Neal Spowage and Danai Pappa - PACE 1 Wednesday 7th May

PACE Building, Studio 1, 7pm

NEAL SPOWAGE & DANAI PAPPA

Neal Spowage is an artist and musician who builds instruments, which he refers to as junk sculptures, that are designed to force gesture from the performer through perceived and actual affordances of sound and physical presence. Danai Pappa is a dancer whose studies in humanities intend to evoke emotional and psychological states of mind through images, spatial relationships and movement. As a choreographer her goal is to find inventive ways to demonstrate shifting modes of representation and performer/spectator relationships.

Frozen Venus (2013, 14 Minutes)

By Neal Spowage and Danai Pappa

Performance for six shitsticks - dance and live electronic noise sculptures

Each instrument is a domestic plunger with a built in speaker and simple hardware hacked touch synthesiser. It is called a shitstick.

New Track of Unknown Terra (2014, 7 minutes – Film/fixed media)

Created by Neal Spowage

Performance of the beast, a noise sculpture.

The beast is an instrument that amplifies the sound of itself being dragged across the ground. The beast was severely damaged during the making of the film.

Cold Papaya (2013, 7 minutes – live dance and live electronic noise sculptures)

By Neal Spowage and Danai Pappa

Performance for Speaker Bra with Wireless Shovel Controller

The sculpture is a response to Nam June Paik’s Television Bra, fused with a constructivist element that is a shovel. The bra is a construction; the shovel is a construction tool.

All welcome! Entry Free! [SE 30/04]

Meta-3 - MTI undergraduate and postgraduate performances!

Wednesday March 26th, 2014 

PACE Building, Richmond St., Leicester

PACE Studio 2, 6.00-7.00pm

Sam Topley presents a recent installation: e.e.c. (exploded electronic carillon) 

PACE Studio 1, 7.00pm

Current undergraduates Daniel Atherton, Sagnik Basu, Fren Panyawuthirkrai and Anuj Thaker are joined by researcher Si Waite and alumnus Mark Towers to present a concert which celebrates their musical activities on, on the cusp of, beyond, or surrounding their MTI studies. The programme includes:

Daniel Atherton - Little Sounds (voice and guitar)

Sagnik Basu - sarod improv

Fren Panyawuthikrai - Green Peace (fixed medium sound)

Mark Towers (alumnus) - live sequenced techno improv

Anuj Thaker - In The Dark (tabla & fixed medium sound)

Si Waite - instrumental/vocal performance with live electronics

All welcome! Entry Free!

Visible Bits, Audible Bytes at Phoenix Square 12th March

MTI’s annual audio-visual festival – a feast for ear and eye – everyone welcome!

Phoenix Cinema and Art Centre

4 Midland Street, Leicester, LE1 1TG
Box Office: 0116 242 2800

Wednesday 12^th March 2014 3pm till late

Visible Bits, Audible Bytes

- a one day festival curated by Andrew Hill.

An award-winning sound and visual artist from Canada is coming to Leicester as part of a one day festival at Phoenix Cinema and Art Centre. Nicolas Bernier, from Montreal, Quebec will be launching an exhibition and performing at the Visible Bits, Audible Bytes festival on Wed 12^th March.

Nicolas will be headlining the festival, fresh from being recognised as one of the finest artists in his field with the top prize at the prestigious Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria. Visible Bits, Audible Bytes also features talks and performances from a range of national and international artists, including Alo Allik, Ryo Ikeshiro, Thierry Gauthier, François Bayle and Piotr Kamler.

The event begins at 3pm and is completely free. Places can be booked via the Phoenix box office and website.

Nicolas’s exhibition Frequencies (a) will launch at the event and continue at Phoenix until the 22^nd March. An installation of sound and light, the artwork merges the piercing hum of mechanically-triggered tuning forks with pure digital soundwaves. Streams of light burst in harmony with the forks, alternately illuminating the exhibition in stark white light and plunging it into complete darkness.

Programme for the day –

Talks
3pm – 3:30pm: Alo Allik
3:30 – 4pm: Ryo Ikeshiro - Audiovisualisation
4pm – 4:30pm: Paul Prudence
4:30 – 5pm: Nicholas Bernier – ‘Frequencies’ Series of Works
ca.5.00pm - opening of Bernier's Frequencies (a) installation in the DMU cube @ Phoenix
6.30-8.00pm Main Concert (Screen 2) – Audio-visual works
Len Lye - Colour Box
Thierry Gauthier - Portrait D’une Femme
Ryo Ikeshiro - Construction in Kneading
Norman McLaren - Begone Dull Care
François Bayle and Piotr Kamler - L'Expérience Acoustique: Métaphore + Lignes et points
Nicolas Bernier - Frequencies (Synthetic Variations)
From 9.00pm VJs in Bar
Alo Allik – VJ set
Paul Prudence - Transphormetic
Justin Bennett - Raw Materials

About the artists

Nicolas Bernier creates sound performances, installations, live electronics, and moving image. His sound is somewhere between the old and the new. It is electronic music made from objects of the past: typewriter, old machines, tuning forks, soundscape memories and musical instruments.

Estonian artist Alo Allik has performed his audio-visual works, compositions, eclectic DJ sets and live electronic music throughout the world. UK-based Japanese artist Ryo Ikeshiro’s works include live audio-visual performances, interactive installations, electronic music, and soundtracks.

Thierry Gauthier is a Canadian composer and visual artist with an experimental approach to composition. François Bayle, born in Madagascar, is one of the most distinguished living composers of electronic music, having headed the prestigious Groupe de Recherches Musicales from 1966-97. Piotr Kamler is a renowned Polish filmmaker known for his cutting edge work in animation.

[SE 27.02]

New Drum Kits

Good news! The drum kit in Queen's live room has been replaced with a Yahama drum set. The new kit expands the choices of toms, which can either flexibly be chosen in a standard kit or extended with extra toms.

An additional drum set has been stored at our loans facility, where it can be taken out by all Music, Technology and Innovation (MTI) as well as Music, Technology and Performance (MTP) and Audio Technology (ART) students.

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Cultural Exchanges Festival - four music events! Wednesday and Thursday 19th-20th February

* Wednesday 19th February at 6 - 7pm Clephan 2.13, £5  (£3.50 Conc)
A talk by Dame Evelyn Glennie 'Striking Ahead' (note this is not a concert).
* Wednesday 19th February 7.30-9pm, PACE Studio 1, admission £4 (£2.50 Conc)
Playing Dirty: Live Electronic Music
DMU's Dirty Electronics Ensemble is joined by the Live Electronics Ensemble from the Royal College of Music, Stockholm, for a concert exploring large ensemble performance pieces for electronic music. The program will include original pieces and instruments specially created for the collaboration. Expect a thirty-strong 'tour de force' of buzzes and bleeps!
* Thursday 20th February 1 - 2pm, PACE Studio 1, admission free
A Life in Music: Richard Orton in Memoriam
Richard Orton was one of the great pioneers of British electronic and experimental music; he was founder and long time director of the York University studios and taught many of Britain's leading composers. This concert includes his classic music theatre work Mug Grunt - with guest appearances by Archer Endrich and Andrew Bentley who knew him well. DMU's John Richards studied with Orton and has created For Gentle Fire for this concert, based on Orton's work Kiss which is also performed.
* Thursday 20th February 7.30 - 8.45pm, Imaginary Soundscapes
PACE Studio 1, admission free
Programme:
Leigh Landy's China/Music Old/New
John Young Forms of Space
Panos Amelides Golden Walnuts
Louise Rossiter's Sacred Voices.

Concert launching 2014 series - MANTIS - 15th January

Wednesday January 15th, 2014 7.00pm 
PACE, Studio 1

MANTIS
We welcome composers from MANTIS (Manchester Theatre in Sound). Part of an exchange between the MTIRC and the University of Manchester Music Department. A feast of surround sound on our purpose built multichannel system.
David Berezan - Buoy (2011), 9:40, 5.1 channels
Danny Saul - Frictions (Storms) (2013), 12:17, 8 channels
Brona Martin - A Bit Closer to Home (2013), 14:40, 10 channels
Constantin Popp - Triptych (2013), 15:00, 16 channels
David Berezan - Thumbs (2011), 11:00, 8 channels
CitizenUrge (aka Ricardo Climent) - Nancrillex (2013), 9:59, 2 channels
All welcome! Entry Free!

And – earlier: Research seminar: 1-3pm, DMU Clephan Building room 3.03 PhD students in electroacoustic music from the University of Manchester in an open discussion about their work: Danny Saul, Brona Martin and Constantin Popp. [SE 10.01.14]

Weiwei Jin Awarded Residency at Harvestworks, New York City

Doctoral student Weiwe Jin and collaborator Margaret Schedel have received a 2013/14 New Works Residency from Harvestworks, New York City. Residency recipients are commissioned to create a new work in the Harvestworks TEAM (Technology, Engineering, Art and Music) Lab. 

Jin and Schedel will develop The Self, a multimedia installation opera that takes the psychoactive drug Ayahuasca as a thread to reach into its three main characters: a retired US forest servicer, his wife and a Shaman. Based on a fragmented non-linear storytelling drama, created from elements of its situations and characters, and generated by the data of psychoactive drug modified neuronal activities, The Self has neither singers nor accompanying ensemble. It travels the space between an opera and an installation.

Founded as a not-for-profit organization by artists in 1977, Harvestworks has helped a generation of artists create new works using technology. Its mission is to support the creation and presentation of art works achieved through the use of new and evolving technologies.