Category Archives: Curatorial

Senses of Place | LOOP 2015

28 may – 6 june
Reial Cercle Artistic de Barcelona

David Baker, José Manuel Berenguer, Blake Carrington, Melissa F. Clarke, Seth Cluett, Andrew Demirjian, Tom Chant, Brian Chase, David Galbraith, Richard Garet, Lorenzo Gattorna, Sandra Gibson-Luis Recoder, Wolfgang Gil, Andy Graydon, Jim Haynes, Barbara Held, Victoria Keddie, Kenneth Kirschner, LoVid, Katherine Liberovskaya, David Linton, Daniel Neumann, Phill Niblock, Yann Novak, Ursula Scherrer, Pinkcourtesyphone (Richard Chartier-Rob Parrish), Yapci Ramos, Phillip Stearns, Pilar Subirá, Fernando Velázquez, Byron Westbrook, Florian Wittenburg.

LOOP Festival 2015

LOOP Barcelona 2015, The Real Circulo Artístico de Barcelona, Hangar, Eyebeam Sound Research Group, PHONOS (University Pompeu Fabra Barcelona) and the Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre de Tenerife present “Senses of Place”, a program of exhibitions and screenings of audiovisual work, installations and performance that respond to space.

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Exhibitions:

An Immanence of Nature | collective exhibition with the artists Richard Garet, Barbara Held y Yapci Ramos | 11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle ArtisticGallery Space

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In this exhibition artists make use of technology to capture and display images and sounds that re-contextualize how we perceive the world. Through close listening, focused sight and careful attention to perception, these artists have created a micro-environment that rewards active exploration and encourages thoughtful contemplation of how we understand the world around us through our senses of sight and sound.

Winter | sound installation by Richard Garet, 2008
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Blue Zone.
Sensesofplace_RichardGaret-Blue-03

Winter is a surround 4.0 sonic construction focused on Winter as a subject. This interpretation was made from aural material recorded during December 2007 and March 2008 within the same 16-foot perimeter location in Astoria, Queens, NY.

Dark Before Dawn | video by Blake Carrington, sound from the album “Ulysses Syndrome” by Soundwalk Collective
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Hall

Reial Cercle Artístic LOOP2015

Reial Cercle Artístic LOOP2015

“Dark Before Dawn” explores the subjective choreography of sound and image, the feedback loop between the two that informs and shapes what we think we see and what we think we hear. It takes the viewer through a slowly shifting, minimal and foggy color space that follows the contours of the album “Ulysses Syndrome” by Soundwalk Collective. Commissioned by Soundwalk Collective for their album “Ulysses Syndrome”.

Acoustic Imaging the Hudson | video by Melissa F. Clarke
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Hall

Reial Cercle Artístic LOOP2015

Reial Cercle Artístic LOOP2015

Acoustic Imaging the Hudson shows a subsoil and underwater topography and past glacial movement; a particular profile of deep time and space history reaches the surface through sound signals and image data sent over. The installation shows the relationship between sound and image, water and sound, and with the sediments beneath.

Color Tones | sound installation by Wolfgang Gil
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Courtyard
Sensesofplace_WolfgangGil-02
A site-specific, generative sound installation that produces its sonic content in response to the sounds occurring in the space in which the piece is installed. Comprised of slowly shifting tones and textures diffused over a multichannel sound system, the installation invites the audience to enter into a meditative dialog with the listening space. The piece is punctuated by periodic silences, during which the piece listens to the room and produces new content.

A project of the Sound Research Group at Eyebeam, New York

The Sound Research Group is a working group to focus on the what and why of sound art through critical discussion, collaborations, presentation of works in progress, and public events. For more information:http://research.eyebeam.org/sound

Recollections | video by Seth Cluett
11.00h. – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Courtyard
Sensesofplace_SethCluett-03
A single, unedited, wide-angle shot of the edge of a forest, this video contains monaural audio of the sound of a person walking from the left  to the right of the screen. The visual occlusion of the forest combined with audio whose close-mic’d detail  provides no cues for locating the position of the walker. The viewer is forced to search, knowing that there must be a connection between hearing and sight, but is forced to rely on scanning the video carefully in search for alternative clues as to location of the sound source.

Screening:

Screening | program of audiovisual works. Curated by Richard Garet and Barbara Held.
11.00h – 21.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Sala Atlants

download hand program

A  program of audiovisual works from artists working with sound, expanded cinema and video, presenting works of David Baker-Florian Wittenburg, Blake Carrington, Melissa F. Clarke, Andrew Demirjian, David Galbraith, Lorenzo Gattorna, Sandra Gibson-Luis Recoder, Richard Garet, Andy Graydon-Kenneth Kirschner, Jim Haynes, Victoria Keddie, LoVid, Katherine Liberovskaya-Phill Niblock, David Linton, Yann Novak, Ursula Scherrer-Brian Chase, Pinkcourtesyphone, Phillip Stearns, Fernando Velazquez and Byron Westbrook.

Concert:

Concert | performance by Aetherart
4 june – 21.00h. – 22.00h | Reial Cercle Artistic – Courtyard

This performance is a collective exploration of architectural acoustics, the interactive environment of Wolfgang Gil’s installation and Seth Cluett’s score system that utilizes concepts from machine listening research to enable performers to take on the role of adaptive listeners with a score. A visualization of the scored-work in tandem with the sounds of the ambient environment will drive a thin wire with mirrors placed at acoustically significant points along it. A thin strip of a video projection will be reflected throughout the courtyard, modulated chaotically by the sum of the sounds in the space. Barbara Held, Tom Chant, Pilar Subirà, Jose Manuel Berenguer, Daniel Neumann, video by Yapci Ramos.
A project of the Sound Research Group at Eyebeam, New York

Workshops:

Introduction to nonlinear methods of composition using MAX / MSP | workshop by Wolfgang Gil. Hangar – June 2 & 3
BTV news video:
Tret de sortida a la primera edició del Poblenou Crea! – BTVNOTÍCIES.cat.

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This is an introduction to the use of statistics for audio processing in real time.

The focus on sound composition is based on the definition of “sections” or states of a stochastic system, and “transitions” between sections, using a series of modules that I have created in Max/MSP, a graphic tool that permits logical computation of sound using visual objects.

New York-based Venezuelan sound artist and programmer Wolfgang Gil explores the interrelationship of sound, the listener, and the space of listening. In his experimental work, it is in the listener’s willingness to engage in a personal dialog with the sound and space that the work finds its purpose. He is director of Eyebeam’s Sound Research group, and since 2012, Gil, Richard Garet y Daniel Neumann direct the portable gallery/platform for sound installation work on Contour Editions.

http://wolfganggil.com/about/

DNeumannFoto1_CT-SWaM_June222014sm_photobyEmilioVavarella

Non-Representational Spatial Sound | workshop by Daniel Neumann
Hangar – June 2 & 3

This workshop is part of the investigation into the architectural space as strategies for exploring sound, sound material and its modulation by space and situation. The workshop will give a historical overview on the subject with some technical background and explore aesthetics and techniques for spatialization. Listening will be practiced as a phenomenological activity: the listener immersed in inner spaces / distance and continuity / sound as intersubjective space. The loudspeaker is an instrument, a resonating exciter, and the space is the resonator, like the wooden body of a violin.

Daniel Neumann is a sound artist based in Brooklyn, professional sound engineer with master’s degree in media art from the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. His main focus is the investigation of how sound interacts with space and how spaces can be shaped by sound. As curator, he directs the CT-Swam monthly series at Eyebeam, New York. He has presented work at Fridman Gallery, MoMA PS1, Pratt Institute, Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, Sculpture Center New York, Eigen & Art Gallery Leipzig, Skolska28 Prague, Lothringer13 Munich and many more.

danielneumann.org
danielneumann.wordpress.com
ctswam.wordpress.com

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AudioVisions is a program of video works in which moving image intersects with sonic art.
Curated by Barbara Held and Katherine Liberovskaya
produced by Espai Ubú for LOOP Festival 2009

bigpicture

Program AudioVisions:

Distillation:Tulsa 2008   8’17
video, Ursula Scherrer música, Michelle Nagai

Four-wheel Drive 2007/08    5’30
video, Katherine Liberovskaya  sound collage, Phill Niblock

Topolo PN  2005 11’50
Phill Niblock

analog signals Anne Wellmer
grabado en collaboracion con Katherine Liberovskaya   2009

Tehran, Noemi Sjoberg  2005  5’08

London Heathrow 2004  6’01
video, Ursula Scherrer música, Michael J. Schumacher

Hommm 2005 4’43
video, Francesca Llopis  música, Barbara Held

UG     2009   9’05
video, Ursula Scherrer  musica, Kato Hideki

Rantdance   2009  12
video, Katherine Liberovskaya music, Al Margolis (IF, Bwana)

analog signal 3 Anne Wellmer, 48”  2009

S.T. 2009  6’54
Video, Francesca Llopis  so, Barbara Held

LINES OF SIGHT #7. Radio Incarné. Yasunao Tone and Tetsuo Kogawa

Tetsuo Kogawa 'Dom im Berg', Graz, Austria, October 7, 2007. Photo by Susanna Niedermayr

Tetsuo Kogawa ‘Dom im Berg’, Graz, Austria, October 7, 2007. Photo by Susanna Niedermayr

This is a collaboration for “Lines of Sight” by philosopher and pioneer of mini FM radio, Tetsuo Kogawa, and sound artist Yasunao Tone, based on an email exchange on radioart.

When we were asked to make a radio collaboration for Radio web MACBA, we decided to use an email exchange on radioart, vocalize the text, and then both of us play it live in performance.

Our collaboration started as argument on temporality, which was my fault because I started this difficult topic and it made our dialog into hastily scribbled heavy-handed letter exchanges rather than crisp emails. After we became aware of that, we began scribbling our thought by using the email format and keyboards. So, in accordance with Kogawa’s insistence on hands, we have literally thought on a column of email by hands. Regrettably, our native language is Japanese and we have been forced to speak a language we seldom use when we dream so we couldn’t play with words. However, I tried to add playfulness by vocalizing with a synthetic voice program from Mac’s “Simple Text” and burned it onto CDR. Then I prepared the CDR (so called scratching) and played it with my old CD player. Unfortunately we couldn’t practice our program as radioart because Radio web MACBA has no format for live broadcasting from Tokyo and New York. We present our collaboration in this recorded form.

Yasunao Tone

LINES OF SIGHT #6. Collaborating with Strangers. Brenda Hutchinson

"DB6-1AMNYSubway" Brenda Hutchinson, Daily Bell 2008 project

“DB6-1AMNYSubway” Brenda Hutchinson, Daily Bell 2008 project

The life work of Brenda Hutchinson (literally “life work”, based on the cultivation and encouragement of openness in her own life and in those she works with) covers a range of action from abstract electronic music to year-long pieces such as her ongoing project, “dailybell2008”, a commitment to the simple action of ringing bells at sunrise and sunset every day for a year and sharing the awareness of that moment with others.

In public collaborations such as the “The West 4th Street Quintet”, Hutchinson records people that she encounters on the street, listening and witnessing; in more personal explorations and performances she works with family and loved ones working through grief and loss or fear. A recent turning point is “SoundTracks”, a score/invention and collaboration with her friend artist Ann Chamberlain, whose memory was seriously compromised due to end stage breast cancer. “SoundTracks” enabled Ann to draw by means of programmed sounds, intimate and personal elements of her daily life. Brenda Hutchinson has currently completed hospice and palliative care training to explore extending the potential benefits of the project to others. The “SoundTracks” drawings were shown as part of “Possibility of Action, the Life of the Score”, an exhibition exploring musical notation curated by Held-Subirà and produced by MACBA June-October 2008).

For “Lines of Sight #6”, Hutchinson converses with San Francisco composer/performer Jon Brumit, founder of Neighborhood Public Radio, about the thread of “collaborating with strangers” that runs through their work, and premieres a work in progress with The Cardew Choir directed by Tom Bickley.

Lines of Sight #5. An Orchid in the Land of Technology

Brandon LaBelle

Prototypes for the mobilization and broadcast of fugitive sound

The recording can be a reflection of the thoughts and emotions of a human being (Arthur Russell), memory (see Brandon LaBelle’s project, Phantom Music – Radio, Memory, and Narratives from Auditory Life), or museum (Edgard Varèse used recordings of the Holy Week procession of the Catalan village of Verges, presented every year since the middle ages, in his soundtrack for a film on Miró). A studio production records one perfect performance, its presence in time and space similar to that of a film. Destructive noise can be transposed into delicate vibrations of a transparent membrane (Juan Matos Capote).

Lines of Sight #4

Radio Action III. Photo by David La Spina

Radio Action III. Photo by David La Spina

New program Lines of Sight at RWM, in collaboration with New York-based transmission art organization free103point9 and Galen Joseph-Hunter.

Radio Action III features five-minute sound works conceptually tied to the idea of “radio” as an instrument or theme, composed by free103point9 transmission artists working in collaborative teams. 31 Down & Matt Bua comment on the consumer market’s hunger for all that is wireless. Damian Catera explores FM spectrum broadcast content as a symbol of social decline. Alexis Bhagat & Sophea Lerner utilize the transmission spectrum as a networked space for communication. Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson as well as neuroTransmitter stage reenactments and or use archival recordings in homage to historical radio experiments and actions. The Dust Dive & Latitude/Longitude infuse their musical practice with “celestial forces.” Joshua Fried & Todd Merrell, Tom Roe & Scanner, as well as LoVid & Michelle Rosenberg with Howard Huang employ the electromagnetic spectrum (signal and interference) as their sonic palette. Anna Friz & Tianna Kennedy consider conceptual and poetic radio space. Michelle Nagai with Kenta Nagai as well as radio_ruido & ben owen explore transmission and reception as a means to map an interior space.

Possibility of Action: the Life of the Score

Score by Alice Santoro

MACBA Documentation Centre
17 JUNE – 05 OCT. 2008

«I sometimes think of music as a succession of sounds which on reaching the listener’s ear turns back on itself and retraces its path, in orderly disorder, until re-entering the mind of the person who thought it up», wrote the Italian artist and composer Walter Marchetti.

Together with Robert Ashley, Eugènia Balcells, Joan Brossa, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Pauline Oliveros, Lee Ranaldo and Yasunao Tone, Marchetti was one of the authors whose work was included in the exhibition Possibility of Action. The Life of the Score, curated by Barbara Held and Pilar Subirà at the MACBA Study Center.

The exhibition explored the possibilities of musical notation, loosely understood as a means for musical and visual transmission, and brought together historical and contemporary scores as well as artistic creations not strictly from the field of music. Scores became a field of action, sound became artistic material, the boundaries between art, music and life blurred, and the powers of composers, performers and audiences merged.

The exhibition was presented in conjunction with the RWM program Lines of Sight, a new space for sound experimentation.

“One of the more recent contemporary art exhibitions to provide a historical survey of graphic and experimental scores as visual as well as notational objects was Possibility of Action: The Life of the Score at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona Study Center in 2008.” Cited by Hendrik Folkerts in his text for Documenta 14, Keeping Score: Notation, Embodiment, and Liveness

http://www.documenta14.de/…/464_keeping_score_notation…

Clear Music, Eugenia Balcells

Download catalogue pdf
Review Art Daily

Lines of Sight for radio web macba

LINES OF SIGHT, curated by Barbara Held and Pilar Subirá, takes its name from the interconnected points of the global resonant space created by radio and other wireless technologies. From out of the extraordinary array of music that plays on this world-wide stage, we will follow threads as diverse as musical notation and non-linear composition, and introduce artists who explore the ideas around transmission as a medium for creative expression.
Transmission, translation, revelation>>>the performance score

David Behrman

LINES OF SIGHT #1 takes inspiration from recent projects concerning the musical score; musical, sociological, biological explorations of how our minds and intuition translate and transmit music.

The compositions on this program have been realized from scores as varied as an interactive computer software controlled by a live performer, verbal instructions that undermine a pre-recorded playerpiano recording, data from a gps navigational system that converts geographical position into mathematical sounds, a text by Jacques Derrida and three superimposed similarly evanescing matrices of differently white numbers.

Música a Metrònom

Metronom espacio abierto de investigación artístico

Created and curated by Barbara Held in collaboration with guest curators Augusti Fernandez, Francisco López, Paul DeMarinis, Bert Bongers, IBA

In Real Time. Rafael Tous Collection of Conceptual Art
May 14th, 2021 to January 9th, 2022

MACBA celebrates a timeline of Metronom featuring documentation of concerts and sound art, soon to become part of the video/sound archive project recently initiated by AMEE Asociación de Music Electroacústica y Arte Sonoro de España. Special thanks to Victor Aguado!


 

Setmana de musica experimental 1985

Phill Niblock
Christian Marclay
Elliot Sharp
Paul Panhuysen
Ellen Fullman
Llorenç Barber
Charles K. Noyes
Oriol Graus
SPACE, Roscoe Mitchell, Tom Buckner, Gerald Oshita

press
press2

Músiques Submergides,1993
Curated by Barbara Held
with the collaboration of KRTU
and participation of artists  Jorge Ribalta, Marcel Pey, Pere Noguera i Jordi Benito

Músiques Submergides CD

MUSIQUES SUBMERGIDES oferirà durant cinc dies seguits, en el marc de Metronom, una visió panoràmica que donarà imatge de la varietat de possibilitats de la música d’avui i de l’ús de les noves tecnologies aplicades a la música amb la participació de músics catalans i d’arreu del món. Seguint el criteri de KRTU, la mostra de música comptarà amb la col·laboració de diversos artistes que treballaran a partir de la il·luminació del concert en una recerca al voltant de la llum i el so. Com a catàleg-document d’aquest esdeveniment, s’ha editat un CD (compact disc), que recull peces dels músics participants i els textos corresponents.

PROGRAMA

Dimarts, 2 de febrer de 1993, a les 20 h.

Miquel Jordà (Barcelona) Instal·lació sonora interactiva (saxo i espai electrònic)

Gordon Monahan (Canada)
“Speaker Swinging” (tres altaveus en moviment piano preparat)

Dimecres, 3 de febrer de 1993, a les 20 h.

David Behrman (USA) “Interspecies Smalltalk” (Duo per flauta i ordinador)
“Blue” Gene Tyranny (USA) (pianista col·laborador de Robert Ashley, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gordon, etc.)
amb Barbara Held

Col·laboració: Jorge Ribalta

Dijous, 4 de febrer de 1993, a les 20 h.

STEIM (Centre per a la recerca de la música electroacústica
d’Amsterdam)
Nick Collins (USA) (música trombó-propulsat) “Real electronic music” (fragments d’emissions de ràdio controlats per trombó midi)
Michel Waisvisz (Holanda) “Hands” (control de sons electronics mitjançant el moviment de les mans)
Joel Ryan (USA) (música interactiva per ordinador)

Col·laboració: Marcel Pey

Divendres, 5 de febrer de 1993, a les 20 h.

Fast Forward (R. U.) (percusió amb tambors jamaicans i objectes trobats)
Takehisa Kosugi (Japó) (violí elèctric)

Fátima Miranda (Madrid) (veu)

Col·laboració: Pere Noguera

Dissabte, 6 de febrer de 1993, a les 20 h.

Miquel Gaspà (Barcelona) (Clarinet)
Josep Manuel Berenguer (Barcelona) (compositor)

Pauline Oliveros (U.S.A.) (acordió electrònic)

Col·laboració: Jordi Benito

Pauline Oliveros, Jordi Benito

L’ART D’AFAIÇONAR EL SO. ESTHER XARGAY

George Lewis, photo Ros Ribas

II Setmana Internacional de musica experimental, 1996

“Voyager”
George Lewis
Evan Parker

“Death Praxis”
Tenko & Ikue Mori

“Fugue State (for David Tudor)”
Ron Kuivila

“Passio”
Miquel Jorda

 

Ron Kuivila, photo Ros Ribas

Música a Metrònom, 1997
Co-Curated by Barbara Held and Augusti Fernandez

Duo
Sainkho Namtchylak, voz
Peter Kowald, contrabajo

Tom Cora and “Man with the Movie Camera”
Tom Cora, violoncel

“L’ombra dels pins”
Augusti Fernandez, piano
Carlos “Zingaro”, violin

Robert Ashley, “Perfect Lives”
Robert Ashley, voz
Carme Canela, voz
Mirianna Miracle, voz
Jordi Colomer, escenografia

Wave Field”
Rafael Toral, live electronics

“Relative Calm”
Jon Gibson, solo saxo soprano

Installation sonora:

“Dervish”
Lewis de Soto

“Dervish” Lewis DeSoto, photo Ros Ribas

video: https://vimeo.com/3245546

Performance:

1 no es 1. Acció a tres bandes
Jordi Benito
Michael Forster, Jordi Benito, Augusti Fernandez

 

Butch Morris, photo Ros Ribas

Música a Metrònom, 1998
Co-curated by Barbara Held and Augusti Fernandez

Light and sound installation:
Maria Blondeel
Michael Vorfeld

Concerts:

“una sintesi acustica”
Liba’ Villavecchia
Paul Stouthamer
Joan Saura
Wade Matthews
Steve Noble
Oren Marshall

Young Farmers Claim Future  “Farmer’s Almanac”
Herbert van de Sompel
Guy C. Jules van Belle

Frances-Marie Uitti, cello

‘Butch’ Morris  “Conduction num. 92
Big Ensemble Taller de Musics

Chefa Alonso
Michael Babinchak
Mark Cunningham
Christiaan de Jong
Augusti Fernandez
Lito Iglesias
John Leaman
Wade Matthews
Barbara Meyer
Marc Miralta
Steve Noble
Javier Olondo
Benet Palet
Joan Saura
“Liba” Villavecchia

listen https://www.sonmarchive.es/index.php/es/component/muscol/V/5155-v-v-a-a-musica-a-metronom/1411-musica-a-metronom

https://www.sonmarchive.es/index.php/es/component/muscol/V/4605-v-v-a-a-peter-kowald-xu-fengxia/3024-musica-a-metronom-2

Additional concerts and installations:

Música desterritorialitzada 14.7.98
Yasunao Tone
Barbara Held, flauta
Carles Hac Mor, veu

“Luz del pasado”
Paloma Navares
Barbara Held

“The Messenger” Paul DeMarinis photo Ros Ribas

“The Messenger”
Paul de Marinis

The Messenger text https://barbaraheld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/The-Messenger-1998-Paul-DeMarinis-.pdf

“Zone”
Terry Fox

“Intersection”
Don Ritter

 

Terry Fox, photo Ros Ribas

Música a Metrònom, 1999

Peter Kowald’s Global Village & Jin Hi Kim
Peter Kowald, contrabajo
Xu Feng Xia, ghuzeng
Gunda Gottschalck, violin y viola
Jin Hi Kim, komoungo
Floros Floridis, saxo
Okay Temiz, percussion
Savina Yannatou, voz

“The Well” & “Electric Wind” de Ron Kuivila
Barbara Held, flauta
Adolf Alcañiz, video

“Trilogie de la Mort”
Eliane Radigue

…roaring, roaring, roaring
Andrés Corchero, dansa
Augustí Fernández, piano

“Call Me”
Kaffe Matthews

 

Andrés Corchero and Augustí Fernández, photo Ros Ribas

Música a Metrònom, 2000

Live FMOL Trio
Sergi Jordà, sintetitzador FMOL
Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga, saxo alt, clarinet baix i scratch
Cristina Casanova, Sintetitzador FMOL

listen: https://www.sonmarchive.es/index.php/es/component/muscol/F/300-fmol-trio/650-live-at-metronom

Espace donné
Hans W. Koch, electronica
Andreas Wagner, saxo

jaitch
Jane Riggler, flauta
Hannes Giger, contrabaix
Koji Asano, composició

Arcana 33 1/3, captital magnetic, Sawhorse
Mark Trayle

Susie Ibarra, percussió
Assif Tsahar, saxo tenor i clarinet baix

musica absoluta 001
Francisco López

Phill Niblock, photo Ros Ribas

Installation:

Phill Niblock

 

Francisco Lopez and Barbara Held

 

Música a Metrònom, 2001

Curated by Francisco López and Barbara Held

Music at Metrònom 2001 takes place just at the beginning of the new century, and although personally I don’t tend to attach any importance to these situations, on this occasion I feel that we are at one of those odd positions from which we contemplate the past for a few moments before launching ourselves towards an immense future that we are already relishing.

It has been a century full of sonic adventures and leaps into the abyss, in large part set in motion by the futurists, whom I have always admired, for no other reason as much as their passionate attitude. The world that they predicted and dreamed about is now here, with its electronics and its communication systems, its flying machines and its huge buildings… Nevertheless, there has been an essential change in the driving force of this transformation of the world, which would probably make a hypothetical voyage in time to visit our present a bitter one: in the collective contemplation of all our worlds, passion has been replaced by pragmatism.

Among other things, it is for this reason that the term avant garde has never seemed to me to be appropriate. I believe that the events of the century that has just finished showed us time and time again the persistence of the underground, as an eternal-changing-moving underworld that exists in the cracks of an above-ground world that only notices the most superficial aspects of this passion, and exhibits them as a trophy of history, without experiencing them. Music at Metrònom 2001 is an ephemeral – but succulent – look at some of the “cells” that give life to the present in this enormous and everlasting underground organism. Fortunately, this only represents a tiny sample of this organism. Because this is at the same time one of its virtues and one of the main characteristics of our present: uncontrolled (and uncontrollable), multifarious development. Various silent revolutions have taken place – pre and post-internet without having changed the way in which the world is dominated, although they have changed the possible ways of contemplating it or, to put it another way, the variety of possible worlds in which to live.

With Music at Metrònom 2001 we have the opportunity to immerse ourselves in one of these developments, in the form of various generations of sonic artists from all over the world who have never before presented their work live in this country: the pioneering work of Alvin Lucier, a legendary sonic explorer and exceptional “hearer” of the phenomena of our interiors and our environment, the sampledelia of almostmelodic, almostrhtymical digital chaos of Zipperspy, the world at the limits of acoustic per ception and the presence of the minuscule of March Behrens and Thomas Lehn, the archaeological, creative, sonic, noiseist work of two masters of the iconoclastic manipulation of vinyl (not DJs) Emil Beaulieu and Michael Gendreau and the brutal and enormously rich physicalisation of digital noise created by two activists of lapnoise, Zbigniew Karkowski and Shunichiro Okada.

It is a delicious avalanche of music/sound/noise from the hands and spirit of a group of exceptional creators who come from this underground. I don’t think they are the avant-garde of anything that will come later. They don’t need it. I am a “subterranean presentist” and so I appreciate their work and I immerse myself in it, enjoying the adventure NOW. This subterranean world – and I feel that the new century as well – is full of a delicious, undreamed of void. Presentists, let’s leap into this void yet again!

Francisco Lopez

català – castellano https://barbaraheld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Musica-Metronom-2001.pdf

Alvin Lucier “Small Waves”
Roland Dahinden, trombón
Hildegard Kleeb, piano
Cristina Vertiz i Emilie Langlais, Violin
Claire Bobij, viola
Sandrine Robilliard, cello

Tom Recchion y Zipper Spy
Sampledelia

Marc Behrens y Thomas Lehn
Lowercase Experimental

Michael Gendreau y Emil Beaulieau
Hardcore Turntablism

Shunichiro Okada y Zbigniew Karkowski
Lapnoise

Additional concerts and installations:

Josep Manuel Berenguer
Transfer – sound installation

Aikido
Angel Pereira, multipercussió

Mappings núm. 2
Anne Wellmer, live electronics i video
Justin Bennett, software i cartografia
Boris Gerrets, videoclip

Bat
Bert Bongers, video-orgue
Yolanda Harris, video-orgue

Trio
Matt Davis, trompeta
Rhodri Davies, arpa
Mark Wastell, violoncel

Installation:

The actor, action, and the acted upon
Matt Davis
Simeon Portway

Frances Marie Uitti, photo Ros Ribas

Musica a Metronom, 2002 new music, new instruments, new paradigms
curated by Barbara Held and Bert Bongers

This year, Metrònom’s International Week of Experimental Music brings together a selection of pioneering artists and musicians who use computers to create extremely charismatic and physical live performances, with new instruments, sensors and interfaces that go beyond the traditional capacities for which the computer was originally conceived. New technologies make it possible to erase the traditional borders between disciplines, and for this reason the festival offers a mixture of musical, theatrical, dance and video creations by artists who define the new paradigms of art, interaction and live performance.

Through concerts, workshops, conferences and special projects, the festival will show the results of this research into the development of a human interface in electronic arts. The programme brings together pioneers such as Michel Waisvisz (Holland), who performs with his inven tion The Hands; Laetitia Sonami (United States) with The Lady’s Glove; the virtuoso viola-player Frances-Marie Uitti, (United States-Holland), inventor of the double bow technique and who currently performs with an electroni cally-adapted instrument, the Cello ++; and Jonathan Impett (Great Britain) with his Meta-Trumpet. The group Kreepa performs a show using electrical currents, in a collaboration between the musicians Hilari Jeffery (Great Britain/Holland), on tromboscillator, Cesar Villavicencio (Argentina/Holland), on MIDI bass recorder, and the dancer Gurukirn Khalsa (United States). Yolande Harris (Great Britain) and Bert Bongers (Holland) will present the Video-Organ, a live-performance instrument that uses audio-visual material. From Barcelona comes the per formance of a group consisting of Constanza Brznic, dancer, Héctor Ayuso, video animation, and Oriol Rossell, sound, as well as a presentation by Kònic thtr, a collective consisting of Alain Bauman and Rosa Sánchez, with a performance of electronic music and multimedia theatre.

As well as the individual and group concerts mentioned above, a new group will be created, the Metrònom Meta Orchestra, with artists from different backgrounds who will work on a new piece, to be presented on the last day of the festival.

Constanza Brznic, dansa
Héctor Ayuso, video
Oriol Rossell, só

Konic thtr
Alain Bauman
Rosa Sánchez

The Lady’s Glove
Laetitia Sonami

Kreepa
Hilari Jeffery (Tromboscillator)
Cesar Villavicencio, MIDI bass recorder
Gurukirn Khalsa, dansa

The Hands
Michel Waisvisz

The video organ
Bert Bongers
Yolande Harris

Frances-Marie Uitti, cello++

Jonathan Impett, meta-trumpet

Laetitia Sonami, the lady’s glove

The Metrònom Meta-Orquestra

Installation:

Conjunciones & Copulativas | Wooden House, iron be, straw hat
Francesc Abad
Barbara Held, sound

 

Musica a Metronom, 2003
curated by Paul DeMarinis

Metrònom asked me to curate a series of live performances, with the focus on musicians and sonic artists working in conjunction with scientific researchers. I was interested in showing not just the artists who use technology, but also those who use scientific processes and research in the actual creation of their work. The artists shown here (myself included) have developed scientific research in conjunction with scientists at research centres as part of their process of creating music and art.
Paul DeMarinis, curator

Long Tube with gestural interface, How do You Get to Carnegie Hall
Brenda Hutchinson
with Alexandra Gardner, Carles Santos, Augusti Fernandez, etc.

Krystyna Bobrowski

Paul DeMarinis

Nigel Helyer

Roberto Morales

Ars Sonora RNE, 13/04/03 Krystyna Bobrowski, Brenda Hutchinson, Paul DeMarinis, Roberto Morales

Installation:
Microcòsmics
Joan Fontcuberta, comissari
28.02.03 – 29.03.03

video documentation

Metrònom ha volgut fer un expriment: donar a una sèrie de creadors d’àmbits molt diferents l’oportunitat de reaccionar espontàniament a la percepió d’objectes de la seva elecció a travès d’un microscopi electrònic. En un grup seleccionat per Joan Fontcuberta es troben músics, arquitectes, poetes, escultors, pintors, fotògrafs….Els participants són Barbara Held, Ivan Bercedo i Jorge Mestre, Carles Hac Mor i Ester Xargay, Isaki Lacuesta, Sylvie Bussières, Perejaume i el mateix Joan Fontcuberta.

Joan Fontcuberta, SIPACO (síndrome de Patriotisme Constitucional)
Carles Hac Mor i Ester Xargay, Sextina al microscopi
Barbara Held, The Innermost Nature of Things
Perejaume, Pa d’or
Sylvie Bussièries, Anatomia interrompuda
Jorge Mestre i Ivan Bercedo, Coreografia del petroli
Isaki Lacuesta, Exploració d’un fotograma en estat de descomposició, L’ull de Déu, Microscopías

mega kai mikron
José Manuel Berenguer

Musica a Metronom, 2005
curated by IBA

CELLULE D’INTERVENTION METAMKINE
Jérome Noetinger, dispositiu electroacústic
Christophe Auger, projectors de cinema
Xavier Quérel, projectors de cinema

AMM
John Tilbury, piano
Eddie Prévost, percussió

KALLINICH/SCHLECHTE
Jorg Kallinich, diapositives per a 10 projectors
Marit Schlechte, piano, reproductors CD

KOBERCE / ZACLONY (catifes / cortines)
Ivan Palacky, micròfons de contacte, dictàfons, microenregistraments, objectes
Vera Lukasova, Imatges en moviment manipulades per image/ine software

ELECTRET
Xavier Charles, superficies vibrants
Will Guthrie, percussió amplificada
Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Micròfons de contacte sobre tocadiscs
Jean Phillippe Gross, taula de mescles, conductors
Ferran Fagesm giradiscs acústic
Andrea Neumann, piano frame

 

Video Documentation

Paul DeMarinis concert, 2003

Music at Metronom 2000-01 season


Margarida Garcia entrevista
Margarida Garcia installation

Conjunciones & Copulativas | Wooden House, iron bed, straw hat
Francesc Abad
Barbara Held, sound

 

Barbara Held and Vicenç Altaio, Musiques Submergides 1993
“Blue” Gene Tryanny
Pauline Oliveros with Miquel Jorda, Girona