Category Archives: News

Held + Bainbridge: Pausa

Concert + audiovisual installation
Sampler Series, l’Auditori, Barcelona 05/18/2018

Barbara Held, flute
Benton C Bainbridge, video
Josep Aymi, custom audio software

Stereo mix of multi-channel live performance

“Pausa” is an A/V synthesis system that generates variations in the timbre of live flute and layers abstract forms, building a multi-channel installation work in live performance. Part of my series of pieces shaping subtle variations in the intensity of harmonics of the flute, the generative sound composition pauses or holds flute sounds as a static image, using simple studio effects that make slight variations in the stereo image of the sound and an “overdrive” that awakens or enhances high partials, creating a fluid and shimmering sound texture that is further modified by control voltages and other data being received from the video instruments. The performed sound and video create a generative installation.

Screen Compositions 14, Experimental Intermedia New York

curated by Katherine Liberovskaya
March 19, 2018.

1. Milosz Luczynski x Marek Choloniewski
.2. Emily Pelstring x Katherine Kline
.3. Lorenzo Sunjuan-Pertusa x Bob Bellerue
.4. Charlotte Clermont x Alain Lefebvre
.5. Katherine Liberovskaya x Ranjit Bhatnagar
.6. Noriko Nakano x Akiko Mokuno with Hitomi Honda
.7. Beth Warshafsky x Gerry Hemingway
.8. Jorge Simonet x Francisco Lopez
.9. Francesca Llopis x Barbara Held
.10. Rob Parrish x Richard Chartier

 

 

 

Global Groove 2: Dancing On the Event Horizon, A worldwide, 12-hour networked A/V Jam in celebration of Bill Etra

A live networked celebration of video art pioneer, Bill Etra, Saturday October 7th, 2017. Over 40 guests from 8 countries present a variety of performances to honor this influential inventor. Bill Etra’s work changed the face of video forever and on October 7th, Anton Marini, Benton C Bainbridge, and Tom Zafian, along with guests both near and far will commemorate Etra through a 12-hour visual performance. Credited with helping to make video an art form through the invention of the Rutt-Etra synthesizer, Etra made seminal works alongside pioneers like Nam Jun Paik.

Participants: Kjell Bjørgeegen, Rick Reed, Rebecca Uliasz, David Linton, Matthew Schlanger, Eric Barry Drasin / Diggers, Louise Ledeen, Dean Winkler, Kit Fitzgerald, Katherine Liberovskaya & Keiko Uenishi, Barbara Held, Joan Bofill, Raven Kwok, Kate Parsons, Estevan Carlos Benson, & Eras, Jonas Bers, Laurie Spiegel, Tom Ditto, Steve Nalepa, Debora and Jason Bernagozzi, Minou Maguna, Milena Pafundi, Mariela Bond, Martin Borini, Wili Peloche, Alex Dogrush, Lucas Gutierrez, Lucas DM, Gastón Luciani, Nestor Braslavsky, Ignacio Maderna y Javier Casadidio aka YOPERRO, Ursula Scherrer, V Owen Bush/Glowing Pictures, 99 Hooker, Martin Back, Casey REAS, Just Misfit, District Dodger, Vibeke Sorensen, Chris King / Video Circuits

CultureHub Studio
47 Great Jones St / 3rd Floor, New York
Livestream: http://www.culturehub.org/livestreaming

Breathing and its Transformations – Tone, Lucier, Kuivila

BREATHING AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS
by BARBARA HELD
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Ruth Gant Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
St. Cloud State University
Introduction by GODFRE LEUNG
SCSU Assistant Professor of Art History

BREATHING AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS is a series of performances sponsored by the music department at Wesleyan University, St. Cloud University and University of California Santa Barbara. In connection with an interview by Alexandra Alisauskas and Godfre Leung in the Third Rail Quarterly, the program, with an introduction by Godfre Leung, presented new realisations of pieces created some years ago by Yasunao Tone, Alvin Lucier, Ron Kuivila and Clarence Barlow, with a newly created digital version of “Lyrictron” programmed by Wolfgang Gil.

Links to a recorded version of the Tone and Lucier pieces from Upper Air Observation, a CD published by Lovely Music, Ltd. can be found on my Listen Blog, and a concert fragment of Ron Kuivila’s “Electric Wind” on the Third Rail website.

Self-Portrait, Alvin Lucier
Trio for a Flute Player, Yasunao Tone
Lyrictron, Yasunao Tone

 

 

The Third Rail Quarterly, Issue 10
Barbara Held interviewed by Interviewed by Alexandra Alisauskas and Godfre Leung

 

Barbara Held

Ruidos, silencio, acciones, poesía, música experimental y arte sonoro, 1950-2017

 

Ruidos, silencio, acciones, poesía
Música experimental y arte sonoro, 1950-2017

Barcelona 15 / 06 /  2017

Durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX se dio una importante interrelación entre música y arte, siguiendo las corrientes iniciadas, a principios de siglo, por músicos y artistas futuristas o dadaístas. Los artistas de la nueva vanguardia, frecuentemente, tuvieron un carácter interdisciplinar, se sintieron atraídos por diferentes medios y, los músicos, por los nuevos programas artísticos, produciéndose una desintegración de los límites y de las fronteras entre disciplinas.

La exposición está compuesta por unas 70 obras y documentos relacionados con la música experimental y el arte sonoro: instalaciones, partituras, discos, cassetes, discos compactos, libros, fotografías, dibujos, litografías, videos y películas de algunos de los creadores más relevantes de los últimos sesenta años. A traves de sus obras y documentos que conforman la exposición, podemos hacer un recorrido visual y sonoro de los últimos 60 años de experimentación.

Creadores presentes en la muestra: John Cage, Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Katrin Stockhausen, Mestres-Quadreny, Luis de Pablo, Juan Hidalgo, Walter Marchetti, Eduardo Polonio, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Francesc Abad, Carlos Santos, Barbara Held, Jordi Benito, Concha Jerez, Richard Hamilton, Dieter Roh, Llorenc Barber, Francesca Llopis, Tacita Dean, Ana Solano, Hugo Westerdahl, Badouin Oosterlynk,  Jordi Cerdá, Raoul Hausmann, Henri Chopin, Joan Brossa, Vicenç Altaio, Badouin Oosterlynk, Christina Kubisch, Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, Brian Eno, Pedro Garhel, Robert Ashley, Bob Wilson, Giacinto Scelsi, Llorenç Balsach, Llorenç Barber, Hugo Westerdahl, Pelayo Arrizabalaga, Clónicos, Juan Belda, Victor Nubla, Arte Moderno, Fatima Miranda, Do the print, Irma Marco, Josué Coloma , Laura Llaneli La fura dels baus, Lawrence Weiner, Wolfgang Tilmans, Marcel.li Antunez, Giuseppe De Mattia, Jaume Plensa, entre otros

Actos durante la inauguración 15 de junio

20: 15 h Barbara Held inaugura Pausa, un performance/instalacion generativa con video de Benton C Bainbridge.
21 : 30 h  Cena con la actuación de Iván Telefunken en el restaurant El Ninot, C/ Casanova, 133, 08036 Barcelona

Actos día 22 / 06 a partir de las 19 h

Ana Solano proyectará y comentará la video instalación La oscuridad es blanca que realizó con el compositor Iván Solano
Presentación del CD de recopilación musical de Pedro Garhel de Entourage y proyección de fragmentos de video de su obra Prótesis
Hugo Westerdal, nos ofrecerá una selección de músíca experimental española de las décadas de 1980 y 1990
Jordi Cerdà, proyectará Acte directa, art brut
Do the print, Irma Marco, Josué Coloma y Laura Llaneli presentarán su instalación Acaso hubo búhos acá

Juan Naranjo
Casanovas, 136-138, B-3  08036 Barcelona
www.juannaranjo.eu
(34) 93 452 81 64 (34) 659 95 66 48
info@juannaranjo.eu

[Feb 24] “Pausa”, Barbara Held and Benton C Bainbridge, Harvestworks

Harvestworks, in partnership with Composers Now Festival presents “Pausa”, an Audiovisual performance for flute, synthesized and processed sound and image by Barbara Held and Benton C. Bainbridge.

Pausa” is a collaborative composition pairing acoustic and electronic sound with realtime image processing, with sound and image “conducting” each other. A unique Binary Pattern Generator creates simple rhythms that are interpreted by an A/V synthesis system, generating variations in the timbre of a live flute performance and layering abstract forms into moving pictures. Held and Bainbridge will co-create the A/V system for the premiere at Harvestworks for Composers Now Festival.

Friday, February 24, 8pm

Harvestworks 596 Broadway #602 New York NY 10012

Phone: 212-431-1130 Subway: F/M/D/B Broadway/Lafayette, R to Prince, #6

to Bleecker

+info

Encuentros AVLAB: Octubre 2016 Medialab Prado

Encuentros AVLAB: Octubre 2016

29.10.2016 18:00h

Place: Auditorio (2ª planta)

Os presentamos una propuesta nueva para animar nuestros encuentros AVLAB del mes de octubre. En esta ocasión contamos con la presencia de Barbara Held, Andrés Sanz, Javier Adán y Santiago Rapallo.

El encuentro tendrá lugar el próximo 29 de octubre a las 18h en Medialab-Prado.

Entrada gratuita hasta completar aforo.

 

Barbara Held (USA/Esp) y Benton C. Bainbridge (USA)

Presentación de un proyecto audiovisual generativo en diálogo con música en directo

Para este encuentro presentamos la instalación sonora Observatory / Lisa Joy que fue creada como parte de un proyecto de diseño sonoro para el consorcio de museos en Tenerife, Islas Canarias. En ella, Barabara Held trabaja junto con Benton C. Bainbridge en una obra que funciona como una oscilación entre un microscopio y un telescopio. Mientras que Barbara varía con su flauta la intensidad de los armónicos (los elementos mas básicos del sonido) para poner de relieve una rica y profunda abstracción del tono puro y la inmediatez de la respiración, el sistema de Bainbridge divide el sonido en sus frecuencias componentes que se visualizan en la pantalla, creando una caligrafía a partir de sus mismas señales electrónicas.

 

Andrés Sanz

Presentación del proceso creativo del trabajo visual para “El jardin Infinito”

El Jardin Infinito Se trata de una videoinstalación creada para la exposición sobre “El Bosco. La exposición del V centenario” presentada en el Museo del Prado el pasado mes de Septiembre. Está formada por una multiproyección en la que imágenes del cuadro El jardín de las delicias son objeto de reinterpretación

y reelaboración por parte de los autores para constituir una obra nueva.

En El Jardín infinito se diseccionan, recortan y ensamblan detalles de los múltiples mundos pictóricos del cuadro generando un espacio completamente sensorial, envuelto a su vez por un paisaje sonoro dotado de acentos tridimensionales. Las imágenes fragmentadas, los cambios de escala o las sorprendentes micronarrativas adquieren una nueva dimensión, suscitando el primigenio asombro que la obra del Bosco siempre ha despertado.
Javier Adán y Santiago Rapallo

Presentación del proceso creativo del trabajo sonoro para “El jardín Infinito”

Se trata de una composición electrónica y acústica que crea un universo sonoro complejo, ambiguo y lleno de matices que acompaña y complementa las espectaculares imágenes de la obra creada por Álvaro Perdices y Andrés Sanz sobre el tríptico del Bosco “El Jardín de las Delicias”.

Para la grabación de la música se han utilizado instrumentos acústicos y electrónicos, voz, técnicas de síntesis granular y sustractiva, sampling, data bending, glitches, Supercollider y procesado y manipulación de audio en tiempo real. La composición y grabación de la música para Jardín Infinito es fruto de 6 meses de intenso trabajo de estudio y ha sido realizada íntegramente por Javier Adán y Santiago Rapallo.

En la composición pueden oírse ecos e influencias de la obra de Stockhausen, Ligeti, Xenakis, Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota, Björk, Oval, Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten, Alva Noto o Pansonic.

 

Escuchar con los ojos Arte sonoro en España, 1961-2016

Escuchar con los ojos
Arte sonoro en España, 1961-2016
Fundación Juan March, Madrid

14 octubre 2016 – 15 enero 2017
 

Observatory / Lisa Joy is a generative audiovisual installation created by two multidisciplinary artists, Barbara Held (USA/Spain) and Benton C Bainbridge (USA). It is currently on view as part of “Escuchar con los ojos. Arte sonoro en España, 1961-2016”, a group exhibition of Spanish Sound Art from the past half century at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid.  Tones and flute from Held’s software system (coding by Ariadna Alsina) are used as control voltages to shape sinuous lines from Bainbridge’s modified videogame console.

Observatory, a sonification of helioseismological measurements, translates numeric data into another numeric structure: the overtone series of a sampled flute note, filtered and reinforced in the rhythm of the sound waves produced by solar oscillations. Like an oscillation between a microscope and a telescope, Held varies the intensity of harmonics (the building blocks of sound) to highlight the rich deep abstraction of pure tone and the immediacy of the breath, while Bainbridge’s system divides the sound into component frequencies which are visualized onto the display, creating calligraphic  patterns from the same electronic signals. Observatory was first created for Bioderivas, Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre, Tenerife. (Data thanks to the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, audio software created by Ariadna Alsina).

Benton C Bainbridge’s Lisa Joy generates electronic drawings with an analog video synthesizer and a modified video game console. Bainbridge assembled a set of unique Eurorack modules into a custom system to create the abstract moving paintings. The lissajous patterns emerge from the relationship of 3 signals which guide the electron gun from left to right, top to bottom, and up and down in brightness. The shapes vary as the 3 waves dance in relationship to each other and the sound frequencies.

BENTON C BAINBRIDGE AND BARBARA HELD

Bainbridge Held performance, distENDED cinema curated by David Linton, Brooklyn, NYC 2016, document video by Yana Milanberg

 

Media art collaborations by BENTON C BAINBRIDGE (The Bronx) and BARBARA HELD (NY/Barcelona) pair acoustic and electronic sound with realtime image processing. Their live performances, installations and recordings are composed using audiovisual synthesizers modulated with flute, as well as generative software. Solar seismic activity, the human breath, and other periodic measurements inspire their structural strategies.

Their generative audiovisual installation Observatory / Lisa Joy  is currently on view as part of “Escuchar con los ojos. Arte sonoro en España, 1961-2016”, a group exhibition of Spanish Sound Art from the past half century at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid.  Held’s software system, a sonification of helioseismological measurements, translates numeric data into another numeric structure: the overtone series of a sampled flute note, filtered and reinforced in the rhythm of the sound waves produced by solar oscillations, varying the intensity of harmonics. These frequencies are used as control voltages to shape sinuous lines from Bainbridge’s modified video game console, creating calligraphic patterns from the same electronic signals.

A previous collaborative performance with Nancy Meli Walker in 1995 for the Festival Grec in Barcelona, Spain used the sound and live video images of vintage laboratory glass and an original 19th century physics apparatus called the “singing flames”  on loan from the Mentor Alsina laboratory museum.

Bainbridge/Held’s current project is Pausa, a collaborative composition in which sound and image “conduct” each other. The Binary Pattern Generator, a one-of-a-kind modular instrument by Brendan Byrne, generates simple rhythms which are interpreted by a software and hardware A/V synthesis system, triggering variations in the timbre of a live flute performance and layering of abstract forms into moving pictures.

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BARBARA HELD is a flutist and composer based in Barcelona. She has performed the audiovisual work of Eugenia Balcells at MACBA; with Ursula Scherrer, Katherine Liberovskya and Anne Wellmer at LOOP Festival of Videoart in Barcelona ; Soundproof Festival, London; Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York; Solianka Gallery, Moscow; Issue Project Room, New York; The Bridge, Cologne; Experimental Intermedia, New York; Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; she participated in the group show “Microcosmics” curated by Joan Fontcuberta at the Sala Metrónom in Barcelona, and “Bioderivas” at the Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre in Tenerife with Yapci Ramos and Richard Garet. Her music has been published by FO A RM magazine and Leonardo Music Journal, and on the Lovely Music Ltd. CD, “Upper Air Observation”.  A collaborative installation with Kenneth Kirschner and Wolfgang Gil was presented by Contour Editions at Eyebeam in New York, and she recently created from 0, a performance/generative installation for the Signal X festival in Cagliari, Sardinia.  She teaches as part of the University of Barcelona’s Master in Sound Art program.

https://barbaraheld.com/

BENTON C BAINBRIDGE is a Bronx artist who makes media art with his own custom systems. Bainbridge is best known for visual performances, solo and in diverse collaborations. Benton VJ’d for 2 Beastie Boys world tours and made analog video synth FX for TV On The Radio’s “Staring at the Sun”. His artworks have shown around the world; currently touring projects include Kaki King/Glowing Pictures “The Neck is a Bridge to the Body” and two collaborations with Jin Hi Kim, “Ghost Komungobot” and “Digital Buddha”. Bainbridge has been resident media artist for One Step Beyond since its inception; this monthly music and visuals series is now in its ninth season at American Museum of Natural History. Benton C Bainbridge teaches “New Forms in Media” at School of Visual Arts MFA Computer Arts Department. Benton’s generative browser artwork “justasecXYZ #3” recently showed at the MFACA exhibition “Techtonic Shift” and online at justasec.XYZ.

http://www.bentoncbainbridge.com/