51.599 --> 00:30:54.279
 And all of these sculptures are in there too.

310
00:30:54.440 --> 00:30:56.759
 So maybe if someone finds this someday,

311
00:30:56.880 --> 00:30:59.859
 they can put it back together using the map.

312
00:31:00.359 --> 00:31:02.420
 Installing this work obviously requires

313
00:31:02.420 --> 00:31:04.700
 a lot of improvisation

314
00:31:04.700 --> 00:31:12.240
 because if you move a light sensor and a light even one centimeter closer or further, the sound is really changed.

315
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:22.119
 And then, of course, you have a huge amount of these lights and light sensors and sculptures, which all are very totally modular and have to be recompiled.

316
00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:29.000
 and have to be recompiled. So the flow chart just shows a generalized relationship map

317
00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:32.000
 between the sculptures.

318
00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:37.000
 But each instantiation will be really different.

319
00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:40.000
 So that same year that we made that piece,

320
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.000
 we also made this installation series.

321
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:46.420
 We made the first one. This one,

322
00:31:46.420 --> 00:31:54.299
 this photo here is from the last one which was like 2023 I think but the

323
00:31:54.299 --> 00:32:01.259
 first one was in 2017 and it's using a similar format in that it invites

324
00:32:01.259 --> 00:32:08.079
 visitor to like circumnavigate the space and through their exploration they trigger

325
00:32:08.079 --> 00:32:12.740
 randomizations in the system of light and sound.

326
00:32:12.740 --> 00:32:18.759
 We wanted to use virtual reality because we thought it would be an interesting way of

327
00:32:18.759 --> 00:32:26.079
 bringing our digital virtual sculptures into a spatial experience for visitors.

328
00:32:26.079 --> 00:32:34.000
 At this time, around 2017, VR was starting to be used in an art context.

329
00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:39.599
 But it was always a format where there would be a headset on a table,

330
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:43.119
 and one person with their head in the goggles,

331
00:32:43.119 --> 00:32:48.380
 and then a line of other people waiting to see the work.

332
00:32:48.839 --> 00:32:51.180
 And that seemed really lame,

333
00:32:51.180 --> 00:32:53.579
 but we thought we could maybe use that

334
00:32:53.579 --> 00:32:57.500
 as like a sort of intrinsic quality of the medium.

335
00:32:57.500 --> 00:33:00.980
 So for this series, we decided to,

336
00:33:02.019 --> 00:33:03.940
 it's a little bit of a mouthful to explain this,

337
00:33:03.940 --> 00:33:07.259
 but we'll go bit by bit.

338
00:33:07.259 --> 00:33:17.319
 We thought we'll make a situation where the VR user is a performer of this live electronic

339
00:33:17.319 --> 00:33:31.019
 light and sound system, and the people waiting in line are their audience. So the VR user is, through their exploration, interacting with this generative super collider

340
00:33:31.019 --> 00:33:38.099
 system that's driving these analog light organ embedded in the ceiling, which they can't

341
00:33:38.099 --> 00:33:41.400
 see, although they can hear the four channel sound.

342
00:33:41.400 --> 00:33:47.200
 And the audience sees them moving across this diagrammatic floor print.

343
00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:53.980
 And the diagrammatic floor print describes a sort of layer of the system

344
00:33:53.980 --> 00:33:59.019
 with the user, the virtual space, and the digital audio.

345
00:33:59.019 --> 00:34:03.799
 But it's also used as an architectural diagram

346
00:34:03.799 --> 00:34:07.000
 for the virtual space that they're navigating.

347
00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:10.500
 So people watching them can infer things

348
00:34:10.500 --> 00:34:15.500
 about what they're seeing by watching them.

349
00:34:15.500 --> 00:34:19.199
 Do you want to add something to that?

350
00:34:19.199 --> 00:34:20.800
 I kind of saw it all.

351
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:22.099
 Yeah, it's a lot to explain,

352
00:34:22.099 --> 00:34:26.239
 but I guess it's pretty intuitive if you're there.

353
00:34:26.239 --> 00:34:29.460
 And people would really pass things on.

354
00:34:29.460 --> 00:34:32.960
 Like the audience, sometimes it was like a very packed audience

355
00:34:32.960 --> 00:34:36.980
 or line watching this one person.

356
00:34:36.980 --> 00:34:40.780
 And like sometimes the person would start like, I don't know,

357
00:34:40.780 --> 00:34:43.880
 walking in a way where they were like really stepping over things.

358
00:34:43.880 --> 00:34:47.639
 And then after they did that, everyone else in line started doing that

359
00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:49.500
 because they thought that's how you had to do it.

360
00:34:49.760 --> 00:34:54.619
 So there was a lot of, I don't know, participation within the group.

361
00:34:56.260 --> 00:34:57.139
 Learned behavior.

362
00:34:57.380 --> 00:34:58.500
 Learned behavior, yes.

363
00:35:02.420 --> 00:35:06.559
 Maybe we skip ahead to, well, we should talk a bit about our performances.

364
00:35:06.960 --> 00:35:07.199
 Sure.

365
00:35:07.199 --> 00:35:15.119
 Like we have this ongoing performance series that's always kind of changing over time.

366
00:35:15.940 --> 00:35:22.579
 Depending on the systems that we're working with, we integrate them into our live set.

367
00:35:22.760 --> 00:35:27.760
 integrate them into our live set. And it's pretty much like a series of,

368
00:35:27.760 --> 00:35:32.760
 the composition is a series of different interfaces or systems

369
00:35:32.760 --> 00:35:36.760
 and within each section we're improvising.

370
00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:42.760
 And that's what we're going to do tonight.

371
00:35:42.760 --> 00:35:48.039
 And we've gone through different phases

372
00:35:48.039 --> 00:35:53.559
 of kind of being more or less performative,

373
00:35:53.559 --> 00:35:56.739
 more or less like systems-based, but it's always

374
00:35:56.739 --> 00:35:58.480
 kind of a mix of the two.

375
00:36:02.980 --> 00:36:12.059
 This is the work that we were describing earlier with the light audio feedback.

376
00:36:12.059 --> 00:36:22.400
 But yes, we view it like an evolutionary practice that we have kind of maintained and nurtured

377
00:36:22.400 --> 00:36:25.760
 for the whole time that we've worked together.

378
00:36:25.760 --> 00:36:29.320
 But a few years ago, we decided to start a new performance

379
00:36:29.320 --> 00:36:35.219
 series that would take gesture out of the performance

380
00:36:35.219 --> 00:36:39.800
 and kind of reduce the interface and only focus

381
00:36:39.800 --> 00:36:46.619
 on the sort of system dimension of the work. So we...

382
00:36:46.619 --> 00:36:48.579
 And then in this performance,

383
00:36:49.199 --> 00:36:52.599
 we thought we would act just as sort of agents

384
00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:58.860
 or maybe technicians within an evolving system.

385
00:36:59.960 --> 00:37:03.599
 And so we made a portable sculpture installation,

386
00:37:04.320 --> 00:37:06.320
 basically, with all these electronics.

387
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:16.300
 And it was designed for four channels of audio with eight small speaker channels on the table.

388
00:37:16.880 --> 00:37:20.119
 And we would do durational performances.

389
00:37:21.360 --> 00:37:28.019
 And after we toured with that for a while, like maybe not that long, like half a year,

390
00:37:28.019 --> 00:37:33.920
 we decided that we wanted to start playing more gesturally again.

391
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:40.639
 So we kind of took some things that we learned from that performance series and also some

392
00:37:40.639 --> 00:37:45.000
 of the instruments and brought them back into our other kind of strain.

393
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:46.000
 Yeah.

394
00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:47.000
 Well, thanks again.

395
00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:48.000
 Can I say that?

396
00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:49.000
 Sorry.

397
00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:50.000
 Thank you.

398
00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:51.000
 Here's another one.

399
00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:52.000
 Very interesting.

400
00:37:52.000 --> 00:38:11.500
 You talk, which are, either are any your main criteria for the sonic outcome, regardless of the interface

401
00:38:11.500 --> 00:38:16.840
 or the item they use or the material or the controllers or whatever?

402
00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:35.199
 Are there any, like, main criteria for the, how Yeah. I think we're mainly interested in the kind of direct materiality of the sound,

403
00:38:35.199 --> 00:38:36.760
 like the interaction with the sound.

404
00:38:36.760 --> 00:38:50.840
 But I think if there is a criteria, maybe it would be that we are trying to push toward like a complexity and fluidity but through these like super

405
00:38:50.840 --> 00:38:59.059
 basics yeah like a like an oscillator yeah like you know if we're just using

406
00:38:59.059 --> 00:39:10.300
 like if we are just using four cross-modulating oscillators, then we will try to add some more complexity into that system so that it will start to behave in a way that we can't

407
00:39:10.300 --> 00:39:22.099
 predict or has a bit more like infinite ranges and fluid behavior rather than like the static

408
00:39:22.099 --> 00:39:29.599
 simplicity that you would first have? I want to make music that sounds like an old-growth forest

409
00:39:29.599 --> 00:39:36.679
 where there's a dead tree with new trees growing out of it

410
00:39:36.679 --> 00:39:41.039
 and everywhere you look there's a new life growing

411
00:39:41.039 --> 00:39:47.199
 out of the old life and something that I think we're interested

412
00:39:47.199 --> 00:40:07.480
 in a sound that is can be overwhelming at times and feel very alive that's not a literal description of sound.

413
00:40:07.480 --> 00:40:17.659
 But I think, I guess on a very literal answer, I'm interested in raw electronic sound.

414
00:40:17.659 --> 00:40:18.659
 Thank you.

415
00:40:18.659 --> 00:40:19.659
 Thank you.

416
00:40:19.659 --> 00:40:22.760
 Well, I guess we're going to find out tonight.

417
00:40:22.760 --> 00:40:23.760
 Yes.

418
00:40:23.760 --> 00:40:25.239
 We'll take a Music Club about the

419
00:40:25.239 --> 00:40:26.619
 sonic and musical outcomes.

420
00:40:27.639 --> 00:40:29.500
 Well, at this occasion, I'd like

421
00:40:29.500 --> 00:40:31.280
 to mention that besides you,

422
00:40:31.960 --> 00:40:33.460
 there's also Dolores Lotus

423
00:40:33.460 --> 00:40:35.480
 playing tonight at the Tanger Music Club.

424
00:40:36.480 --> 00:40:37.639
 And another important

425
00:40:37.639 --> 00:40:39.000
 information for those watching online,

426
00:40:39.380 --> 00:40:41.420
 we're always recording those lectures and they will be

427
00:40:41.420 --> 00:40:43.000
 made available on our website.

428
00:40:43.260 --> 00:40:46.000
 They're embedded there with those events.

429
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:49.000
 And in the case when we have concerts, we also have this

430
00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:52.000
 cooperation with Dorf Defau, the local TV station.

431
00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:55.000
 We also record in concerts, so we'll also find them in the

432
00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:56.000
 archives as well.

433
00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:58.000
 So I think it's a super nice opportunity to have all these

434
00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:02.000
 artists presenting their work and then we have that combined

435
00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:06.119
 with the actual performances in the archives. So thanks a lot for the presentation.

436
00:41:06.119 --> 00:41:07.039
 Thank you so much.

437
00:41:07.039 --> 00:41:09.039
 And looking forward to the concerts.

438
00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:09.539
 Thank you.