brief update

1. I wrote the most compelling SoP EVAH. And it starts with a conversation with an ex... but I say 'pianist' instead of 'ex-lover' which probably works better for academic settings.

2. I am working hard recording the origami piece. I am definitely going to have to tweak it. I hate myself for composing this argh!

3. Robot piece is being re-recorded in VA. On Wednesday. I think.

I have too many things up in the air. I am so far behind!! Oi. Why does stuff take so long? Why is my laptop starting to crap out on me? Blah!

No I still haven't booked any shows yet. Grad apps are taking oveh my liiiiiiiiiife. And also! also my sleeping schedule is FUCKED UP. I need to get back to more normal hours pronto.

tired

So, origami piece is almost finished. I'm going to record all the parts for my portfolio next week... I think.

Also, I am going to re-record the video for my robot piece since I really don't like the video from the show.

I am tired.

Looking for dayjob or really just contract work... 20-25hrs is nice... actually way less stressful than having to look for a source of income but having all the time in the world.

Trying to get grad. apps. together. Gah, it is depressing. I am trying to be optimistic, tho.

Justin & I are putting together some exciting stuff. Hopefully will have proposal & THEN a show booked for it soon.

I think I do need to book my own stuff, but will do it after I have a good robot video.

not really post-show post but kinda

So, it happened. Robot mostly worked, etc. Blah, don't want to talk about it. Probably going to try to edit footage tomorrow.

Just got a reply from an artist I asked if I could work with & he is only in BK for the last ten days of this month. I... will be in VA for most of the that time GAH. GAH! well. maybe we could at least have coffee or something for the 2 overlapping days but grrrrrr, bad timing.

Coming out of a stupor and will be emailing / applying way more tomorrow and in the coming days.

Thinking of buying a snare drum and then making a percussion robot out of that... THEN doing my weird bicycle/percussion idea... we see.

Maybe I will actually book a show. I am also thinking of applying for the floating cabaret thingy. I should book a show. Better than just waiting post-grad-app ack. Good to have something to work for. I should also book a tour. Robot tour. Thinking of calling it 'fragile objects' something like that gah. I know its like provocative objects but I wanted to use objects in the name before being/hearing about that show 'object' is generic! I am going to do robots, broom piece, stuff I mentioned in an earlier post.

werkz, 1 robot, 5 days.

beta dancing chair!! yaya! from Courtney Brown on Vimeo.

what's left?
soldering, contact mic'ing... will slightly alter previous program, etc.
unless soldering goes horribly wrong (ack!!!) I'm home-free!

robotic chair is robotic.

12 days, 1 robot.

I am very close to getting this thing going I think. Changed my ideas for locomotion... was actually my dad's idea. Turns out what I wanted to do was too complicated... at least for the time frame.

Bluetooth chip is up and working.
Servos are up and working & I via bluetooth, I can control them wirelessly.
Started on the Supercollider program / framework for controlling the robot.
Still thinking of programming a particular rhythm / dance beforehand... maybe I will do that.. and also sort of let myself correct / add things live. Or maybe I will just do the sound processing live.
Ordered spare servos, another arduino, some moldable plastic, battery cases, etc.
Feeling less panicked than I was feeling the last two days.

2ish months is actually quite a short timeline for building one's first robot for performative purposes.

I feel like I need to take some basic mechanical engineering courses now though. Also, its funny how I completely started working on stuff like the arduino, bluetooth, control, etc. issues but totally neglected the mechanical part until recently. Maybe that's not funny, its just that I'm a programmer, etc. so I did all the things I *knew* about and that I should tackle but I was like, oh I'll just wing that silly mechanical shiz! (hahahaha!!!!)

ETA: just read over my blog, and its bit disturbing how many things I *say* I'm gonna/should do and don't... like 'in transit', 'n is for neville', 'incognito choir'... are all projects that have been floating around and always put off for another... I mean... hopefully after this robot thing, and this round of grad apps, I'll at least start recording the subway for 'in transit'... but I think maybe my expectations are too high. I can't do 2 projects at once like I think I can, really. And it *does* always make sense to work on the project that has a performance scheduled... so...

ETA2: I think, post-robot-show I should really book an NYC cabaret show for Feb or early March. That why post grad-apps, waiting for shiz, etc. I have music project, etc. to buffer the inevitable crushing rejections...

ETA3: I was thinking about writer's block and how I hardly ever have it... and when I do, its because I have this fixed idea of project/piece and/or it has to be PERFECT etc. I was thinking maybe others have writing blocks because they aren't absorbing enough outside the box information and experiences... because laser specialization on subjects, etc. isn't so good for creativity (maybe). I think I'm thinking of a specific person that I used to talk to a lot years ago. HMM... tis late I must be getting slightly judgmental.

idea! light bulb!

an installation piece.

A giant, anatomically correct human hand... people can control the hand like a puppet... either by robotics or actually... like being a puppet... (I can envision this) The work is the hand, itself, and instructions on how to make the hand snap. Then, I have a percussion score that people must work together to realize... perhaps, an invitation? I could also make a graphic score that non-musicians could read. hmmmm....

it's official.

I'm in the Provocative Objects show on November 12. Or, the robot will be in that show. ACK! Must. get. moving. !

robot news, ircam app, october deadline madness

First things first: I found a chair for the robot, it is nice and has its own character. The way its put together is definitely changing my vision for the way the robot will move. I think I might have to saw some parts away, too.

Also, I realized I need a separate power source for my servos... I very likely have enough torque with the large servos I got from sparkfun (oh good!!) and I learned that NYC has shit for electronic components stores. I actually need to order break away headers and such since Radioshack doesn't have them and my searching for electronic components in NYC only came up with a very sketchy store-ish thing I'm not sure still exists.

Here's my ircam research proposal. Yessss.... kinda sloppy (esp. references) but dude, it was last minute and I kinda had to turn it in as is. I won't print my personal statement since it was a horrible amalgam of previous personal statements copy and pasted and hastily made to fit oh, in about the 15 minutes I had before the midnight paris time deadline. Also, yes its long. AND somehow when I copy and pasted it inserted strange line-breaks.

Project Description and Work Plan for Ircam Music Research Residency
N is for Neville who died of Ennui : An Interactive Performance System to Explore Musical Learning in Humans and Machines

Context and Description
The process of learning an instrument involves many small failures of the body. For example, one’s fingers may not press hard enough on the string on the guitar to let the note fully sound, or one may pluck the wrong string entirely with the other hand. Such incidents disrupt the mode of embodied interaction, that is, the subjective experience of the body interacting with the external world. The beginning guitar player becomes aware of her body in these moments of failure, and she must develop a set of mental representations for how and where to move her hands and fingers. In contrast, once she is an accomplished player, she does not have to think about where to put each finger in particular.

This project is an interactive performance system and series of musical works for this system, which will explore this process of learning an instrument by changing the mappings between the performer’s action and resulting sound during the course of performance. This system will change the mappings at the time when it can successfully predict the human performer’s musical gestures. The title of the project refers to boredom as a metaphor for this process, that is, the idea that the musical instrument gets bored with its performer, so it changes the pattern.

There has been much research in creating novel interactive systems for controlling music via gesture recognition. From The Hands (1984), by Michel Waisvisz, which used two wooden frames for the hands, to the more recent EyesWeb, which attempts to extract emotional affect from musical and dance movement. Most of these systems use gestural recognition to control sound in a controlled, pre-specified way, and the machine learning is performed off-line before the system is used in performance. Often, fuzzy logic is used in order to accommodate performers and make the novel musical paradigm more intuitive for the performer. This will be a completely novel system in that it adapts to the performer’s movements during performance, in order to take the performer out of her comfort level. The goal is not to create an intuitive instrument but to explore how musical gestures and movements progress from feeling unnatural to being intuitive. In this sense, it is somewhat similar to the i-Maestro gestural learning system, AMIR, although N is for Neville is not an educational tool, but an artistic exploration of embodiment during musical
learning and performance.

Research questions
1) How does a musician’s relationship to her body change when her actions do not have the intended effect? Does it seem foreign and externalized? Does this sensation go away as she learns how to play the instrument in its new form? When does this process of learning start to occur?
2) What changes in musical mappings can a performer adapt to quickly, and which one take a long time to learn? Which changes lead to an interesting experience for the performer? For the audience?
3) To what extent can particular neural networks predict repetitive gestural information in an improvisatory context? Does this prediction correlate with a performer’s mode of embodied interaction with the system? Are there additional measures from the gestural inputs that correlate with the mode of embodied interaction?

Aims and objectives
1) To explore how the experience of embodied interaction with a musical instrument
changes during the process of learning.
2) To explore the connections between machine learning of musical gestural and
movement with human embodied learning of the same system.
3) To gain new insight into how people learn to play music, and how their gestures and movement changes as they start to acquire skills and automaticity.
4) To develop a system that can learn to predict the periodicity of musical gestures in the context of a changing interactive paradigm in real-time.

Detailed Work Plan and Methodology
I wish to spend six months in Paris working with the Real-Time Musical Interactions
team at IRCAM to develop and research. gestural analysis techniques to create a novel interactive system. I would prefer to conduct my research and development during the dates of March 2012 to August 2012.

First, I plan to set up a system for motion capture of the right arm using sensors, such as accelerometers and image tracking. Then, I will develop a set of elementary motions of the hand and arm that will form a basic alphabet of the gesture recognition system. I will also address the problems of motion segmentation, and the representation of motion, possibly by using or modifying existing gestural analysis systems, such as the one used by i-Maestro’s AMIR.

Second, I plan to develop the sounds and sound parameters that the performer will be able to control with her movements. I will then compose a simple musical work for this changing musical instrument, and experiment with learning to play this work using the motion capture system with different sound-to-movement mappings. Then, I will implement a system that introduces novelty into the mappings between gesture and sound, and experiment performing my simple piece while the mappings change. In this stage, the mapping will change at timed stages; no prediction of gestures is occurring. I plan to generate novel, unpredictable mappings via a network of nodes with weighted edges. The inputs to this network are the descriptor values of the motion and the outputs are mapped to sound parameters. Each time a value passes through an edge, it is multiplied by the weight of the edge. When two or more values are sent to the same node from different edges, those values are summed before being sent to the next node. This map could have varying numbers of inner nodes and edges, which connect the input nodes to the output nodes. Changing the values of the edges will change the mapping between the motion and the sound, in an unpredictable way. Any number of output nodes may not be initially connected to the input nodes if there are zero edge values, but adding weight to the edges will allow the performer to suddenly be in control of a new aspect of sound.

This design allows flexible, unpredictable mapping in which the amount of change
between different mappings can be carefully controlled. I will be researching and designing the predictive system that will learn and train in real-time concurrently with the first two stages of the implementation. In the third stage, I will begin implementing and developing the first system to predict the performer’s gestures. The input to this system will be sequence of symbols from the gestural alphabet
developed in the first stage, that is, output of the gestural analysis system after motion segmentation and representation. This predictive systems will first be tested with manufactured input that has known patterns in order to judge its effectiveness in a controlled setting. Initial measures and values for prediction success will be developed at this time. After initial development, this predictive system will be integrated into the musical interactive system and this system will determine when to change musical mappings. Then, through a series of experiments, the effectiveness and results of the first version of N is for Neville who died of Ennui will be tested and explored. Different performers will learn and test the system trying to play the musical work that was previously composed and tested with the timed system of changes. Further, the systems will be tested on during improvisatory sessions, to see if they can learn performer’s gestures settings in tat context as well. After this stage is complete, I will evaluate the predictive system and determine if it needs changing and refinement, and if there are ways or new approaches that will improve and refine its predictions. After new approaches and refines, further testing will follow. I will also keep a record of my experiences with embodied interaction while performing with my interactive system, and will ask other experimental subjects (performers) to write down their experiences as well. During this last stage, I will compose a work of music for this novel interactive system which will be informed by my experiences developing, testing, experimenting with the system.

Outcomes
The outcome of this project will be a novel interactive system that changes the mappings from movement to sound when it can predict the performer’s gestures, and at least two musical compositions written to explore the potential of this system. I also anticipate that this project will lead to better information and knowledge about the predictive behavior and training phases of neural networks and other pattern recognition algorithms in the context of pattern recognition.

Further, I hope to gain from this process a better understanding between learning, bodily movement, and the mode of embodied interaction.

Bibliography
Benbasat, Ari Y., Joseph A. Paradiso, An Inertial Measurement Framework for Gesture Recognition and Applications, Revised Papers from the International Gesture Workshop on Gesture and Sign Languages in Human-Computer Interaction, p.9-20, April 18-20, 2001.

Bevilacqua, Frederic. Fabrice Guédy , Norbert Schnell , Emmanuel Fléty , Nicolas Leroy, Wireless sensor interface and gesture-follower for music pedagogy, Proceedings of the 7th international conference on New interfaces for musical expression, June 06-10, 2007.

A. Camurri, B. Mazzarino, M. Ricchetti, R. Timmers, G. Volpe
Multimodal analysis of expressive gesture in music and dance performances, in A.
Camurri, G. Volpe (Eds.), "Gesture-based Communication in Human-Computer
Interaction", LNAI 2915, Springer Verlag, 2004.

Camurri, A., B. Mazzarino, G. Volpe. Analysis of Expressive Gesture: The EyesWeb
Expressive Gesture Processing Library, in A. Camurri, G. Volpe (Eds.), "Gesture-based Communication in Human-Computer Interaction", LNAI 2915, Springer Verlag, 2004.

Cumming, Naomi. The sonic self: Musical subjectivity and signification. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Merrill, D. and Paradiso, J. A Personalization, "Expressivity, and Learnability of an
Implicit Mapping Strategy for Physical Interfaces", Proc. of CHI 2005 Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems, Extended Abstracts, ACM Press, Portland, OR, April 2--7, 2005, pp. 2152--2161.

Rolf Inge Godøy1, Egil Haga1 and Alexander Refsum Jensenius1, "Playing 'Air Instruments': Mimicry of Sound-Producing Gestures by Novices and Experts", Gesture in Human-Computer Interaction and Simulation, February 2006.

Schroeder, Franziska. "The old and the new and the new old: A conceptual approach
towards performing the changing body". Hz #7 December 2005

———. "Re-situating performance within the ambiguous, the liminal, and the threshold:Performance practice understood through theories of embodiment." Diss. U of Edinburgh, 2006.

Waisvisz, Michel. The Hands, 2005

Okay, the end. My Other Minds project proposal was quite a bit less dry:

For the Other Minds Festival, I propose to create a piece for violin, cello, live electronics, and two robots made from found objects.

The frame of the first robot is made from a small, used wooden chair, and it makes percussive sounds by walking with its floor legs hitting the floor. This robot is intended to be precarious and seem child-like. The chair will travel around the space in loping circles, and sometimes I will have to physically restrain it move it back in place if it tips over… however, this robot will be able to avoid most obstacles using the input of a sonar sensor. I also intend mic the floor (using my contact microphones) in order to amplify and process the sound. The second robot will use a bicycle wheel to create percussion effects. When the wheel turns enough, it’s spokes will hit across metal bars. These sounds will also be amplified and processed by my laptop running SuperCollider.

I will control the motions of the robots via the laptop and include their percussion parts in my score. During the performance, I will be handling the live electronics and keeping the robots out of trouble. The performance should last around 8-10 minutes. I would be able to send a recording of the robot parts prior to the performance for rehearsal purposes.

I intend to write a score including many syncopated rhythms inspired by tango music and dancing. I am a tango dancer, myself, and I am particularly interested in the physicality of the piece: the juxtaposition of the awkward mechanical robots with skilled, embodied musicians. I also intend for this piece to invoke the connections between rhythm, movement, feeling, and how we perceive rhythm and movement in both human and vaguely human-like mechanical motion and sound.

AND... I totally still need to finish my origami piece. I ended up sending all old pieces to festivals but Oct. is the month of mad deadlines, so.

random idea.

So, I watched this documentary on Paul Erdos a few nights ago and it mentioned he got together this weekly group to talk about math... and that group was SO productive... and it was really informal, etc. I think it would be cool to have a similar composer's group... hmm...

minor progress report.

I got the motor/servo to work with arduino, so that's pretty cool. Turns out that servo was too small (I think) so I bought 2 large ones. Also, the bluetooth chip I got wasn't on a breakout board so... uh, that kinda sucked. I ended up getting the blueSMiRF thing... plus some crimp pins since apparently Radioshack doesn't have them (??!!). At this point, I really need to find/buy/get the chair I am going to use.

I'm also thinking of making the robot avoid obstacles, but maybe, hmm... badly. I don't need the robot to be very good at it.

I also started on some apps. Apparently the IRCAM thing got extended to Oct. 8, so I might as well apply right? The Interactivos? thing is due Tues. but I'm just not sure I can come up with an appropriate project... maybe I will wait for the June Neighborhood Science thing that organization puts on.

I did something of a rehaul on "I will grow teeth" in order to make it easier to play. Apparently my clarinet parts were really fast, too... so I have changed some things to triplet 16ths instead of 32nds in some places... which I'm not sure how much easier that is... it is slower but there are other factors, of course.

Also, I think I'm going to try and finish and record "Origami II" for this festival deadline Oct. 15. And maybe polish up, "in which these implications appear to cause difficulties" a bit more. Both of these pieces have just hovering on the edge of being completely done for a while.

more robot & progress

So, I mostly finished "in which these implications appear to present difficulties" ...got a lot of the live electronics started... decided I mostly liked all the piano notes actually after all. Feeling meh about the piece so maybe that means its not actually finished. Originally, it was for toy piano but then I got all large with the range and stuff. Like... I'm not sure why I'm finishing it bc I really have no burning desire to get it played... esp. now since I made it not exactly playable by toy. But maybe I'm just feeling meh right now. Or I suppose it could work for 2 toy pianos. Maybe.

I applied to some stuff this week... made all my intended deadlines except one, which isn't bad. Also, found a show for my robot in mid-November in Boston. I'm not definitely in, but I'm likely to get in (says the curator). So, I really gotta start crackin'. That is actually a deadline that is coming up fast. Oh, and what I proposed was my chair robot that walks in rhythm & I mic the floor, etc. Also, moving it with a wiimote. Chairbot is fragile, blind, and can fall over. I intend NOT to name it Chairbot, tho. I need something snappy or cute, but I'm bored off 'bot' on the end of everything.

I feel like I get so off-track... I guess its hard to finish pieces that I have no definite deadline / show to get ready for. I'm wondering if I should try & book a Dec. show like I said... since w/applying to grad school + Nov. robot show... I'm going to be burning the candle at both ends... but... I am only working part-time this year.

One thing that occurred to me. I sometimes feel bad since my performances have gone down a bit. But one thing is that I have been (except for when I took a break last winter) composing fairly consistently... and when I had a lot of performances (in 2008 I had 22, which is a lot, I think)... I was often performing the same show, over and over again. And I didn't have a dayjob. And I was getting performances bc I was in grad school for it part of the year. Having a dayjob totally brings down my productivity... or music output, actually. Esp. the time that I spent doing it 40 hrs. a week. Anyways, I'll probably book a tour of my robots some time next spring. we shall see.....

headspaces and to do.

it seems like there are different phases I go through in regards to my work:

1. Just got an opportunity of some kind, performance, etc. that I have to start coming up with ideas for. This is probably the least stessful time, as I like coming up with ideas, esp. for something that already has an outlet, etc. that I don't have to do an excessive amount of administration / promotion for by myself. I think about random stuff a lot.

2. In the middle of developing a work that already has a performance date, etc. Also, not that stressful unless I convince myself that I'm behind on things. I am relatively focused, and able to keep up some with other part of my life, such as sleeping, paying bills, social life / obligations, being productive at the dayjob.

3. Right before a performance. Unless my shit is really together and I actually believe this (yes, this has happened a few times), this can get somewhat stressful. Depending on the project, I could start to code nonstop, I can't sleep, I lose the ability to concentrate on dayjob stuff, bills, what bills? paperwork, what? I probably can't see my bedroom's floor... I am easily startled, easily distracted, easily alarmed, find it hard to think abstractly. I start to spend lots of money on extra parts and cables, etc. I may or may not need...

4. Post-performance. No matter how well something went, I get kinda depressed afterwards for a few weeks unless I already have something immediately lined up that requires attention. I miss that feeling of purpose and structure... I may start to take dance classes compulsively, cook large meals, read an inordinate amount of genre urban fantasy, etc. Or instead of depression, I have become very social (for me).

5. Applying for a shitload of things, booking a tour (or just a few shows, one show whatever... Anxiety, depression, ennui! Oh, how can I make it seem like I fit what they want? Should I do this? Should I do that? Can I actually find enough performers for this one? Is this really a good place to present this or that? Hi, procrastination., awesome to see you again. Feel a little blah (or a lot) until I get something. Argh, blah.

6. Producing something on my own. Ack, stress! This requires that I utilize skills which require lots of effort for me: promotion, managing / scheduling other people, getting out a zilion things on time, writing a lot of emails, trying to be early to things, trying to be organized / organizing others. This trumps most situations in stress, except for if I spend an excessive amount of time not actually working on a project which is sorta like the stress of being unemployed I guess. (at first it can be a relief but then it grows horrible gradually)

Guess which stage I'm in! (4&5) So, the amount I've done on those to-do items is pretty damn pitiful. Eek. I did buy some robot parts but I forgot to buy the RF receiver. Oh well. I actually haven't applied for that many things yet, but I spent most of the time finding opps, looking at deadlines, and etc. I did finish an app to SEAMUS coz its in Miami this year. Usually, its in the middle of freaking nowhere and I'm like... I'm not paying money to be in this coz this conference is already on my C.V. and I don't want to go to Indiana to listen to tape music. But Miami could be fun. Anyways, lots of stuff lately, fall is riddled with deadlines. I also scoured the internet for new places to play that might be friendly to a bizarre-ish line-up (flamenco piece, video piece, origami piece) but I failed. Maybe The Tank will take this one... since my hunt for places turned up a bit dry... I mean, partly I'm just not sure how to sell the show... which maybe I should just try and do all those pieces separately but blah blah blah... why not all at once? It would be about 45ish min of playing time ( 15min + 17min + 10min(?? ) ), which is a lot for moi, but that still leaves a lot of room to schedule other artists with me I think and I want my flamenco and origami pieces PERFORMED in real-time, yoz.

cabaret robots!!! and to do.

So, I got that feeling. That feeling like I wanted to write a cabaret show again. Here's the deal:
1) Make fragile robots that I put together ON-STAGE (with a lab coat)... I mean, it will mostly be together, I will do trivial things... screw it in, etc.
2) They will be percussive robots! A bicycle wheel instrument... a percussive walking robot thingy, etc.
3) Tango dancing between my moving robots!!! (I take off the lab coat and throw on a feather boa! yay!)
4) Also, will perform: Balancing Act II, 2 covers (one in a foreign language... def.), "oh lovely!", possibly "days that bleed", possibly Piazzolla's "libertango" (!!!!), probably have the old standards working and rotate them in and out: "balancing act", "study in losing control", "things that breathe", "Stefan", etc.

BUT!
I must:
1) start recording "In Transit"... tomorrow!
2) finish "in which these implications appear to present difficulties" (did work on tonight)
3) finish "Origami II"
4) book a show for early December! (flamenco (violin/bass), Origami II, I'll huff & puff)
5) think about grad school apps (ick poo!)

Stuff to get for robots, YAYA!
1) bicycle wheel
2) Arduino Main Board
3) Servo
4) RF Link 2400bps Receiver - 315MHz
5) Basic Breadboard

post-show

So, everything went fine. "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down" came off mostly as I had envisioned it. The tech worked. ETC.

I am editing the documentation of it in iMovie as I type. Well, I'm importing the video to edit v. soon.

I also have updated to OS X 10.6, apparently without a hitch. Phew.

I also, randomly, mostly finished the piano part to "in which these implications appear to present difficulties" and so I think I will try to finish the Supercollider part this week or next weekend.... we shall see. Plus, I'll probably sit around editing the actual score for 2-3 weeks before I think its done. It sounds a bit... hmm, dunno, in need of editing to me still, so I'll prob. be working out the rough edges for a while. I was a bit careless with the counterpoint, so I'll be focusing on that. Hopefully, the SC part will be pretty cut and dry.

THEN, then... then I need to:
1) finish scoring the origami piece
2) start "in transit", mainly traveling on the subway with recording device
3) book a show. yip yip yip.

crash and burn. 4 more days.

4 more days until the performance. ack! and there is stuff that STILL isn't working.

Basically, although my computer has 2 firewire cables it is totally not cool with having 2 firewire devices plugged in at the same time.

Also, the wiimote pairing has been so horrible that I've written so that I am just controlling the fx changes with one wiimote. Pairing two has been nightmarez.

AND we still need to deal with lighting issues, yo.

OMFG.

Other than that, it was okay. OTHER THAN THAT.

**pulls hair out**

I'm now trying to see if I can get my PC laptop to recognize my new handycam... and then THEN get my macbook to send osc to it... then I could at least test the concept although I think my PC laptop might be too slow... but proof of concept would be nice, if possible.

Am now backing up my harddrive in case I have to go to 10.6 before performace but that will be... backup plan C or something.

The end, gah.

coffeeshoppin' before tango

How many times do I have to re-write my bio? The answer is "more than I'd like to" but I suppose its my own damn fault. I just finished my bio and program notes for "I'll huff and puff and blow your house down!" and now am heading into application land. Unfortunately, the type and length of bio for this is different. I am experiencing writing about myself exhaustion. Blah.

First rehearsal with the videoist is on Thursday. I'm trying to work out the possible tech kinks beforehand. I realize that this would be much more effective if I had a video camera. I've been meaning to buy one. So I just did, last night. But alas, it will arrive after the first rehearsal.

The site at eamusic is finally back up, only a few days after I stopped waiting and switched my url to somethingfurry. I can finally start booking... which I should do, so I have something lined up (to be performed) for after this. Although, I should work on my subway piece and that won't be performed, per se.

Also, I need to finish my origami piece.

flexibility, wiimote, exhaustion

Today I have:

1. Gone to an awesome tango class on boleos taught by Eduardo Goytia.

2. Finally restored website... still waiting on an Dartmouth eamusic grad student to acknowledge my emails so everything is on somethingfurry instead of there & my courtney-brown.net url points to the somethingfurry server.

3. I touched my toes! Haha! To put this in context I've been working on my flexibility this past week by stretching intensely 1-2 times per day with my main first goal being able to bend over and touch my toes. I did last night, too, for the first time but I was worried it was a fluke... guess not!

4. I got my generic wiimote to work with processing. This is a bit iffy so far, but I did replicate it twice. It is a lot more iffy than I would ideally like. I might switch over to the darwiinremote instead and just have it send osc to my program. This would require more programming but I'm guessing it would be more stable... so I'm only going to do it once everything else is done.

5. Sent another email out to a video artist, and got some interest... we'll see!

6. Oh yah, I went to my dayjob for 6 hrs.

This is an amazing amount of work / things done since I know I didn't fall asleep last night until after 5am and I got up before 9am. Damn I'm exhausted.

Tomorrow:
To go to the modern dance class or not to go?
Get on that cobra bandwagon
More stretching.
***NOTATION***
maybe more coding, if my notation is ok. integrate wii into video program & test out the 2 diff. performers
email to pplz Iz needz to
get ballet shoes for a Thurs. night class?
practice my video piece!!

post-Paris progress report

Well, I didn't do all those things in Paris that I said I wanted to do. To be fair, that was kind of an unrealistic list for a vacation. I did finish all the music notation for the breathing parts of my video piece, which is good. I have now optimized the bubble/magnification code, added blur, and reconstruct to my program. The only effect that I definitely need to implement that I haven't is darkening, but that will probably be subsumed by my deciding to implement a fluid simulation thing.

Then, I will need to concentrate on questions of control and UI. Right now everything is added by pressing keys but I will probably instead have the 2 performers have wiimotes to control effects.

Today I am going to start emailing video artists to see if someone is able to perform as the video camera / eye for my piece. Why I dragged my heels on this step... I don't know. I hate asking people to do things...

The other thing I need to do sometime this week or the next is get my website back up again. It has been down for far too long. I've emailed the person at eamusic who is supposed to be doing that but he seems to be an INSANE slacker when it comes to responding to me. I'm gonna give it 2-3 days or so, then I will email again bc I need my site back up. I'm also gonna put all my shiz (or at least the stuff I can) on somethingfurry & then point my url there for the time being. Like it kinda hurts me, having my website point to something that doesn't exist.

I basically have to have a freaking website before I can really start booking things.

Anyways, after I finish my video shiz, I will finish up my origami piece. It is mostly done, in a lot of ways. But I need to notate the folders' parts and also I want to record a demo... with just me, I can do: voice, guitar, mandolin, accordion, xylophone, toy piano... which is 6 instruments & I could double up on a few if I felt like that was too sparse.

ETA: oh, also, I've decided to take ballet classes... which is, in a sense, unexpected since I am not a big ballet fan, but I felt like I wanted a basic grounding in dance technique and I happen to work below a very good ballet school. I would probably prefer modern dance, but that is less convenient and harder to find beginning/basic classes in it.

I'm not sure exactly what I hope to gain from this artistically. I guess I feel like my work continues to explore the existential aspects of embodiment... which I feel is an essential part of being a musician, yes... but I feel like dance would make me aware of my body in different ways... and therefore it has caused me to think in different ways... which is what I suppose I am searching out.

Also, I suppose I am hoping that ballet technique will help me in tango dancing, esp. in terms of balance. I also hope to get a lot more flexibility, and so forth. I decided that something like yoga would be a good addition to my life, but I didn't really like yoga the way I like dancing, and I feel like dancing addresses more issues all at once.

Also, I am going to sign up and take a workshop with Pablo Veron! Wee! (he is a famous tango dancer)

yet another progress update

So, right now I should be working on my video piece, but I'm not. I'm pretty exhausted from the week and feeling pretty sick. I had to cancel going to see my friend's show since I don't feel well. That sucks. I would probably try to make it but I'm going to Paris for a few weeks on Tuesday and I *really* can't afford to get sick. Not to mention all the things I have to do before Monday ends.

I experimented using a particle system for the bubbles this week but I think I'm gonna trash it. Just having my breathing directly control the derivative of the movement is enough. Maybe I could scale it to logarithm but having it control acceleration in a system just isn't as expressive or controlled enough (I felt).

I think I need to write other effects to be controlled by breathing... not that many... probably blurring, darkening, and then reconstructing (making the image normal again). But this weekend my goal is probably to get a lot of the notation down, and the trajectory of the piece. I'll compose it... THEN I'll write the code / implement it.

Looks like a performance date of Sept. 16. Gennette asked me for a rehearsal schedule. HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!! I need to find another female video artist FIRST.

Things I want to do in Paris (work-things I mean)
1. Write a proposal for the incognito choir piece.
2. Work on video piece / processing blah.
3. Send proposal to choir and then FIND ONE that wants to do shiz.
4. Maybe some origami piece work
5. Book a show for Oct. / Nov. --> flamenco piece + origami piece.
6. OH I need to write Justin back about that JC thingy.

Oh! I have started the score for my origami piece and it is AWESOME. So fun! Hopefully I can find around 9 players for it. Hmm, yes that seems like a lot BUT! Ok just got distracted and looked up places where I wantz to play in the autumn.

Oh man, I really need to get working.... though I'm so tired and sick, etc.

Brave New World

I gave my notice at work today. I'm filled with anxiety about the uncertain future, but relieved that my stint at full-time programming work is over. I am hoping to get a lot more composing in and also get some breathing room...

I've been making a lot of conceptual and also actual coding/technical progress with my video piece... I'm basically going with the idea of blowing "bubbles" of magnifying lenses that keep the video distorted/magnified as they pass through it. Another performer will probably restore different parts of the picture by blowing... prob, slowly, like it blurs, then it returns to normal. I have a lot of code for the magnification done already although some of the behaviors are still sometimes wonky...


Okay, progress report:

1. practice/run though "In C" on accordion

This performance is over... I never did practice TOO too much but it was a great experience. Also got mentioned in the NYTimes, and that is generally good :)

2. start on minimal composition for pepe collab.

This has kinda started but not really gotten off the ground... we've really only laid down the barest foundation for something. Not sure how serious to be about it, since Pepe hasn't been around for practicing the last 2 Sundays.

3. practice folding some more for convention coming up

Convention over and done! It was fun... I practiced folding a little but folding more actually *since* the concert. Should start on origami piece though... or at least book it...

4. look over "I will grow teeth" AGAIN and submit to Boston New Music thingy

I think I mentioned this before, but this has been submitted. I realized after I turned it still more things I should have done but prob. those are nit-picky.... less glaring errors, at least, than when I submitted to North/South Consonance. I often wonder whether I should put more pseudo-emotional descriptive words for sections, but my philosophy is more I want players to have a lot of freedom to interpret. I mean, I guess some things I should put like: 'play like tango' or something, but other than that...

5. email plz

I always need to emailz plz.

7. sign up for movement research class?

No, I don't think I'm gonna have time for that until mid-August or so

9. email eamusic about my damn server space / point url to somethingfurry for now

GAH! I still need to do this

10. work on processing video stuff

yah, oh, I've been doing that a lot.

11. think about choir piece... think. haha.

hmm, minimal thinking... I need to schedule this and start writing out a timeline, budget, compositional plan, performance plan.

12. should go to that 'share' thing at IPR

yah, this is a good idea but I haven't done it yet.

can't... stop... processing...

Truly, I was going to practice accordion today but what do I do? I sit and write processing the moment I get home from tango. And before tango, too. Its a problem!

On the good side, I have proof-of-concept for my blowing wind piece coded.

not enough time in the day

So, today I have gone to work and practiced accordion. That's it! It's 10:42pm and I still have accordionizing left. I had the thought I would work on some video stuff but that is clearly not in the cards. Well, unless I decide sleeping is only somewhat optional.

I took like, an hour and a half break or something after work before I started music work. I'm regretting that now. Breaks are for FOOLS.

Tomorrow is tango day. I will bring my laptop to work on stuff during the window after work and before class. Then, I'll do more accordionizing post-tango. Hopefully.

First video workshop was yesterday. It was interesting. I hope I can sell people on my wind/blowing idea. It is NEATz. I wanted to show my broom piece for next class but I think he wants me to show something with a score. Le sigh. I suppose I could show "in which" but we see. I wanted to perform the broom piece but I think that's impractical since I'll have to lug my accordion + music stand too and MY GOD that day is gonna be crazeh.

ETA: So I did a TINY bit with processing so I know how to get and show sound. I don't think its that much further to put the bare-bones of my idea into place. I just thought of an idea... like, an expanding circle... BUT it only stays expanded if you have hit a particular width in the circle. It goes down to nothing (or, the next rung down) when you are not blowing. So it becomes dynamic then. Well, at least *I* know what I mean.

ALSO for entrance of 2nd performer... when SHE blows, the video gets 'healed'. But then there's a change in the music/timbre and she destroys the video, too. Then, they destroy the image together.

ETA2: OK. Processing is SO COOL!!!!! Damn it is cool!

accountability for self post

So, I was able to do items 1 & 4 on my list...which seems pitiful but re-editing my score was a bitch. I suck at proof-reading, by the way. Like, I kept on printing to pdf then looking one last time... THEN I find another stupid thing I did! I'm incredibly careless about notation sometimes, argh!

I was going to devote tonight to working, but then I saw William Basinkski was performing at IPR for *free* which is like... literally a few blocks from my apt. and... I want to GO! Its at 9pm. I could work before and after! I should do 1, 2, 3 tonight, though.

But! I kinda want to work on processing/video and/or choir piece shiz. Still, I think 1,2,3 are priority. Also, emails. Damn those emails I need to send.

Oh, 9. I should def. work on 9 this weekend. Not having a functional website for a month is BAD.

boring stressed out things to do post.

1. practice/run though "In C" on accordion
2. start on minimal composition for pepe collab.
3. practice folding some more for convention coming up
4. look over "I will grow teeth" AGAIN and submit to Boston New Music thingy
5. email plz
6. go to JC Dance Jam this Sunday?
7. sign up for movement research class?
8. tango or concert on sat?
9. email eamusic about my damn server space / point url to somethingfurry for now
10. work on processing video stuff
11. think about choir piece... think. haha.
12. should go to that 'share' thing at IPR

just refined my video idea

the wind! idea.
title: "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow this house down"
piece starts out with one performer, and standing next to her projection
then, she starts blowing into a microphone (rhythmically)
when she blows (& the harder she does) she starts distorting/burning/destrying the projection of herself, in relation to how hard she blows
As the piece goes on, she becomes more physical with how she is blowing air, etc.
Her body flails, her fists clench, her frame inflates and then collapses.
3/4 or 1/2 way through she is joined by a 2nd performer
when this performer enters, *she* also blows into a second microphone. her breath also destroys the image but also creates strange, wistful sounds
they continue until the images are unrecognizable
the end.

processing is cool shit

I almost posted this video to facebook, then I realized that might be... overboard. Still, not bad for one night. I like my video idea... though clearly I should have stayed still in the middle for much much longer before moving the hand back... haha... maybe I re-shoot tomorrow when its not 1:30am (work is tomorrow double BLAH)

Anyways, here is my VERY FIRST video piece I did after learning processing for a few hours when I got home after work. BTW, this is TOTALLY productive since I'm in a video workshop starting this Monday, y'all.




I think the thing that I like is the weird framerate and the angle / framing of it... more than the crazy filter crap I put on it via processing. BUT man, is it fun building your own crazy filter crap and then playing with it using your laptop camera. Just sayin. FUN.

I had this idea right before I left work of using breath to control video. I was thinking in terms of an electronic wind instrument, but controlling video. I looked up air pressure sensors but then realized the 'build my own wind controller YAY!' idea might be a bit grandiose for my first video project. I thought about microphones and using hissing sounds & vocalizations instead. Stilllllll thinking. Anyways, I was gonna write a very rhythmically complex piece for duo videoist breathers sort of based on the Cage-ish hierarchical structure thing. I'd mainly use musical notation, at least for the rhythm.... somehow I think the workshop pplz want original video notation... BUT I want rhythm and tempo..... Brakhage-ish tempo-structures: wee!

Yes, it is ridiculous.

ETA: I just had the idea of grayscaling the whole thing but dunno. Also, I feel as though these 9 seconds could be seizure-inducing...

thoughts and notes in the beginning of June

1. Turned in a score ("I will grow teeth") to North/South Consonance.... A few days afterward I realize I wrote a chord (played 3 times in succession) that is impossible for the violin. ARGH. (I look through my printed score, and then I'm liiiiike oh wait....) Then, a few hours later, I realized I put in a double barline somewhere randomly accidentally. ARGH again. Why is it I only see some errors after I've turned something in???

2. Starting an electronic music project with Pepe. Prob. going to book performance in Raleigh & NYC in October sometime.

3. I realized that I really need to start organizing my incognito choir piece. I am thinking of applying to the JFund grant for this... need to find a choir who wants to do it first, though. I'm pretty excited about it... I've thought more about the details of the piece. I need to think of how many movements of the requiem I am going to write. I should also contact transit & park people...

4. Starting the VCW workshop @ Diapason Gallery pretty soon. Realized that one session conflicts with my make music ny concert. Argh! Hopefully I can just come late to the workshop.

5. STILL need to book a show for Sept. Should be 'in which we become familiar', plus origami piece (maybe), plus 'Sound. Picture. Coif' (maybe), OR book all dance pieces... dunno.

6. Probably submitting 2 pieces to the Boston New Music initiative thingy. "I will grow teeth" plus maybe that string quartet I wrote a couple years ago...

sheepish update

I fell off the side of the world for a month or so... still procrastinating that first subway trip: eek! However I do have a show coming up in early June and I just got accepted into this performative video workshop... which is cool, since it is at Diapason Gallery, which I've wanted to check out.

Also, I finished the piece for the eighth blackbird competition, which in turn got delayed a few months, dunno. Seems a lot of people complained about the contest terms. ? But I did finish the piece, at least. Wondering about finding another ensemble to do it, since I don't really think it will win the competition.

I had this wonderful idea for an origami piece. Graphic notation plus folding plus performance. That's all I'm saying for now. I have so many ideas... and *such* a lack of time + organizational skills. Ha. But I'm tentatively thinking of showing the origami piece along with the flamenco piece... along with... maybe something else dunno... dunno... should get moving on that, though.

Lately, I've been thinking about structure... and the timing of structures... more later, maybe. MAYBE.

thinking of tasks/pieces for dancers on the theme of losing control / embodiment

++One thing that jumps out at me is the idea of synchronization, or the related idea of complimentary motion. This is an easy way to introduce something that can be made difficult without being physically dangerous, and it is easy to see for the uninvolved when there is a failure.

++I had the idea of a sort of solo piece, based on Merce Cunningham's piece Tango, at least, a misinterpretation of it. For, he looks at and is 'reacting' to a tv... of course, he's not actually tangoing... but I like the idea of creating a 'being' of some sort on screen or in video that an actual dancer is improvising with, and has to respond to... I think it would be much more interesting than having the video disjunct, as a background.

Also, one could speed up of the 'video character' etc. and make the virtual person do things that a real person could not and therefore create problems for the embodied person... I'm not so comfortable with the focus possibly being on the dichotomy b/tw artifical, human, machine, though... which I'm afraid would be a side effect of the whole process.

Maybe instead of a construct, there can be dancers in real time, that are hidden from view, and can only see their partners via video. The audience can see everything. The video introduces latency (perhaps designed to) and other problems that arise when you are trying to synch (compliment) someone that isn't actually there. This is sort of the dance equivalent to Chris Mann's piece, in a way.

++I had an idea for a larger piece, where everyone is partnered up into partnered dances, let's say a tango (but not in an embrace... this is important) BUT the thing partners are not mutual partners. The person you are following, is following someone else and watching them, etc., and there is... no leader? But perhaps there is... and you see the motions that the leader performs rippling out with greater or lesser degrees of success... this would be like movement telephone I suppose. At the end of the chain, the first person to follow the leader would have to NOT be the whom the leader was trying to lead.

Problem would be who would be facing who, etc... so maybe not tango as the system, but it would be interesting if I could think of a way. Maybe people arranged in a circle? Maybe not a circle but displaced from one another in strategic ways. Perhaps the followers always feeling the connection is being broken, would start to act as if the leader is telling them to do particular things like go to the cross, or move around in a circle... well, it would probably have to be experimented with until there was no chaos.

thoughts on in transit

I heard an npr story about a duo that was making a living off of youtube videos, etc. Now, they weren't famous, but they were making a living... and it did seem a lot of their revenue came from covering pop songs, etc. so I don't think that I could replicate it. Further, they don't really perform much: their medium is recording and this types of videos. So, none of those things are things I'm really interested in, since I am in interested in experimental performance, for the most part.

However, I thought, I could sell in transit as an iphone app. I'm not sure how I feel about commercializing the whole product but mostly I want an audience, and selling it would help me recoup the costs of distributing it. The main problem with 'in transit' is that it would require over a gig of harddrive space on the iphone, unless I stream the audio from somewhere else. But if I was charging for the app, just a nominal amount, or using advertising revenue..would that help fund it? I could maybe, at least, offset some of the cost of distributing / providing it. Of course, I'd have to buy the license for the fmod library, but its actually quite reasonable for iphone apps: $500. Then, I'd have to look at how to stream... Well, I would think that the demand for this would be quite low, so I wouldn't have to buy a great plan unless it took off, and then I would. Of course, I kinda want to charge the $0.99 for it, for some reason.

Hmm, the downside to this is that I would think that once I finish it, it might seem like a let-down. I mean, haha, compared to having a performance... or maybe finding a festival, etc. that would be associated with it. But, I could possibly get press since its about the NYC subway. We see.

indecision and building a body of work

So, I just came back from tango class. I know I had said I was going to reduce my tangoing to one night a week, but then I had second thoughts. Mostly, it will be one night a week. But I mean, maybe *more*, you know? I just bought 2 classes a week this month... today I took both of them, but I could also take the Adv. Beginner Thurs. class (instead of the one on Wed.) In fact, I might do that, since this week is ganchos and the step we are learning is a complete re-tread of the last time the theme was ganchos.

I'm feeling quite a bit of indecision on the direction I should take. I have all these projects and things to organize but I'm not sure which to start. I think I shall continue to work on the choir piece, and see if I can't get that done asap. Then, finish up the tango-ish instrumental ensemble piece for May 1st. THEN, I will step back and decide which of the bigger projects to work on. I was thinking about it a lot of terms of what would be the right move for me careerwise, but maybe that's the wrong way of thinking about it for now. I'm actually thinking of continuing in the choir vein and seeing if I can get the incognito choir installation off the ground. It really wouldn't require lots of programming right away which is nice... since I'm feeling a bit tired of programming (after all I do it for 8 hrs most days)

Also, there is a Spanish movement workshop I think I am going to take if I sign up in time... It mixes:
1. Spanish school of rapier fencing (La Destreza).
2. Spanish knife fighting (La Navaja).
3. Argentine Tango.

I had the thought that on the off-chance I got the movement research residency I was going to sign up for tango everyday and get insane about it. Also start those contact improvisation classes. Hmm... I had the belated thought that maybe I should have included my tango classes on my artistic resume for that one. DAMN!

long day

So, I worked at my dayjob until 8pm today, finally made it home around 8:50ish and I just finished dinner. I'm feeling exhausted and not up to working more. I think the choir piece by Apr. 10 might be unrealistic. I tried to lay down some scratch vocals / ideas during the weekend but was not happy with them. I doubt I will work on anything further tonight. Feeling depressed and stressed out. Tango is being reduced to one day a week, I think. I can't really do that much more now. Especially since I need to start composing again.

ETA: I ended up composing until now, midnight. Trying to work on the magnetic time choir thing. Don't know about that. I might have ground that magnetic time idea into the ground ALREADY is the problem. I have a nice 2-part harmony though to: 'I don't understand what is going on' Yes. I wrote the lyrics.

ETA2: Freaked out about the piece. Composed some more; have a viable proof of concept. Will not finish in 5 days.

dropped another app off

I dropped off the Harvestworks application. They make you send them five dvds. FIVE DVDS. Jeez. For some reason, it took me about 15 minutes of passing by the entrance to actually find the entrance to the building, then... once there, I couldn't find out where to put the app, to whom to give it, etc. Luckily, a student waiting for class overheard me asking around and told me he would drop it off in the right place. He was cute, too. BTW.

Also, I saw they some guy down the street was selling cartons of strawberries 3 for $5 which seemed like a really good deal, so I got them. It was in Soho, which is not somewhere I usually find myself. Strangely I felt bewildered like a new NYC resident again, and had an intense urge to scream in people's faces. Um, I didn't.

Okay, now I need to actually start composing again after spending all this time writing artist statements. I'm thinking about tossing off a magnetic time piece for choir. BUT, tonight I am goofing off. Go me. Thinking about having mussels, fries, and white wine. A surprisingly simple meal to make.

Residency Applications, here I go.

I turned in my Movement Research Residency application. I don't feel so confident about it. Especially since my battle with iDVD and the low quality of my video sample. Plus, nothing can change the fact that I am not actually a professional dancer, etc. despite how much my work deals with embodiment. Still, I'm rather proud of myself for following through on it, and I think my artist statement was a condensed work of beauty. Um, or something like that. Also, I dropped it off in a large bin with all the other applications at the Dance Theater Workshop. I had wanted to mail it to avoid actually seeing the place for some reason. As if they would see me and shout: "hey YOU you're not a dancer!! Why the HELL are you applying to this?!!" Turns out the receptionist could not tell if I was a dancer or not. Nor did he care.

Movement Research AIR artist statement:

In my work, I create performances in which I explore loss of control, uncertainty of outcome, and failure. By losing control, I pose existential questions about the experience of embodiment subject to limitations, injury, and eventual death. What happens when there is a discrepancy between intention and capability to carry out an action? How might this cause a person to view her own body as foreign and external to herself? To explore the self/body relationship, especially under stressful and difficult situations, I design musical interfaces that are awkward to use, that gradually accumulate errors until the performer is out of control, or create uncertainly of outcome. I have also used the concept of balance by designing situations in which a performer is struggling to maintain her stance and composure.

In the past, my work on embodiment has centered on solo performances, but one of my main goals for this residency would be to open up my work to multiple points of view. In this context, I would also be interested in how the breakdown of the body could engender a breakdown of communication, as well. There are forms of dance that depend on one partner understanding what the other is trying to say with her body, such as Argentine tango and contact improvisation. By exploiting these forms of dance, situations would be created that cause a breakdown of this process. Additionally, I would like to continue my work on the breakdown of musical interface by creating interactive performance systems for multiple dancers which subject the performers to unpredictability and create situations that challenge their relation of self to body.

I am currently working on the Harvestworks application, which is due tomorrow. The project statement came somewhat easily. At least, compared to the movement residency one. I think partly is that I was really clear on what my project would be, and I was fresh off of writing the previous one. Trying to pick out my work samples for it now, and then explain how they are related. I'm exhausted and depressed honestly, I'd really rather watch some movie or tv or my new Victorian steampunk vampire werewolf book (yes, all those genres. at once.) But, I have a manila envelope next to me with 5 blank dvds. I'm drinking leftover sparkling wine from when UVA told me that they wanted me but are still looking for funding for me. Sometimes I think hope is the hardest emotion to deal with.

Harvestworks New Works Residency Project Proposal:

Project Proposal for N is for Neville who died of Ennui

The project I am proposing arises from a nightmare of an insecure musician: what if the musical instrument you were playing got bored with you? I imagine that the instrument, if it had a will of its own, would react to becoming bored by changing how it responded to the physical actions of your playing. Then, you would have to re-learn how your instrument worked on-stage through trial and error, during a performance. This situation raises some interesting questions: how does your relationship to your body change when your actions do not have the intended effect? Does it seem foreign and externalized? Does this sensation go away as you learn how to play the instrument in its new form? Would you be tempted to ‘fake’ playing the unruly instrument correctly? What are the implications for the authenticity of your performance?

I intend to create such a scenario by designing an interactive performance system that simulates this process of getting bored and then changing the game on its player. I will explore different mechanisms for both the implementation of boredom and how the musical interface changes in response. A starting point would be to simply use the passage of time as an indication of boredom. After a certain amount of time, the instrument would simply change the interface. I am also interested in developing a neural network that ‘learns’ how the performer plays a particular piece in real-time. When the neural network is able to predict a performer’s motions, that is when the interface changes. In this system, the performer could keep the instrument entertained but only if she is novel.

The musical instrument for this piece will be a wireless accelerometer that is attached to the performer’s wrist. This device will then send data to custom software that I have written in C++. This software will handle all aspects of the simulation of boredom and change in musical interface. This software will then send the resulting control signals to the Supercollider audio engine via OSC messaging, and thus, sound will be produced. I have written previous works using a similar set-up, and will only need to program the parts of the software specific to the this work, such as a particular neural network. The Harvestworks residency will be immensely helpful in terms of the sound design of the actual instruments and giving me a place to work.

manifesto

I needed a way to keep track of my progress as a composer/artist both in terms of thought and work, but also keeping track of career development management and not losing sight of my goals. I'm not sure why I need this to be public, but somehow it helps with accountability... just the thought that it could *possibly* be read. And also, I don't think that what you need to do to become successful at this stuff is that obvious. Of course, some things are, but I have often felt like I am fumbling in the dark.

Anyways, I'm at a crossroads right now, so I need to line-up projects and go go go. I have several projects that are in the works, but I need to do all these things to set them in motion. I need to try and prioritize as well...

Completed Projects that need a Venue / Performance

Sound. Picture. Coif. -- a piece for video, live electronics, and hairstylist. I collaborated with some good friends for this one and we did a performance in Boston, at my former performance series. I would like to perform it in NYC, but I need to do it before May or else I need to do it after August since one of my friends will be in Paris for a few months. Plus, its only 20min, so I need to either find other acts or come up with another project to show at the same time.

in which we become familiar -- for violin, bass, and 2 flamenco dancers... the bassist is the one that is going to Paris, so... also, I need to find flamenco dancers and the rehearsal / time to organize might push this back to the fall... Also, would need to find appropriate venue and acts with it.

Unfinished Projects

In Transit -- I've now been talking about this project for a year but I realized I can implement it via iphones. Basically a virtual sound installation. I travel on all the subways, recording the sound. Then, I recreate the subway map via sound across a smaller, walkable space.

Incognito Choir -- Have a choir sing requiems in various public places, dressed and walking around as bystanders. When signaled (perhaps via phone vibrating) they start and stop singing abruptly. Need to find choir...

N is for Neville -- last of the pieces for my thesis work. Ended up only explaining my designs. Computer/musical instrument gets bored with performer than changes how it works

Things I'm submitting to:

Movement Research AIR -- a long shot, esp. I am not a dancer, but my performance work is certainly related. And hey, I tango. Due March 31. Should finish that damn artist statement today.

Harvestworks New Works Res. -- also long shot. choosing N is for Neville as my project. My background is pretty strong for it. Due April 1. Yah, I need to get on this one, too.

8th Blackbird Composition Contest, New Balance Composition contest -- these actually call for very similar ensembles. I am writing a piece for 8th Blackbird that I'm gonna modify for the other ensemble. Both incredible incredible long shots. Due May 1st. (3 minutes written.. 4-5 minutes to go)

New York Virtuoso Singers -- Thinking of writing a magnetic time piece for choir for this. But I've gotta hustle. Due April 10.