secession update #037
:__ Drift Theory 2 - a John Power & Andrew Garton collaboration
:__ Andrew Garton supporting Damo Suzuki
:__ Future Eater's micro-music sessions
:__ y a r t s t h d a b i r - audio stream performance
|| secession update
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
#037
Greetings, welcome and joy to the world!
Despite all that may ail us, all that assails us, 2003 was a tremendously productive year for all of us at Secession and Toy Satellite.
We completed D3, an interactive work, video and generative audio installation for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image which ran for an unprecedented four months. The soundtrack, recorded on site with a binaural-head microphone (thanks Robin Whittle), will be available at some stage (I've given up on setting dates for releases), but was performed by Justina Curtis and myself at Small Black Box, Brisbane.
We completed another year of Secession Sessions at the Lambsgo Bar which encouraged, perhaps even spawned the talents of Warren Dusting (aka. Brains, formally Son of Maggot Brain). Our record collections were the inspiration of many hilarious and exhausting nights, often deliciously complimented by Justina's (aka DJC) semi-orchestrated ambience, spiced with the far reaching sounds we have collected from the fringes of Asian music culture.
Brains and friends can be heard at the Lambsgo Bar every Thursday. The Secession Secessions may pick up again, but for now there are other things to be done.
Then there was the Audiomulch evening where a handful of aficionados shared their sound works with each other, a precursor to the evening we launched Future Eater's GNOOB, where Andrew Sargeant (aka Future Eater) performed a remix of the album via the most extensive Audiomulch patch I'd ever seen. The mighty Jeane Poole provided a broad spectrum of video pieces and Key Presch (aka Namshub of Enki) showed us a thing or two with one of his well admired and appreciated guest appearances.
The Terminal Quartet debuted mid-December at the Lambsgo Bar as well. Despite the Christmas brevity we had to work with, the results of our first performance were surprisingly excellent! The collaborative composition and structured improvisation, Drift Theory 1, was recorded that evening and the results will be shared once the Terminal Quartet web site is up and running. Keep an eye out for the Quartet as it explores further the notion of structured improvisation.
Somewhere in all this I began work on Son of Science (SOS), both an emerging performance work and my next album. A semi-autobiographical work, it draws on my experience as musician, performer, composer, sound designer, producer and engineer... basically, everything! I performed quite a few pieces from SOS at Public Office when supporting Monolake which itself was perhaps the most memorable evening I've had in Melbourne, certainly the musical peak of the 10 years I have been here.
2004 is already shaping up to be an even mightier year, perhaps with less anxiety, but more productivity, creativity and collaborative support amongst those of us who share common ground in this remarkable country and in this even more remarkable region of the world.
Keep well,
andrew garton
:__ Drift Theory 2 - a John Power & Andrew Garton collaboration
Drift Theory 2 is a composition for a multi-performer instrument (MPI) being developed by John Power, in collaboration with Andrew Garton, utilising the extensive capabilities of the Unreal engine from Epic Games.
The MPI consists of a single room, or "performance space". Unique objects are assigned sounds and various properties that are triggered when nudged by the performer(s). Objects are stacked onto various levels, each level representing a single movement.
John and Andrew have been collaborating on sound and video performance works since 1998. Since their Undercurrents tour (2001) they have taken some what of a break, spending time developing their own creative practice and professional lives.
Tonight, at Floating Point, John and Andrew will debut a proof of concept of their MPI, utilising some of the ideas being developed through Andrew's structured improvisation and collaborative composition, Drift Theory.
When: TONIGHT! 8pm sharp & Free!
Where: First Floor, 393 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
More: http://toysatellite.org/agarton/blog/archive/2004_01.html#000091
:__ Andrew Garton supporting Damo Suzuki
Legendary avant, or space-rock outfit, Germany's CAN, recorded their first four albums (from 1970 - 73) with the charismatic and energetic Damo Suzuki at the vocal helm.
Damo has been an a world tour throughout the 90s and now into the early years of this century, performing with numerous musicians and bands in what he calls Damo Suzuki's Network.
On the 27th of January Damo will perform in Melbourne with Ollie Olsen (AKS), Antediluvian Rocking Horse (Laptop/Turntable Dada Artists), Davey Williams (Drums) and Edmomd Ammendola (Bass).
Supporting this eclectic mix of superb musicians and sound artists will be Andrew Garton performing his new body of work, Son of Science.
Where: Revolver, Chapel St, Melbourne
When: 27 January, 10pm sharp to late
More: http://www.damosuzuki.de/
http://toysatellite.org/agarton/
:__ Future Eater's micro-music sessions
Every Thursday evening at Kent St Cafe, Fitzroy, Future Eater and friends gather for micro sounds and visuals celebrating the 8-bit artworks that have grown from the early days of computer gaming culture.
If you have a penchant for this genre and an Atari or Commadore64 sitting around, give its sound chips a work out... You'll be more than welcome in the company of micro-geeks, a kind of new Renaissance person!
Where: Kent St Cafe, Smith St, Fitzroy, Melbourne
When: Thursdays, 8pm to late
More: http://www.secession-records.org/artists/
http://micromusic.net/
:__ y a r t s t h d a b i r - audio stream performance
Saturday 17 January saw an audio stream performance from Toy Satellite commissioned by Western Front (Canada) to commemorate the alleged birthday of Art(!).
To celebrate Art's Birthday and a dedication to public domain cultural works Toy Satellite performed generative interpretations of "Good Morning To All", a song written by two American sisters in 1893, a song that become to be sung all around the world as "Happy Birthday".
The performance included a narrative derived from countless birthday greetings and well wishes sourced from the Web and assembled into reasonably coherent phrases with text cut-up engine, Caesarian.
In addition, a custom PERL script fed frequently updated Melbourne weather data to the Scrambled_Bites server in Canada. The key values provided were:
toy Melb_Temp (deg Celcius)
toy Melb_Humidity (%)
toy Melb_Wind_Dir (text - N, S, WNW, etc)
toy Melb_Wind_Speed (knots)
A 10 minute audio archive of the performance is available from the project site along with links to the various tools and resources used for this work.
More: http://www.toysatellite.org/arts-birthday/
Special thanks to SSEYO Ltd for generative synthesis software support.
---
peace,
-ag.
+++ andrew garton SECESSION RECORDS || secession@toysatellite.org
+++ new releases: http://www.secession-records.org/releases/
