performing technology blog

Performing Technology @ ITP blog
Langdon Crawford

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	This is a video capture of a Max/MSP video patch that displays text. The different words/phrases are triggered by onsets in the audio signal. My onset detection algorythms are quite noisy, so even though the music tends to have an even beat, the text is much more irregular.
	This is an audio recording of an automatic music machine. The patch is also available as a standalone application. The code is poorly or not at all commented/documented, so it may be difficult to use... click image to download standalone app.
	This OSX application possesses your ascii keyboard...
	This is demo video of some of the things i have been doing with the Midi Airguitar. I have broadcast this clip on youtube. This demo includes short clips of 3 instruments: LEAD, TECHNO and RHYTHM GUITAR. Lead is a monophonic instrument with a huge pitch range. Techno plays drum loops and re-loops smaller segments of the loops. Rhythm guitar plays a physical model of a plucked string through some distortion and filter effects.
	This is a movie of a user testing a video tracking/sonification patch i designed in max/msp/SoftVNS2.0... Soft VNS 2.0 is kinda like jitter, only its designed specifically for video and video tracking... so its a little more intuitive for me to use. The patch augments eye movements such that they control sound.
-----------play-----------	this is a page i set so that most any mac user or pc user with quicktime could play with sound online. it uses javascript to trigger sounds and control the volume of the background loop.
wake up	Wake up: time, place Each day when i wake up i record the time it is at the moment of recording and where i am... most recent recording is at the top.

	Here is a simple narrative. One square follows another. Then they go away. The other square is now in the lead, with the first square following.
SimpleNarrative.mp4	--download here if embedding is not working.

Review of Yoko Ono's Cut Piece.
description:
An attractive woman sits on a stage as audience members are encouraged to walk over pick up a pair of scissors and cut the clothing she is wearing.
She ignores the presence of the cutters as if trying to hide her nervous fear or discomfort with what they are about to do to her. Her reactions are subtly contained until she moves to cover herself when her undergarments are cut away.
An off screen agent appears to both encourage people to continue approaching and keep them from going too far. It is unclear if this is a specific person, or the crowd at large.
There is a moment around 6 minutes into the video where the camera zooms into Ono's face. Its unclear if the lights are creating an effect or if she is suppressing tears. This moment creates an emotional climax framing Ono as a victim of some public sexual assault. This tension of this moment releases as the tone lightens in the last few minutes of the video clip as one of the audience members cuts her slip and bra straps. Ono looks as the she is struggling not to laugh or otherwise break character. Also for the first time the audience reacts strongly against what someone has done to her.
Analysis of this piece was difficult at times as I have seen a live presentation of this piece. I found the documentation transparent at first, but when reflecting on the experience of the live piece. The two felt very different. Specifically the video had an emotional arch. The recreation of this piece at the chelsea art museum a few years ago, seemed to go on much longer without much of an arch. Though i must admit that my interpretation of the live presentation of this piece made me so uncomfortable that i had to leave. I (mis)interpreted the piece as if it were a public undressing of a seemingly involuntary performer... That being said, the success of this piece is that it is so provocative. Its difficult to watch this piece without feeling something for or against what she is saying/doing. Reviewing this piece without program notes leaves me wondering what her intentions were. That is, if she had a specific message or idea to portray... given that I am not sure what she was trying to say I'm not sure i can evaluate it. But it did provoke a good deal of though...

My super high-tech tools for keeping track of every time the word or idea of "performance" was invoked. This one was kinda funny since I work and study in the Music and Performing Arts Professions Department at NYU... I eventually had to reduce things to noting shifts from hour x to hour y, non-stop invocation of performance...

This is my performance map. relating ideas of interface, time, audience performer, documentation, (re)presentation, etc. click thumbnail for larger image.

Motivation for enrolling in Performing Technology

As an electronic musician I constantly deal with this issue of performing a piece vs. phoning in the piece from the stage. I have been involved with several productions where the composer sits on stage and plays his composition from behind a laptop. While this is considered a valid performance practice in some circles I would like to further my departure from this style of performance.   Recently with theAirband I have developed a practice of using New Interfaces for Musical Expression to free the performers on stage from the direct interaction with a teletype during concerts.
While this distancing of the performer from the computer has helped a great deal in connecting the performer with the music and the audience. There is still a great deal to explore. In recent shows we have departed, at times, from our musically focused nature to take on more dance and theatrical ideas. These have been some of our most successful pieces.
I hope to further explore performance ideas other than traditional electronic music concerts, as I think the technology used by theAirband could be used for many different and exciting kinds of performance.