Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra – io 0.0.1 beta++ interactive, semi-autonomous technological artifact, musical automaton, machine musician and improviser Mon, 30 Jan 2017 22:58:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 25192515 current state 2013: human actors /2013/01/02/current-state-2013-human-actors/ Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:36:27 +0000 /?p=2744 Still planning to take the io 0.0.1 beta++ on the road in 2014, but, in the meantime, here’s what the machine improviser’s (human) colleagues have been up to since last year’s update, and a little of what’s coming up in 2013.

Han-earl Park

Based in Brooklyn, during 2012, Han-earl Park has been performing with Michael Evans, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Josh Sinton, Andrew Drury and others. He participated in Gowanus Company IV at the Douglass Street Music Collective, and as part of Out Of Your Head Brooklyn. A particular musical highlight was the performance with Tim Perkis and Harris Eisenstadt at The Stone (NYC) on September 7. On May 27, Eris 136199 (Nick Didkovsky, Han-earl Park and Catherine Sikora) debuted at Citizens Ontological Music Agenda/ABC No Rio (NYC).

2012 also saw the release of Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park’s ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) from Creative Sources. A CD with a “bazillions of events” and of “transonic beauty and extreme structural atomization” according to Massimo Ricci, the record made Délire actuel’s 2012 Demanding Music Top 30. Barrett and Park performed in Scarborough on May 3, 2012. During that micro-tour, Park also performed as part of Mathilde 253 (with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith) at Freedom of the City (London), and as guest performer with the Mark Hanslip/Dominic Lash/Phillip Marks trio at Jazz @ The Oxford (London).

Audio recordings coming out in 2013 include ‘apophenia: A atomic symphony in 10 movements ii you seek iii a comfortable spot to listen iv to this v track the sofa perhaps vi or the vii floor however viii standing hand ix suspended over the volume x control you xi find that xii it is’ as part of ‘The $100 Guitar Project’ (BRIDGE 9381A/B) from Bridge Records, and the rerelease of the download album with Paul Dunmall and Mark Sanders which will be the final in the current series of download releases from busterandfriends.com (an earlier release in that series was with io 0.0.1 beta++ collaborator, Franziska Schroeder).

In addition to continuing his work with existing projects including Eris 136199, in 2013, Park will be performing and documenting a set of interactive, improvisative macros (he hesitates to actually call them compositions). Catherine Sikora and Josh Sinton and Park will perform an initial test-run at On The Way Out/Freddy’s (Brooklyn) on March 26.

Bruce Coates

‘Node/Flow/Mass Disaster Box’ at Magna (Rotherham, November 4, 2012). Photo copyright 2012 Bruce Coates.

‘Node/Flow/Mass Disaster Box’ at Magna (Rotherham, November 4, 2012). Photo © 2012 Bruce Coates.

Notable performance events in 2012 included the ‘Node/Flow/Mass Disaster Box’ at Magna (Rotherham) in November:

‘Node/Flow/Mass Disaster Box’ is an improvised sound piece bringing together 50 vocal and musical improvisers from the Midlands and South Yorkshire, performing on this magnificent post-industrial site. Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra and Juxtavoices, a unique Sheffield experimental anti-choir, provide the core of the performers along with musicians from all over the country.

Devised by Geoff Bright and Walt Shaw, the piece works with the idea of social processes and flows where individuals gather in groups, congregate as large collectives and disperse once again. Through sound improvisation it explores the history and atmosphere of the building and the spririt involved in the evacuation of the workplace. All inspired by the original 1970s steelworks’ ‘Diaster Box’, which contained plans, maps and procedures for evacuation in the event of a catastrophic explosion. [Read the rest…]

In addition to performances by the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra, new projects for 2013 include a duo with Walt Shaw, and a trio with Christopher Hobbs (percussion/electronics) and Virginia Anderson (clarinets) which will be debuting at Fizzle (Birmingham) on February 5.

Franziska Schroeder

Franziska Schroeder, Showcase Concert 2012 flyer. Copyright 2012, Franziska Schroeder; photograph by Caroline Forbes.

Franziska Schroeder, Showcase Concert 2012 flyer. © 2012, Franziska Schroeder. Photograph by Caroline Forbes.

In 2012 Franziska Schroeder had a few exciting gigs, such as playing with her trio FAINT at the Perspective on Musical Improvisation in Oxford, commissioning new works for saxophones, premiered at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast, playing at the Sounds New Contemporary Music Festival in Canterbury, as well as doing a great new work with Evan Parker and a group of traditional and improvising contemporary musicians, premiered at the Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music, Belfast.

Schroeder was the Artistic Director of the Sonorities Festival, and she is also now the Chair of the Events Committee of the School of Creative Arts (CATE) at Queen’s University Belfast.

Schroeder published two chapters, one on the changes of form in music as brought forth by digital platforms. The chapter is ‘Shifting Listening Identities—Towards a Fluidity of Form in Digital Music’, and appears in S. Broadhurst and J. Machon (eds.), Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of Empowerment, Embodiment and Technicity (Palgrave Macmillan).

The other chapter is co-authored with choreographer and pianist Imogene Newland and is entitled ‘The Musical Body—Devising a choreo-musical interpretation for the work Tierkreis (1974–75) by Karlheinz Stockhausen’. The work will appear in Nine Ways of Seeing a Body: Body & Performance (Triarchy Press) in 2013.

Schroeder is working hard on editing and writing for a forthcoming volume on improvisation, to include writings by David Borgo, Georgina Born and Evan Parker. Forthcoming in 2013: Improvisation in the 21st Century (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).

And last, Schroeder received a teaching development grant from the HEA (Higher Education Academy) to run the PhD public engagement training called ‘BIG EARS – learning to design sonic arts’ [Twitter…].

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JazzWord: AI in an improv session /2012/01/22/jazzword-ai-in-an-improv-session/ Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:08:39 +0000 /?p=2103 This one’s really interesting. Perhaps not the warmest review (in comparison to, say, those at MusicZoom, CloudsandClocks or Monsieur Délire), maybe not the fairest, but Ken Waxman’s take on ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) at JazzWord, in which the machine improviser is “unobtrusive and egoless” and “thoughtful pauses” signpost the authentic human, I think is a reaction to some of the anxieties and unanswered questions (though, obliquely asked via the io enterprise) of the artificial. I’m also intrigued by the threat of replacement (“robotic players won’t be taking all the musicians’ jobs any time soon”) that informs this and other reviews. I plan to respond to these (thus warranting an extra entry in the ‘theory’ category), but in the meantime, here’s Waxman’s critique:

With improvisations matching traditional instruments with electronic manipulations now commonplace, Cork-based guitarist Han-earl Park personifying Dr. Frankenstein, has created a non-human artificial musician from ad-hoc components including speakers, kitchenware and missile switches. This CD is a literal record of how the non-human, prosaically named io 0. 0. 1 beta++, sounds in concert with flesh-and-blood counterparts….

For a start, Park, who regularly plays with trumpeter Ian Smith and drummer Charles Hayward; alto and sopranino saxophonist Bruce Coates, co-founder of the Birmingham Improvisers Orchestra; and soprano saxophonist Franziska Schroeder, a lecturer at Belfast’s School of Music and Sonic Arts, all have long histories of working with advanced, experimental musicians. These include live-electronics stylist Richard Barrett and accordionist Pauline Oliveros. Moreover io 0. 0. 1 beta++ is unobtrusive and egoless enough—no surprise—to warble its staccato particle contributions without trying to engulf or show up the humans. Its contributions are unique enough on their own.

For instance on the initial ‘Pioneer: Variance’ and ‘Pioneer: Dance’ contrasting alto and soprano saxophone trills and squeaks are put into bolder relief as the otherworldly flutters, oscillated tones and flanged rotations of the machine are kept in a straight line by Park’s legato picking. The thoughtful pauses audible in the guitar playing confirms Park’s human-ness, especially when compared to the grainy whistles and juddering vibrations that arise from io 0. 0. 1 beta++. Additionally, while the machine’s gradually swelling splutters and harsh quivers demonstrate broken octave counterpoint to the saxophonists’ multiphonic oscillations, its hissing abrasions retreat into the background as Park’s spidery licks become more rhythmic.

Nonetheless the machine further demonstrates its versatility on the 59-second ‘4G’, with metallic muted trombone-like snores and even raises the question as to whether io 0. 0. 1 beta++ or extended saxophone techniques are creating the air pops and abrasive tongue flutters on subsequent tracks. In the main crackling reductionist resonations are attributed to its properties, while any legato or lyrical intermezzos are, more likely than not, propelled from the instruments and imaginations of full-fledged Homo sapiens.

Succinctly as the three demonstrate on ‘Return Trajectory’, during which io 0. 0. 1 beta++ appears to have taken five, an additional voice—human or otherwise—is necessary to create a pleasing sound picture. The guitarist’s connective down strokes plus the swelling layers of contrapuntal reed timbres are distinctive and solipsistic enough on their own.

Notable in demonstrating what artificial intelligent can contribute to an improv session, this CD also confirms that the very artificiality of AI confirms that robotic players won’t be taking all the musicians’ jobs any time soon. [Read the rest…]

[More info on the recording…] [All reviews…]

‘io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) CD cover (copyright 2011, Han-earl Park)

‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) is available from SLAM Productions. [Details…]

personnel: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

© 2011 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

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more reviews: experimental, uncompromising, unique man-meets-automaton event /2011/09/12/more-reviews-experimental-uncompromising-unique-man-meets-automaton-event/ Tue, 13 Sep 2011 01:03:36 +0000 /?p=1709 Ed Pinsent of The Sound Projector describes the meeting between human and machine improvisers:

The guitarist [Han-earl] Park, sometime member of Mathilde 253 whose fine CD impressed us in March this year, is joined by two improvising saxophonists, Bruce Coates (from the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra) and Franziska Schroeder (member of the trio FAINT), and the record documents the meeting of this trio with the “machine musician” io 0.0.1 beta++. This device is an automaton, a musical robot if you will, built by Mr Park; it’s not just another computer programme that plays random sounds or builds an “interactive” space for other laptop musicians, but actually occupies physical space and performs on the stage alongside its human counterparts. Shades of Pierre Bastien…. The multi-media artist Sara Roberts from California writes the liner notes and she does a much better job than I possibly could in articulating the cultural resonances of this man-meets-automaton event. [Read the rest…]

— Ed Pinsent (The Sound Projector)

Meanwhile, what to me is ‘playful’ may be ‘uncompromising’ to someone else. After some very positive reviews (including those by Beppe Colli, François Couture and Bruce Lee Gallanter), Alberto Bazzurro at All About Jazz Italia writes a more reserved take the recoding:

Fra segmenti più atmosferico-minimali, e altri invece più frammentati e nervosi, si procede così, talora arrestandosi a una sorta di limbo emozionale, di quieta truculenza, peraltro sempre ammirevole per coerenza e rigore. [Read the rest…]

Alberto Bazzurro (All About Jazz Italia)

[More info on the recording…] [All reviews…]

‘io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) CD cover (copyright 2011, Han-earl Park)

‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) is available from SLAM Productions. [Details…]

personnel: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

© 2011 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

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CD available: io 0.0.1 beta++ /2011/07/09/cd-available-io-001-beta/ Sat, 09 Jul 2011 22:57:21 +0000 /?p=1074 io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) CD cover (copyright 2011, Han-earl Park)

io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) © 2011 Han-earl Park

Released as part of SLAM ProductionsAugust 2011 CD catalog: ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) with Han-earl Park, Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder. [Slam Productions catalog page…]

[Get it from Slam Productions…]
[Get it from distributors/shops…] [Downtown Music Gallery…] [Jazzcds…] [Souffle Continu…] [Squidco…] [Wayside Music…]
[iTunes…] [eMusic…]

Note: downloads, in contrast to the physical CDs, do not include Sara Robertsliner notes.

description

We watch and listen carefully because we know we’re seeing a kind of manifesto in action. What is an automaton? A sketch, a material characterization of the ideas the inventor and the inventor’s culture have about some aspect of life, and how it could be. io and its kind are alternate beings born of ideas, decisions and choices. It is because io stands alone, an automaton, that the performance recorded on this CD not only is music, but is about music.

Sara Roberts (from the liner notes)

An extraordinary meeting between human and machine improvisers. Featuring the machine musician io 0.0.1 beta++ with guitarist Han-earl Park (Mathilde 253, Wadada Leo Smith) and saxophonists Bruce Coates (Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra, Paul Dunmall) and Franziska Schroeder (FAINT, Evan Parker), the recording is part critique and part playful exploration, both a boundary-breaking demonstration of socio-musical technologies and an ironic sci-fi parody.

Constructed by Han-earl Park, io 0.0.1 beta++ is a modern-day musical automaton. It is not an instrument to be played but a non-human artificial musician that performs alongside its human counterparts. io 0.0.1 beta++ represents a personal-political investigation of technology, interaction, improvisation and musicality. It whimsically evokes a 1950s B-movie robot—seemingly jerry-rigged, constructed from ad-hoc components including plumbing, kitchenware, speakers and missile switches—celebrating the material and corporeal.

The performances with this artificial musician highlight society’s entanglement with technology, demonstrate alternative modes of interfacing the musical and the technological, and illuminate the creative and improvisative processes in music. The performance is a radical and playful engagement with powerful and problematic dreams (and nightmares) of the artificial; a dream as old as the anthropology of robots.

With liner notes by the California-based interactive media artist Sara Roberts.

io 0.0.1 beta++ was constructed by Han-earl Park with funding from the Arts Council of Ireland, and with significant input and feedback from Bruce Coates, Franziska Schroeder, Murray Campbell, Sara Roberts and Phil Burk.

We would like to thank John Hough, Melanie L Marshall, Alex Fiennes, Kato Hideki, John Godfrey, Clair McSweeney, Riccardo Vallebella, Paul Everett, Mel Mercier, Kevin Terry and Stephanie Hough.

The recording preceded the performance at Blackrock Castle Observatory which was presented with funding from the Music Network Performance and Touring Award, and support from Blackrock Castle Observatory, the Castle Bar and Trattoria and the UCC Department of Music.

personnel

io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

track listing

Pioneer: Variance (11:52); Pioneer: Dance (13:13); Ground-Based Telemetry (1:42); Discovery: Intermodulation (9:08); Discovery: Decay (5:08); 4G (0:59); Laplace: Perturbation (10:21); Laplace: Instability (3:08); Return Trajectory (8:24). Total duration: 63:57.

recording details

All music by Han-earl Park, Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder.

Tracks 1–5, 7 and 8 recorded May 25, and track 9 recorded May 26, 2010 at the Ó Riada Hall, UCC Department of Music, Cork. Track 6 recorded August 19 2010 at C-ALTO Labs, Cork.
Recorded and mixed by Han-earl Park.
Design and artwork by Han-earl Park.

© 2011 Han-earl Park. ℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

about the performers

io 0.0.1 beta++ whimsically evokes a 1950s B-movie robot, constructed from ad-hoc components including plumbing, kitchenware and missile switches. Its celebrates the material and corporeal; embracing the localized and embodied aspects of sociality, performance and improvisation.

io 0.0.1 beta++ is an interactive, semiautonomous technological artifact that, in partnership with its human associates, performs a deliberately amplified staging of a socio-technical network—a network in which the primary protocol is improvisation. Together the cyborg ensemble explores the performance of identities, hybrids and relationships, and highlights the social agency of artifacts, and the social dimension of improvisation. Engineered by Han-earl Park, io 0.0.1 beta++ is a descendant, and significant re-construction, of his previous machine musicians, and it builds upon the work done with, and address some of the musical and practical problems of, these previous artifacts.

The construction of io 0.0.1 beta++ has been made possible by the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland.

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park (박한얼) has been working within/from/around traditions of fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, mostly open improvised musics for over fifteen years, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He feels the gravitational pull of collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces in Austria, Denmark, Germany, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

A constructor of low- and mid-tech electronic and software devices, and an occasional score-maker, he is interested in partial, and partially frustrating, context-specific artifacts; artifacts that amplify social relations and corporeal identities and agencies, and, in some instances, objects that obscure the location of the author.

He is part of Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, is involved in collaborations with Bruce Coates, Franziska Schroeder, Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell. Recent performances include Mathilde 253 with Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith; duo concerts with Paul Dunmall, and with Richard Barrett; trios with Matana Roberts and Mark Sanders, with Catherine Sikora and Ian Smith, and with Jin Sangtae and Jeffrey Weeter; as part of the Evan Parker-led 20-piece improvising ensemble; and the performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Droniphonia’ alongside the composer. Park has also recently performed with Lol Coxhill, Pat Thomas, Corey Mwamba, Mark Trayle, Pedro Rebelo, Alexander Hawkins, Mike Hurley, Chick Lyall, Thomas Buckner and Kato Hideki. Festival appearances include Sonorities (Belfast), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), VAIN Live Art (Oxford), and the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California). His recordings have been released by labels including SLAM Productions and DUNS Limited Edition.

Park founded Stet Lab, a monthly improvised music space in Cork, Ireland, and taught improvisation at the UCC Department of Music.

Bruce Coates has been heavily involved with free jazz, free improvisation and experimental music for more than 15 years. He has collaborated and performed with a long list of some of the best-known names in these areas. He is cofounder of the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra, has a long standing working relationship in many different guises with guitarist Jamie Smith, a regular trio with David Ryan and bassist John Edwards and runs the monthly Birmingham FrImp night.

Recent collaborations have included regular performances with the saxophonist Paul Dunmall, appearing alongside Dunmall on his DUNS label (the only saxophonist to do so); the Paris-based Blackberry Orchestra led by Peter Corser and involving some of France’s best known improvisers including Denis Charolles and Guillaume Roy; and a CD with the Amsterdam based Mount Fuji Doom Jazz Corporation released on the Ad Noiseam label in 2007. Current ensembles include SCHH with Chris Hobbs, Mike Hurley and Walt Shaw; Magtal with Mark Sanders and Jonny Marks; and the performance art oriented Mutt with Marks and Shaw. His ever-growing eclectic list of collaborators also includes Tony Oxley, Lol Coxhill, Christian Wolff (performing alongside the composer at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London), Hilary Jeffrey, Phil Gibbs, Paul Rogers, Trevor Lines, John Coxon, Misterlee, Bong Ra, Simon Picard, Tony Bianco, Han-earl Park, Tony and Miles Levin and Tony Marsh.

Franziska Schroeder is a saxophonist and theorist. She received her saxophone training in Berlin and Australia and later from Marie-Bernadette Charrier / Conservatoire Supérieure in Bordeaux.

With her trio FAINT Schroeder released a CD of improvised and electroacoustic music in 2007 with Pedro Rebelo (piano and instrumental parasites) and Steven Davis (drums), and a second CD, both on the creative source label. Schroeder has performed with many international musicians including Pauline Oliveros, Stelarc, the Avatar Orchestra, Chris Brown, John Kenny, Tom Arthurs, Nuno Rebelo and Evan Parker.

She holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and has written for many international journals, including Leonardo, Organised Sound, Performance Research, Cambridge Publishing and Routledge. Her book “Re-situating Performance Within The Threshold: Performance practice understood through theories of embodiment” appeared in 2009. Schroeder also published a book on user-generated content for Cambridge Publishing Scholars in 2009.

Schroeder is on the development committee of NMSAT (Networked Music & SoundArt Timeline), and has been on the programming committee for the DRHA (Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts) conference since 2009. She was the Program Chair for the DRHA 2010. Schroeder has been an AHRC Research Fellow and is now a Lecturer/RCUK Fellow at the School of Music and Sonic Arts in Belfast, where she coaches 3rd year recitalists and MA performance students.

‘Mathilde 253’ (SLAMCD 528) CD cover (copyright 2010, Han-earl Park)

Also available from SLAM Productions: Mathilde 253 (SLAMCD 528) [details…]

Performers: Charles Hayward (drums, percussion and melodica), Han-earl Park (guitar) and Ian Smith (trumpet and flugelhorn) plus Lol Coxhill (saxophone).

© 2010 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2010 SLAM Productions.

updates

07–16–11: add links to Downtown Music Gallery and Wayside Music.

08–04–11: add iTunes, eMusic and Amazon.

08–18–11: add Jazzcds to list of shops.

02–15–12: add Souffle Continu to list of shops.

03–28–12: add Squidco to list of shops.

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