New book chapter by MTI²'s Leigh Landy

A new book chapter by MTI²'s Leigh Landy has recently been published:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/between-tracks

The chapter, titled 'Hildegard Westerkamp’s Beneath the Forest Floor (1992)', appears in 'Between the Tracks: Musicians on Selected Electronic Music, edited by Miller Puckette and Kerry L. Hagan and released by the MIT Press on August 12th 2020.

"This collection of writings on electronic music goes outside the canon to analyze influential works by under-recognized musicians. The contributors, many of whom are composers and performers themselves, offer their unsung musical heroes the sort of in-depth examinations usually reserved for more well-known composers and works. They analyze music from around the world and across genders, race, nationality, and age, discussing works that range from soundscapes of rushing water and resonating pipes to compositions by algorithm. Subjects include the collaboration of performer and composer, as seen in the work of Anne La Berge, Luciano Berio and Cathy Berberian, and others; the choice by Asian composers Zhang Xiaofu and Unsuk Chin to embrace (or not) Eastern themes and styles; and how technologies used by composers created the sound of the works, as exemplified by Bülent Arel's use of voltage-control components as compositional tools and Charles Dodge's resynthesizing of the human voice."

MTI's Sam Topley among Workshop Prize winners @ NIME2020!

MTI² postgrad and adjunct Sam Topley is one of the winners of the Workshop Prize at the NIME 2020⁣ conference, for their project '10,000 Musical Instruments for a Semi-Connected World':

http://instrumentslab.org/research/10000-instruments.html

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This year’s ‘New Interfaces for Musical Expression’ conference was hosted online by the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.⁣

Topley collaborated with 8 artist/researchers from universities around the U.K. and Europe, to co-author and facilitate a workshop for the conference participants. ⁣The aim was to design and catalogue 10,000 absurd and fictional musical instruments, as a playful and unconventional approach to advancing the debate around the complex, interdisciplinary and multifaceted nature of contemporary musical instruments. ⁣

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Topley's contributions included a “Build Your Own Lockdown Organ” – a handmade musical instrument constructed out of panic-bought toilet roll tubes – and a “Carpet Sample(r)” - a stain resistant and bleach cleanable textile interface, made out of a carpet sample book.

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Dave Holland's 'First Rituals' finalist @ Città di Udine

MTI² alumnus & adjunct Dave Holland was selected as one of the finalists for this year's Città di Udine competition, in the 'Electroacoustic Music' category, for his work 'First Rituals’:

https://www.taukay.it/data1/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=921:competition-2020-eng-results

EARS is back!

The ElectroAcoustic Resource Site (EARS) is back online!

http://ears.huma-num.fr/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0r-klWRnD7aZaq-BQatMphooVt4ndOseTWJtPbuE3Gla1fy6cIOFTgvso

The EARS site, which was coordinated by MTI and went online in 2002, is the most important online research and educational resource in the field of electroacoustic music. Unfortunately it was brought down by a cyberattack, but (with our special thanks to IReMus (Paris) and  in particular Pierre Couprie and Thomas Bottini), we are happy to report that is now back in action!

"The ElectroAcoustic Resource Site (EARS) project has been established to provide resources for those wishing to conduct research in the area of electroacoustic music studies. The EARS site takes the form of a structured Internet portal supported by extensive bibliographical tools. To aid the greater understanding of the opportunities offered by these radical forms of sound organisation, as well as their cultural impact, the project cites (or links directly to) texts, titles, abstracts, images, audio and audio-visual files and other relevant formats.

The project strives to conceive of electroacoustic music in its widest possible sense, acknowledges the interdisciplinary nature of the field, and aspires to the greatest possible breadth and inclusiveness. In the future it is hoped that there will be a form of automated information retrieval to aid in keeping the site’s bibliography up to date.

EARS received its first funding in 2001 and went online for the first time (English initial glossary and index only) in 2002. The project was originally co-ordinated at De Montfort University’s Music, Technology and Innovation Research Group (now Music, Technology and Innovation – Institute for Sonic Creativity (MTI2), Leicester, UK) by Leigh Landy and Simon Atkinson in collaboration with the project’s Associated Researcher, Ricardo Dal Farra, and the Research Fellows, Rob Weale and Pierre Couprie. EARS was originally supported by an internation consortium consisting of Rosemary Mountain, Marc Battier, Joel Chadabe, Martin Supper and Kenneth Fields. Its glossary translations were made by Pierre Couprie (French), Ricardo Dal Farra (Spanish), Laura Zattra (Italian) and Martin Supper (German).

It has been placed on a new platform in 2020 after surviving a cyber-attack. The platform uses Sherlock which is an engineering-research project in digital humanities bringing together different disciplines Its objective is to develop a web environment for the publication and semantic annotation of data & documentary sources to assist researchers in the constitution, confrontation & dissemination of their analytical & critical work. We would like to thank IReMus (Paris) for its support, in particular Pierre Couprie and Thomas Bottini for porting the site."

Prof. Bret Battey published in Routledge's 'Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices'

MTI²'s Professor of Audio-visual Composition, Bret Battey, has a chapter in the recent Routledge publication 'Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices':

https://www.routledge.com/Sound-and-Image-Aesthetics-and-Practices/Knight-Hill/p/book/9780367271466

Battey's chapter is titled 'Technique and Audiovisual Counterpoint in The Estuaries Series'.

MTI² is doubly proud, as the book's editor, Andrew Knight-Hill, in an MTI alumnus.

MTI alumna Louise Rossiter @ Ciclo de Música Electroacústica UACh 2020

MTI² alumna & adjunct Louise Rossiter's 2020 work 'Synapse' was performed earlier this summer at Ciclo de Música Electroacústica UACh 2020 in Chile, in a concert that is available for listening online:

https://youtu.be/iOAF1LkdGwY?t=1467

"Synapse is the fifth work completed as part of the Der Industriepalast suite, and is based upon Fritz Kahn’s infographic titled ‘Is the nervous system an electrical system?” (1939). The infographic represents the function of a synapse – the structure that permits a neuron to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron or target cell. In his infographic, Kahn compares the synapse to an electrical generator– highly appropriate given the function of synapses in generating electricity, and transporting it around the body through neuro-transmission."

MTI's John Young keynote @ CRiSAP's 'Audio Testimonies Symposium', July 2-3

MTI²'s Prof. John Young is one of the invited keynote speakers at the Audio Testimonies Symposium, organised by CRiSAP (Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice) at the University of the Arts London, which will take place this week Thursday July 2nd and Friday July 3rd:

https://www.crisap.org/event/audio-testimonies-symposium/
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/audio-testimonies-symposium-tickets-108132047866

"An online Symposium organised in collaboration with Emerge, Bournemouth University, led by Dr Thomas Gardner  and Dr Panos Amelidis

2 & 3 July 2020, 10:00 – 17:00 BST

This symposium considers the place of Audio Testimonies in artistic practice, and will explore the ways in which artists use sound to enable new forms of testimony, and create new artistic configurations, which engage public consciousness. 

Key note speakers: Amy Wlodarski and John Young

Audio Testimonies aims to open a discussion on this topic and form the start of a network which will continue exploration of these themes. It will do so through a two days of presentations focusing on particular works and via a social activity of collectively making audio testimony."

This event is part of 'Un-Earthed: A  festival of listening and environment':

"A critical celebration of our relationships with the environments that we share with other people and other species.

An ongoing series of events inviting both serious and more playful interrogations of current sound and listening practices and how they might help us reconsider our evolving relationships with other species, the built environment, truth and each other."