Proximity Effect

eResearch Australasia 2009

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:07:00 +0000

Its conference season here in Australia once again. Now in beautiful Manley, Sydney for the eResearch Australasia 2009 conference, 10–12 Nov.

This year's theme is No Boundaries. What challenges are raised by a world with no boundaries? What potential can we unlock?

The conference features speakers and demonstrations from the Australian and international eResearch community, aiming to provide:

A catalyst for innovation and collaboration, by bringing together researchers, practitioners, and educators from diverse disciplines;
A forum to support the development, enhancement, and harmonisation of national, regional, and discipline-specific eResearch infrastructures and services;
A showcase for innovative science and research enabled through these technologies and services.

Here's a few snapshots of this:

What's all this got to do with music and the arts?

Well, interestingly the 'humanities' sessions are some of the most widely attended, with a range of interesting presentations about this work on line, and particularly in relation to understanding new digital data sets captured and modelled accordingly, then to the new kinds of research questions and projects that arise. A range of these with abstracts and contact info can be found on the conference program, here.

For example, here's one interesting project about the performing arts from AusStage – an accessible research facility for investigating live performance in Australia. It was built by a consortium of universities and industry partners with funding from the Australian Research Council.

AusStage and the Aus-e-Stage Project: Collaborative eResearch in the Performing Arts. This session presented researchers demonstrating innovations in performing arts eResearch, new research applications for the AusStage database and raised questions about the implications of visual interface design and collective approaches to data curation for research in the performing arts.

Elsewhere, there have been a range of sessions about training Research Higher Degree students, increasingly interested as they now are in using the web for their own variants of e-research, and increasingly wishing to model different kinds of modelling, and different kinds of exegesis (including interactive, web-based and the like). Here's a few related presentations:

eResearch Training for Higher Degree Students (University of Melbourne)
eResearch practices, barriers and needs for support: Preliminary study findings from four NSW universities.
eResearch Education and Training.

QCRC videos

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:05:00 +0000

Here's a nice little widget from vimeo, for all of our Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre (QCRC) videos.

A Glorious Dawn

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:50:00 +0000

A lovely piece from colorpulsemusic.com: A musical tribute to Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking: 'A Glorious Dawn - Cosmos remixed'. Almost all samples and footage are taken from Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's Universe series.

Lyrics:

[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some when-else in time

The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky

But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes
it generates abstractions

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has it's own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world

[Hawking]
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit

From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas

[Sagan]
How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we've waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting

The long drive to Melbourne & back

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 05:58:00 +0000

Just back from Melbourne, a 1700k driving trip either way from Brisbane (!). Beautiful weather, wonderful Saab 93 cabrio, and glorious country – some pictures from the trip are available on MobileMe.

The main reason for the long drive was to show our visitors from New York, Bill Duckworth and Nora Farrell around the country – especially the outback and some wonderful towns on the slow drive back to Brisbane, including Rutherglen, Katoomba and Bellingen.

In Melbourne, we stayed in the glorious Paramount Apartments overlooking the city.

Bill Duckworth gave lectures about his work at RMIT and at VCAM (Victorian College of the Arts & Music, UniMelb). Here's a video of his lecture from VCAM's cross media workshop (to VCAM's Mark Pollard – thanks so much for the hospitality!):

We also went to SIAL (RMIT's Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory) where Bill also delivered a lecture, but also got to tour their facilities with Lawrence Harvey. Of note was their wonderful studio 'pod', a purpose-built room-within-a-room that looks incredible:

Lawrence and Bill – inside The Pod.

Bill & Nora out front

Thanks to Lawrence, Bill, Nora, Jenny, Glyn, Margaret, John, Mark, Sue, Ian – and the Saab – for a great trip and wonderful memories of Melbourne and the Australian outback.

Longplayer

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:44:00 +0000

Came across this intriguing project on Daily Dose (courtesy of Nora Farrell):

Longplayer combines an interactive sculpture and a systems-theory experiment in the service of a 1,000-year-long musical composition.

An ambitious project for anyone who ever wondered about humanity’s ability to pursue trans-generational art, Longplayer was launched in 1999 by composer (and Pogues member) Jem Finer and an advisory board that included Brian Eno. In 2000, the project was turned over to the Longplayer Trust, a compendium of experts dedicated to its preservation until the 2999 completion of its first cycle.

Rain

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:50:00 +0000

Came across this wonderful piece from Perpetuum Jazzile. Enjoy!

Volume

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Just back from Melbourne, where I came across VOLUME, a fantastic installation in Federation Square.

The installation is the brain-child of the UK's United Visual Artists, known for their work with U2, Massive Attack, The Arctic Monkeys and others. With a soundtrack arranged by Neil Davidge and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, this incredible fusion of light and sound is realized through a forest of luminous LED columns which light up Federation Square.

The columns respond spectacularly to human movement and visitors walk, crawl, jump and dance their way through this interactive installation.

The first installation was performed in the UK at the Victoria & Albert Royal Museum's John Madejski Garden last winter 2006, with a wonderful video posted here:

VOLUME is part of a series in 'The Light in Winter', Federation Square's annual winter festival for Melbourne centred around light. Directed by Robyn Archer, The Light in Winter brings together artists, designers and communities to explore their ideas of light, enlightenment and hope.

For more 2009 Light in Winter events, see their program, here.

Sonic Bablyon

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:37:00 +0000

We welcome back to Brisbane, New Yorker internet music pioneers William Duckworth and Nora Farrel who were with us for the iOrpheus project in 1997.

This time, they're here to inaugurate a multi-year project titled Sonic Babylon, an art project planting gardens of sound around the world; invisible gardens hanging in the air and heard on mobile devices when visitors pass through.

Occuring from July to September 2009, these gardens include the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre's Media Gardens in Queensland (Cairns, Noosa, and South Bank), The National Film and Sound Archive's Permanent Sound Garden and National Sound Day 2009 in Canberra, and a Sound Garden Happening at the Apple Store in Melbourne (tbc, September).

Tweets at timecurve (Bill), hypnotone (Nora) and sonicbablyon.

APAR (Artistic Practice as Research) Projects

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sun, 31 May 2009 04:07:00 +0000

A couple of ongoing projects at the QCRC (Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre) here in Brisbane. Both form part of the work within the Centre's 'Artistic Practice as Research' cluster.

The Art of Interpretation
A collaboration between Stephen Emmerson (pianist) and Paul Draper (sound producer), this excerpt from Schoenberg’s 3 Piano Pieces Op. 11 draws upon on various interpretive strategies including analysis, reflection, and the use of Schoenberg’s paintings to highlight certain aspects of the performance and recording. The project is based on the premise that a recording is not ‘music’ itself, rather, is a virtual artefact through which an interpretation can be manipulated and enhanced through deliberate interference in the recording and post-production processes.

The piano itself was tracked using some sixteen microphones spaced at different positions throughout the hall which enabled ‘multiple perspectives’ to be attained, then in post-production was 'vertically arranged' and through the use of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) in ways similar to that of orchestration. In contrast to the usual practice where classical piano recordings maintain a single sound and perspective, this project explores the ways in the researcher's interpretation of the music can be expanded and communicated through these manipulations of the sound recordings.

Foreign Objects
This is an excerpt from the new album 'Foreign Objects' by Vanessa Tomlinson and Erik Griswold aka 'Clocked Out', presenting new compositions that pay homage to two giants of contemporary music: Terry Riley, the master of expanded space, and Morton Feldman, the master of intricate patterns.

Produced by Paul Draper, after spending a week of recording in the IMERSD studios the project then moved directly into a live concert event in the Ian Hangar Recital Hall to premier the works, and where these performances were also recorded remotely in IMERSD. The final results are arrangements, edits and integrated sound productions that combine both environments, where the musicians extend the sound landscape of the keyboard through prepared piano to the world of ‘found object’ percussion. Mixing bowls meld into cardboard preparations, roofing tiles into buzzing screws, toy piano into miniature bells.

The QCRC also maintains a Vimeo Group at vimeo.com/groups/qcrc/videos

Musical Futures

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:13:00 +0000

Sunday, 10 May 2009 saw a host of performances of asian musics at Brisbane South Bank. Entitled 'Musical Futures', this launch was part of a Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre initiative set up to support the outcomes of a five year international research project, Sustainable futures for music cultures: Towards an ecology of musical diversity.

Prof Huib Schippers (Director, Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre)

The project is funded by the Australian Research Council and involves ten partners across Australia, Europe and the US, including the International Music Council founded by UNESCO in 1946. It aims to increase understanding of the mechanisms of musical sustainability by closely examining ten different music cultures: how musicians interact with communities,how the music industry and governments affect musical life, as well as underlying values and attitudes. It will deliver an online resource, freely accessible to everyone in the world, to assist in improving the chances of survival and success for music cultures.

Here's a couple of videos, shot on the Sunday:

Asia-pacific musical performances, including Gamelan, Kathak dance, Indian ragas, Korean, Vietnamese and Fusion musics

Prof Huib Schippers (Director, QCRC) and Dr Richard Letts (President, International Music Council)

For more about the Musical Futures Foundation, contact l.flenady@griffith.edu.au

Kodak Zi6

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sun, 10 May 2009 06:00:00 +0000

We've just purchased a couple of Kodak Zi6s for our research centre at the Queensland Conservatorium. Terrific little unit that shoots in HD, directly to SD-Ram in H.264 format.

Comes with software for Windows, records .movs and so can also be easily used in Apple iPhoto or iMovie. USB flip out allows easy direct transfer to computer and on to web. In this case I've created a Vimeo group at http://vimeo.com/groups/qcrc

'The cast' of our recent Musical Futures events.

Great for interviews, PhD projects, ethnographies, etc.

Inside Music

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:50:00 +0000

New public lecture series commences this year at the Con. Entitled Inside Music, these intimate presentations by Conservatorium lecturers and guest artists invite the audience to explore what happens ‘behind the scenes’ as musicians prepare prepare their work. From 11 Mar 2009 in the Queensland Conservatorium's Ian Hanger Recital Hall, comes these thoughts from Gerardo Dirié:

Gerardo Dirié is currently Head of Music Studies at the Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane, Australia.

He has been active in bringing Latin American music to a wider audience, not only through his work as composer and educator, but also as Assistant Director of Indiana University's Latin American Music Center, first under the direction of Venezuelan composer Ricardo Lorenz, and currently directed by Venezuelan conductor Dr. Carmen Téllez. He assists orchestras, soloists, ensembles and scholars from around the world in programming and studying Latin American music. For more about Gerardo and contact information, see www.gerardodirie.net

Playing for Change

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:52:00 +0000

I came across this wonderful video, a kind of remix of street musicians-meets web2. See what you think?

Turns out this is from a series by an organisation, Playing For Change: Peace Through Music, the first of many songs around the world being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic "Stand By Me by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe:

Can't help but notice though, no activity yet in the Oceania region. Hope we may be able to get involved in Australia, in music, the arts and the Asia Pacific. Terrific project.

And so to 2009 . .

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:58:00 +0000

Just back from some leave spent in beautiful New Zealand.

Some more pics here at mobile me, New Zealand North Island: Bay of Islands, Auckland, Napier, Gisborne, Rotrua, Copthorne.

Upcoming concerts calendar:

Greatly looking forward to Jeff Beck touring Australia after a very long absence. He's in Brisbane next week (29 January), accompanied by wonderful musicians, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, David Sancious on keyboards and the sensational young Australian bassist, Tal Wilkenfeld.

In February, Grammy Award winning pianist-composer-bandleader Chick Corea and guitarist John McLaughlin tour Australia and New Zealand - joining forces for the first time, I believe, since they were both members of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew era band over forty years ago. Playing music with Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride and Vinne Colaiuta, the Chick Corea and John McLaughlin Five Peace Band should be amazing. Unfortunately, not coming to Brisbane, but at the Sydney Opera house, on 20 February.

Have a good year, everyone!

CreateWorld 2008

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:33:00 +0000

Back in Australia now, and into CreateWorld 2008, the Australian national digital arts conference, hosted by the Apple University Consortium (AUC) and Griffith University. Now in its third year, the 2008 conference must have been the most successful, with a terrific attendance and a wide range of panels, papers, keynotes, performances and podcast program.

AUC chair, Denis Antionelle opens the conference.

Some of the highlights for me were the various performance /talk events, including some stunning music-scored-to-speech patterns from Brisbane's Topology ensemble . . .

. . and some engaging VJ work from Adelaide's Luke Toop, featuring Apple's Quartz Composer software tools.

There were also a good range of academic papers and session presentations. Stephen Emmerson and I presented some of our recent recording work in IMERSD around our paper on Music, Recording and the Art of Interpretation (see earlier blog entry). Great fun to try to squeeze that many people into a recording studio control room!

A Podcast Team (Allan Carrington, Kate Foy, Cat Hope and Ian Green) were cruising the conference, audio recorders in hand, gathering short interviews to help better understand the conference themes in their broader context, and to tease out their implications for learning, teaching, research and creative performance in higher education.

WAAPA's Cat Hope works up some new podcasts.

The podcast program from CreateWorld 2008 is available at createworld2008.edublogs.org.

Great turn-out, fantastic location at Griffith's South Bank campus.

Look out for the final series of refereed papers in the conference proceedings, to be published shortly on the Create World 2008 site. Thanks everyone, for a great conference.

New York (Part 2)

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:02:00 +0000

I visited La Monte Young & Marian Zazella's 'Dream House' installation, nearby to where we were staying in Tribeca. When we first entered this unassuming loft, we saw purple light and heard a very loud, constant drone. The noise and light flooded the entire floor, immersing us as we wandered about.

After a time though, we finally 'got it'. The light comprised two sources of red and blue and cast odd shadows on objects, urging you to move your head to see better. When moving then, the sound changed, in fact, by a simple left-to-right head movement, the drone now became two distinct pitches.

So in fact, the room itself became an instrument, which you 'played' with the movement of your body. Often different when seated on the floor cushions, or moving deliberately around the room. Fantastic, engaging project. For more, see the MELA Foundation.

I also had the opportunity to spend time in the wonderful Electric Lady Studios, the brainchild of Jimi Hendrix who comissioned John Storyk to build the facility in the late 60s. Many thanks to the generosity of studio manager Lee Foster who looked after me during my visit.

Lee showed me around the three studio spaces (and especially Studio A, where that great music from Hendrix was made), as well as telling me much about the historical background, more recent modifications and the recent projects which have been happening (including Dylan, Guns & Roses, Beyonce and others).

So much history here, and as Lee explained, the artwork around the building was commissioned by Hendrix himself who wanted a 'spaceship' (albeit, psychedelic). Spine-chilling really, to wander the rooms and the corridors.
Inspired, I headed off in search on Manny's, where Hendrix, Dylan and others shopped for their guitars.

I came away with this fantastic Martin CF-1, a collaboration between Martin Guitars and Dale Unger (American Archtop). Represenative of that special period where the acoustic guitar evolved into the electric, it's not simply a jazz guitar, but rather, a high quality acoustic instument with a pickup fitted.

A great piece of memorabilia from New York, Manny's and a reminder of why I started playing music in the first place: Jimi Hendrix.

New York (Part 1)

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:12:00 +0000

Following the Lowell, Massachusetts Art of Record Production conference, I headed down to New York for a week to catch up with Bill Duckworth and Nora Farrell. Some of this was about work and the forthcoming Sound Gardens project, scheduled to be undertaken in a range of Queensland locations in 2009.

However, being the amazing people that they are, I got a lot more that I would have imagined - thanks Bill & Nora: was an amazing experience being hosted in NYC by locals! They also put on an amazing birthday evening for me in their New Jersey home, right across the Hudson from Manhattan:

View from Bill & Nora's New Jersey apartment.

What a way to do pumpkin soup!

Over the week, we got to experience so many wonderful perspectives on New York arts, including Birdland, Chelsea galleries, Smoke (jazz club), the Apple Store and others.

Tommy Igoe Birdland Big Band.

Chelsea gallery.

The Apple store.

Smoke, Jazz and Supper Club Lounge (featuring the Larry Goldings Trio

Nora and Jenny in Times Square.

We also experienced this gigantic multimedia installation at MoMA: Pipilotti Rist's Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters).

More about New York and Music Technology in New York (Part 2) of this blog, but for now: thanks so much to Bill and Nora and very much looking forward to treating them to Australia when they visit, next June 2009.

The Art of Record Production conference, Lowell USA

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Presently visiting the USA, via LA, to Boston then to Lowell for the 4th annual international Art of Record Production conference.

This year, the conference was hosted by UMass Lowell's music department and the home of Prof William Moylan, the author of one of the world's leading music technology education texts, Understanding and Crafting the Mix, Second Edition: The Art of Recording.

One of the highlights was the opening keynote from industry legend record producer Phil Ramone (14 Grammys!), who also has just launched his new book, Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music. He spoke at length with wonderful personal tales about his work with Dylan, Streisand, Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Billy Joel, on and on . . .

Another highlight was Lowel's 'critical listening room' where conference delegates were treated to amazing sound and analysis work with both famous recordings, as well as exceptional work form their graduate (Masters) students.

A discussion panel featured Dj Spooky (Paul Miller), Steve D'Agostino, David Hewitt, Mark Rubel on the theme 'The Recording Studio as Musical Instrument'.

I presented a paper entitled On disintermediated culture, education, and craft and it was teriffic to meet UMass's Wil Moylan and Alan Williams, as well as old friends from the UK (I saw them last at the first 2005 APR conference in London).

Speaking of old friends, following the ARP conference here, I'll then be heading down to New York city for a week, to catch up with William Duckworth and Nora Farrell. Bill and Nora were in Australia last 2007 and collaborated with the Queensland Conservatorium research centre on the fabulous iOrpheus - Art Among Us. Will be plotting for iOrpheus II.

Music, Recording, and the Art of Interpretation

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 05:06:00 +0000

Presently working on a new research project with pianist extrodinaire, Dr Stephen Emmerson. The project examines the recordings of a series of classical piano works, but rather than try to attempt to record these 'authentically' (following the recent fascination with recordings 'as' music), the project aims to deliberately manipulate and re-construct the pieces as sound art or 'phonography', with a view to expanding of some of the underlying narratives.

As a starting point, we took a series works performed by Stephen on the 29 October 2008 in the Queensland Conservatorium’s Ian Hanger Recital Hall. The compositions date from 1908, regarded as a landmark in the history of European Modernism with a number of the 20th century’s most remarkable composers finding their distinctive voice around that time via seminal works for solo piano. These included Alban Berg’s Sonata Op.1, Arnold Schoenberg’s 3 Piano Pieces Op.11 and Béla Bartók’s 14 Bagatelles Op.6.

Here's a few excerpts from the concert:

Boomp3.com

Boomp3.com

Boomp3.com

Next, we're working to present a paper and interactive session in the IMERSD recording studios as part of the CreateWorld 2008 digital arts conference, this coming December. In particular, we will be preparing 5 of Bartók’s Bagatelles, famous as a collection of pieces which explore a range of innovative compositional techniques (polytonality/bitonality, symmetry, twelve-note collections, quartal harmony, clusters etc.) as well as reflecting his explorations with folk music.

The range of the musical languages employed has encouraged the view that they are a collection of separate individual and almost incompatible pieces. However, as a musciologist, Emmerson is convinced that the sharp contrasts in style are part of the overall concept of the work as a cycle of pieces that successively builds with a cohesive sense of narrative progression. Beyond merely a collection of compositional experiments or exercises, he understands them as having strong emotional and programmatic implications that develop through the cycle.

Stephen has come up with a range of 'sound types' to parallel musicological arguments about the personal emotions and historical settings for the pieces, and we'll be producing these though a variety of multi-track and post-production techniques, including varing treatments for right and left hand parts . .

. . . overdubs, layers, compression, tape distortion, a host of microphone placements and manipulations of spatiality.

Fundamentally, the project challenges the predominant approach in the recording of classical music where such works promote the illusion of capturing a concert experience and that sound production decisions appear to be transparent. Here the authors argue that classical music language can benefit from deliberate interference in the recorded product provided this is congruent with research into the underpinning musical meanings.

And so the music is not just manipulated/remixed to produce an essentially a different piece (although this remains a valid possibility) but maintains that central aspect of musicking which leads to new ways of experiencing music. If this can be realised, then perhaps the artists have begun to master the art of interpretation and the ability to speak music’s language more effectively.

We'll be continuing the project following CreateWorld by producing all the works on Steinway and recorded in the Conservatorium's Concert Theatre. Aiming for a journal articel early in the new year, accompanied by a two CD set and booklet. Perhaps 'before and after' CDs, and what we're most interested in is – which one is really the 'fake'?

ACUADS in Adelaide

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 02:25:00 +0000

Just returned from a week in Adelaide, brilliant old buildings, terrific art, but also must be the Australian capital for the best restaurants in the country! (a pic here of Glenelg, beach-side of Adelaide).

I was in Adelaide to attend the Australian Council for University Art and Design Schools (ACUADS) annual national conference.

So, why a muso at an Art & Design conference? Well, for one reason, my partner Jenny was presenting some of her PhD work there, about the state of the creative and performing arts and their place in academia. 'Goal displacing behaviour' as some call it, that is, metrics about grants and journal articles, rather than about (say), music, art or film.

One of the relationships that is quickly developing now in Australia, is a ever-closer relationship between the arts peaks bodies. This includes matters of lobbying the federal government around the ERA review (Excellence in Research for Australia) of research indicators, ideas about a national Creative and Performing Arts body, and alternative competitive funding arrangements to what some consider as currently science-dominated Australian Research Council. In the case of this year's ACUADS conference, these and related themes were well put by Australian Chair of ACUADS and acting Head of the Victorian College of the Arts (part of the University of Melbourne), AsProf Su Baker:

To date, Art & Design (ACUADS), Film (ASPERA) and Music (NACTMUS) have been forging ever closer links and collaboration. For example, I think there is a particularly strong and useful example in the Future-proofing the Creative Arts PhD project. Essentially, this is a national collaborative project to examine the practices, outputs and assessment standards for research higher degrees in these disciplines, and by exemplar of course, what creative and performing artists *really* do when it comes to the nexus of practice-as-research through art projects . . . onward and upward.

Clocked Out

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:30:00 +0000

Back in the studio again, and in concert recording with Clocked Out, a wonderful Brisbane based duo who have been writing, rehearsing and recording for their album Foreign Objects.

We spent about five days trying out ideas and getting sounds for some of their more unusual ideas for instrumentation, arrangement and subsequent sound production interpretation. Prepared piano, strange percussion objects scattered about the floor, really unusual combinations of timbres, but orchestrated remarkably and performed with professional precision - terrific performers and composers. Quite challenging but a very enjoyable experience for us all.

After the studio work, we moved directly into a live concert event, and from my perspective, moved the technology approaches of what I had learned from them into the concert environment. The IMERSD studio was patched into our Ian Hanger Recital Hall and off we went with the concert entitled Dedications - compositions that paid homage to 2 giants of contemporary music: Terry Riley, the master of expanded space, and Morton Feldman, the master of intricate patterns.

This was then a premier for the new works, centred around six pieces, viginettes entitled Foreign Objects. Later back to the studio, the thing now was to produce and edit all of the material from both studio and live recordings - in some cases, by comp-ing together both environments together within a single piece. Normally, I would find this somewhat of a challenge, but these people are so professional and given that we got to know each other so well, I think the outcomes are really beautiful. Some snippets and teasers here:

Boomp3.com

Boomp3.com

Boomp3.com

Clocked Out will be touring the US West and East coasts late November /early December 2008, so look out for them around Los Angeles and New York if you're in the area. Just wonderful in concert. Foreign Objects the album will be out in early 2009.

Brian Eno's 'Bloom'

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:06:00 +0000

Speaking of iPhone apps (see earlier post on ProTools controller), Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers have teamed to produce this highly addictive generative music application for the iPhone - Bloom.

Its available from the iTunes App store for around $US4.00 and has to be of the nicest little additions I've made to my iPhone in recent times. Hard to put your finger on just why this works, but I do know that everyone who touches it is enthralled (and by this I also mean, those who are not musicians or usually have that little interest in music technology).

The user (performer?) is provided with a colored screen and a quiet drone. Tap the screen in various places and different tones play depending on where the screen is tapped. This loops, creating a unique piece of music on the fly, and one that changes gradually on its own. It's also beautiful, with the tones appearing as colored spots that slowly fade.

An interesting idea for musicians - to make such little apps/pieces of interactive music for a different kind of 'prod-user' audience - quite different to the old record consumption culture? For more on developing iPhone Apps and distribution, see the iPhone DevCenter.

iPhone Pro Remote

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:29:00 +0000

Available on the iTunes App Store, 'Pro Remote' for iPhone and ProTools or Logic Audio.

The software duplicates the Pro Tools onscreen interface in a touchable interface on an iPod Touch or iPhone, complete with interactive feedback on channel settings, audio levels, etc. There's a Lite version at AUD$47.99 and a 'pro' edition at $189.99. Perhaps a bit pricey, but check out the feature set at www.folabs.com/proremotespecs.html and here in this video:

ProRemote uses a wireless network and remote server server software available at http://www.folabs.com/download.html. Looks like Far Out want to expand this to control a range of apps. Speaking of which, here's Telekenisis on an iPhone driving Ableton Live:

Kim Carr Address: The Art of Innovation

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:05:00 +0000

An inspirational address to the National Press Club in Canberra today, by the (new-ish) Australian Government and Senator the Hon Kim Carr.
Things are looking up . . . I'll just skip ahead to these concluding remarks from the speech:

Why the humanities matter

As I said at the beginning, the humanities, arts and social sciences are critical to solving our most pressing real-world problems. These are problems so complex that our only hope of sorting them out is through a multidisciplinary effort.

We can’t improve Indigenous health without understanding the social and cultural circumstances of the people involved. We can’t build better cities without understanding how people live, how they want to live, and how the different parts of their lives fit together. We can’t adapt to global warming without understanding what people’s capacities are, how they interact, and what motivates them.

The humanities, arts and social sciences also have important political work to do. They can give a voice to people who might otherwise be silent. They can articulate the needs of people whose needs might otherwise be overlooked. They can defend the rights of people whose rights might otherwise be denied. Without them it would be impossible to create an innovation system that was truly inclusive, democratic and just.

Without them life would also be pretty dull.

My cultural activities are fairly restricted these days, but a couple of things I’ve enjoyed recently are:

* Peter Temple’s novel The Broken Shore; and

* the Bell Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet.

The first showed me a world similar enough to my own to feel familiar, but different enough to make me look at my own world with fresh eyes. The second reminded me where a great deal of our language comes from, and left me with a strong sense of the continuity between past and present.

Did the book and the play turn a dollar? I hope so. Did they add to the nation’s bottom line? No doubt, in a small way. Is that why I enjoyed them? No, it’s not.

I believe the creative arts – and the humanities and the social sciences – make a terrible mistake when they claim support on the basis of their commercial value.

Whatever they may be worth in the marketplace, it is their intrinsic value we should treasure them for. We should support these disciplines because they give us pleasure, knowledge, meaning, and inspiration.

No other pay-off is required.

The full transcript is well worth a full read, available here: http://minister.industry.gov.au/Carr/Pages/THEARTOFINNOVATION-ADDRESSTOTHENATIONALPRESSCLUB.aspx

Senator the Hon Kim Carr
03 Sep 2008 THE ART OF INNOVATION - ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB
National Press Club Canberra, ACT

Barack Obama on reforming arts education

p.draper@griffith.edu.au (Paul Draper) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:09:00 +0000

Nice piece from Barack Obama, speaking in Wallingford, PA about about reforming the education system and the importance of the arts. While he uses some of the usual rhetoric about the benefits of music and art tied to other positive outcomes in thinking, productivity and well-being – he also talks about the unintentional misuse of the US law around 'No job Left Behind' - school teaching measured by tests (reminiscent of Australia with Rudd's 'Education Revolution' - ie, no cultural curriculum? Why no painting in primary schools? ).

Obama not only articulates the need to fund arts through endowments and direct government funding, but also the bigger picture – the value of being creative, and learning “to see each other through each other's eyes".