POSTPONED: MTI Postgrad concert 19 April, PACE Studio 1

Due to unforseen circumstances this even has been postponed. It will not be on 19 April. Please check back soon for a new date!

MTI Postgraduates will present new work in PACE Studio 1: 19 April, 7pm.

Live performance, audiovisual and immersive audio work, including work by Stefano Catena, Ross Davidson, Matt London, Manit Mehta, Sam Rai, Matt Rogerson.

Admission free.

Leigh Landy, Louise Rossiter, Virginie Viel: Martini Elettrico Concerts, Bologna Conservatoire, 24-28 March

During an Erasmus+ trip to the Bologna Conservatoire, Leigh Landy will be giving 3 public talks and leading an MTI concert that includes student works by Louise Rossiter and Virginie Viel alongside a piece of his own.

The trip has been made possible by support from #DMUGlobal.

Such events are taking place as part of the 'Martini Elettrico' concert and lecture series, which will be running between the 24th and 28th of March 2015.

The Royal College of Music Stockholm (KMH), another of MTI's Erasmus+ partners, is also giving a concert during the last week in March.

More information about Martini Elettrico can be found by clicking here.

Recent News: Neal Spowage – Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space Shortlist & Crafting Anatomies Exhibition

Postgraduate student Neal Spowage has had two of his recent collaborations with Danai Pappa shortlisted for the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in June 2015. The works are Cold Papaya for speaker bra and wireless shovel, and Frozen Venus for six plunger phones. 

They are being considered for the DISK performances in the Spacelab section of the performing arts festival that explores the themes of shared space, interpreting music, weather and politics.

Additionally, Neal has recently collaborated with Ania Sadkowska, a postgraduate researcher from Nottingham Trent University, to produce a soundtrack for her fashion work that is constructed from her research interviews. It was on a continuous loop, accompanying Ania's garments, at the Crafting Anatomies exhibition in the Bonnington Gallery at NTU between 7th January to 14th February 2015.

Crafting Anatomies placed the human body at the centre of a multi-disciplinary dialogue; exploring how this entity has been interpreted, crafted and re-imagined in historical, contemporary and future contexts.

For more information about Neal, please visit his website: http://www.nealspowage.com

Modulation One Dance Performance July 2, 2014

Modulation_one (live-digital dance and augmented sound) asks the dancers to imagine; to be present in the transfer of data; to engage with the mediated/digital as it appears and disappears. 

Modulation_one is the final practical study for Kerry Francksen's PhD and builds upon a recent and developing collaboration with composer Simon Atkinson, film-maker Laura McGregor and dance artist Jodie Davis. Over the past year they have been searching for a way to create environments where acousmatic sound, image and movement can be conceived of as a continually emerging process, where a more dynamic relationship arrives from an engagement in those thresholds in ‘the dimension of the emergent’ (Massumi 2012:34).

PACE Studio 1, 6 pm

July 2, 2014

Forcucci in Berlin, Basel, Freiburg, Saillon

Doctoral student Luca Forcucci presented his work at numerous events in the first half of 2014:

• Lecture at the Technical University of Berlin — January 30
• Sound Installation at the House of Electronic Arts, Basel — Feb 26 - March 16
• Artist's Talk at the International Symposium Border Sounds, Freiburg — Mar 21-22
• Presentation of M(a)(e)rgin(g)s at the Zentrum Fuer Kunst und Urbanstik, Berlin — May 23. "Soundscapes from the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil have been recorded. The sound is deterritorialised, abstracted from its original ‘milieu’, reterritorialised and attached to the structure of the ephemeral construction built by Studio OSK at ZK/U Berlin. An imaginary territory emerges through the layering of Sao Paulo, Berlin and the structure itself: a sonic Moiré pattern questioning borders."

He has an upcoming concert and seminar at Rencontres AME, Saillon — Aug 27-31, and a presentation at the Electroacoustic Music Studies conference in Berlin — Jun 12.

Neal Spowage The Big 30 to Miami New Media Festival

PhD student Neal Spowage was invited to devise and perform alongside dancers, choreographers and musicians including Reynaldo Young, Petra Soor, Annelie Nederberg and Antonio De La Fe at an event curated by Agony Art to celebrate 30 years of experimental dance at Chisenhale Dance Space on Friday, 18th October, 2013 at Chisenhale Dance Space, London.

The event was called There may be Trouble Ahead and was transmitted live for the Miami New Media Festival, via Skype. The feed was displayed / projected real time at Hardcore Contemporary Art Miami and simultaneously re-transmitted through the LiveStream Chanel set for this event; the same feed was also transmitted by Hoeksteen Live.

MTIRC Research Seminar, 30 October, 2013

Wednesday 30 October, 1 – 2.50pm, Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre (Clephan 0.19)

        ** Please note alternative venue for this week**

Weiwei Jin: A New Opera: Mantegh-O Teyr—The logic of Journey for the Self in The Conference of the Birds.

Marinos Giannoukakis: Musica Universalis: Towards a universal description of a software framework model for art performances—dissecting the project and progress so far.  This project utilizes 3D game engines with real time audio for performance, using different gesture controllers and joysticks, multi-channel sound and the use of cinematic techniques in real time. 

Jack Richardson: Recognition in Sound-Based Artistic Composition: Increasing access through facilitation, understanding and the recognition of sound as music.

Chloe Cutler Recipient of DMU Creative Thinking Award

Chloe Cutler, an MA by Research student in the MTIRC, has just been awarded DMU prestigious Creative Thinking Award for her project The Tono: Enhanced Learning with an Innovative Instrument in Key Stage 2 and 3 Music Education. As part of her MA, Cutler designed and constructed a custom electronic handheld instrument to take into the classroom to teach students about making sound-based (as distinct from note-based) music. The classroom placements have been highly successful, with very positive feedback from students and teachers alike. Particularly notable was the fact that some students who have not responded strongly to traditional music instruction in the past seemed to respond enthusiastically to instruction with the Tono. Cutler has been granted £3000 to develop her project further.

Sponsored by Toby Moores, CEO of sleepydog.net, The Creative Thinking Awards were established to recognise exceptional levels of creative, novel, original, and inventive thinking.This year the £10,000 prize was shared between three winners who came up with ideas which connected two or more disciplines to come up with creative and unique ideas.

Neal Spowage - Speaker Bra and Wireless Shovel Controller at Falmouth

Doctoral Student Neal Spowage will premier his brand new work Cold Papaya on 28th August at the Fascinate Conference, in the The Performance Centre at Falmouth University. He will also give a paper and a demonstration for his new sculptural wearable instrument The Speaker Bra and Wireless Shovel Controller for which Cold Papaya is a vehicle.

Cold Papaya is a part of Neal's PhD portfolio and ongoing collaboration with choreographer Danai Pappa.

"Cold Papaya (Neal Spowage and Danai Pappa) explores dual relationships and erotic humour in live electronic music. The instrument used in this performance is in two parts, one is a bra and one is a shovel. By dividing kinesthetic source bonding into two distinct focal points, we explore love in a story of horror and dark humour that describes a balance of power, loss, sex and confusion between performers. This wearable instrument, and the performance piece are a mirror for both the artist, and the audience. How important is touch, sound, an object and the sexual power of the human body?"

Luca Forcucci: UCLA Future Lab and more…

Doctoral student Luca Forcucci will present his work in October as part of the UCLA Future Lab and discuss issues on Sonic Arts and Architecture. Also in October, he will present a concert at the 15th International Festival for New Media Culture  Art+Communication 2013 / Riga / Latvia.

He has also recently presented work at the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel during the Biennale of Venice, the “Hörraum:Atmosphären” within “Kultur:Stadt exhibition” at the Akademie der Künste / Berlin / Germany and UNESP / University of Sao Paulo / Brazil.

"Abstracted Journeys" at London Contemporary Music Festival

A composition by recent PhD graduate Andrew Hill, Abstracted Journeys, has been programmed for the penultimate concert of the London Contemporary Music Festival, on August the 4th. [http://lcmf.co.uk/4-August-Coming-Together]

Listen to the work here:

https://soundcloud.com/andrewhill86/abstracted-journeys

Neal Spowage at Music and/as Process Huddersfield

Photo Credit - Rebecca Carter

Postgraduate student Neal Spowage has just presented Frozen Venus to delegates at the Music and/as Process Symposium at the University of Huddersfield on 30th July 2013.

Frozen Venus is a performance work that demonstrates six new Plungerphone electronic instruments. It explores them using a series of states that involve grouping power, leadership, control and support. The intention of the performance is to demonstrate how controlling and manipulating others has a dark ambition. It hovers between intimacy and opposition. Not necessarily political, but rather social and humanistic, we project a symmetry where every dynamic component is shadowed by dark comedy. 

Louise Rossiter Selected for Weimar Workshop

Doctoral student Louise Rossiter has been selected as one of eight participants in a four-day workshop at the Studio für elektroakustische Musik at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar.

The jury selected the following eight composers to attend the workshop and present their work in Weimar.  The event is organised by Robin Minard and will include tuition from Francis Dhomont. One person will be selected at the end for a 3-month residency at the Hochschule.

Adam Basanta : Canada

Robert Bentall : Ireland

Ana Dall'Ara-Majek : Canada

Takuto Fukuda : Japan / Austria

Simon Pérez : Argentina

Martine Louise Rossiter : UK

Sam Salem : UK

Dimetrio Savva : Cyprus / UK

Dirty Electronics Sonar 20th Anniversary Synth

John Richards and MTI post-graduate Jim Frize have created a hand-held synth for Sonar International Festival of Advanced Music and New Media Art. The Dirty Electronics Sonar 20th Anniversary Synth is an ultra minimal pocket-sized synth, black finished with silver-plated etched Sonar logo. The synth is a analogue digital hybrid that comes with pre-written sequenced patterns that can be either listened to in their own right or ‘played’ (mashed-up, parts of the sequence looped, tempo changed, noise and feedback added, etc.). The synth is played by running fingers across the letters of the Sonar logo. Bit bashing meets analogue noise and crumpled grooves.

Workshops were held over a weekend at the new Sonar by Day venue where over a hundred people took part in building the synth with large audiences watching and listening to the results. Sonar saw a record breaking number of 120,000 attendees at the Festival along with a headline performance from Kraftwerk.