Composer Jarosław Kapuściński will be visiting De Montfort University Thursday, Nov 7, 2024, to present his VR work Point-Line-Piano, a collaboration with the OpenEndedGroup.
PACE Building, Studio 1 (ground floor)
14:00 - 15:00 Lecture:
Composing Intermedia: from Audiovisual Piano to
VR
15:00 - 17:00 Opportunities for those who attended the lecture to experience Point-Line-Piano for themselves (circa 10-minutes each). A signup sheet for slots will circulate during the lecture.
17:00 - 18:00 Pre-signup slots will be available for others who want to experience the project. Email Prof Bret Battey (bbattey@dmu.ac.uk) to request a slot. This time slot may be extended if there is need.
More information:
Talk: Composing Intermedia: from Audiovisual Piano
to VR.
Composer Jarosław Kapuściński specializes
in creating audiovisual works across various media. Many of his compositions
are interactive, often involving musicians—particularly pianists—who control
visual content, or more recently, general audiences who paint audiovisual
worlds in VR. Whether animating fruits (Juicy), typewritten poetry (Oli’s
Dream), or the traces of music reflected in the faces of listeners from
around the world (Where is Chopin), his works form highly intricate yet
playful systems interweaving music, visuals, meaning, and performer actions. In
this presentation, Kapuściński will discuss his work, as well as demonstrate a
recent VR collaboration with the OpenEndedGroup, Point Line Piano.
VR experience: Point-Line-Piano
Point-Line-Piano is a VR project that reimagines the composition, performance, and
reception of piano music by fusing its modes of creating, playing, and
listening. As you interact with it, your ears, eyes, and hands act in concert.
You start by drawing lines freely in the space around you, sparking musical
notes that are notched as points on the lines as you draw them. These notes
quickly accumulate, forming distinct melodic phrases and rhythms, while the
computer generates an intricate audiovisual dance all around you. The work
enables a spatial and full-body experience of abstraction not found in any
other medium. In a live concert setting it can also be used as an audiovisual
instrument. Point-Line-Piano received support from the European Research Council Digi-Score Project: https://digiscore.github.io/ .
Biographies
Jarosław Kapuściński is an Associate Professor of Music at Stanford University, where he
is affiliated also with the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
His research focuses on intermedia composition, performance, and Japanese
traditional aesthetics.
Kapuściński has received grants and
commissions from numerous international organizations, including the National
Endowment for the Arts, the Governor General of Canada, and Institut National
de l’Audiovisuel (INA) in France. His works have been awarded prizes at
festivals in Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States, and have been
presented at venues such as New York MOMA, Spoleto USA, EMPAC NY, Logan Center
in Chicago, ZKM in Karlsruhe, Reina Sophia Museum in Madrid, Media Biennale
Wroclaw, Warsaw Autumn Festival, Creative Media Center in Hong Kong, Benz Arena
in Shanghai, and National Art Centre in Ottawa.
In addition to his artistic work,
Kapuściński has collaborated on scholarly websites about Japanese Gagaku music
(gagaku.stanford.edu) and Noh Theater (noh.stanford.edu).
https://jaroslawkapuscinski.com/
Marc Downie
and Paul Kaiser have collaborated as OpenEndedGroup since 2001.
Working in a broad variety of media and venues:, they make art for façade,
gallery, dance, stage, 3D cinema, print, and virtual reality. Their works
respond to a wide range of materials — drawing, film, motion capture,
photography, music, and architecture.
They frequently combine three signature elements: non-photorealistic 3D
rendering; the incorporation of body movement by motion-capture and other
means; and the autonomy of artworks directed or assisted by artificial
intelligence. OpenEndedGroup’s films, installations,
stage works, and VR pieces have premiered in such venues as MoMA, Lincoln
Center, the Barbican, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Brooklyn Academy
of Music, the Hayward Gallery, Sadler’s Wells, and the Berlin, New York, and
Rome film festivals. Eight of their 3D digital films were the first of their
kind to enter MoMA’s permanent collection.
https://openendedgroup.com/
