FARM 2020 Performance Program
ICFP Conference inofmration: https://icfp20.sigplan.org/
Date/Time: August 28th, 5:30PM EDT
Performances:
- Y (Michal Janocha & Poznań Laptop Orchestra)
- A Very Short Introduction to Phonetic Languages and Poetry (Oleksandr Zhabenko)
- The (not so) lonely Haskell Multimedia Live Programmer (Manuel Barenz)
- Improv: Live Coding with TidalCycles (Ron Herrema)
- Lightning Bug (Donya Quick
- Rhythmr, Or Semi-Automated Audio Loops (Gregory Travis)
- Time Garden, Morning (Zach Duer, Scotty Hardwig, and Charles Nichols)
- 18th Century Vivid (Tom Murhpy)
More information about each piece and the performers can be found below.
1. Y
Michal Janocha & Poznań Laptop Orchestra
Y symbolizes three beings, which creates the whole piece: composer-performer, conductor and laptop orchestra. The piece is an experience of coexistence of these three and three spaces, layers assigned to each of them. First – composer-performer, his unusual electric instrument and creative approach to the structure of the piece. Second – laptop orchestra and it’s new ‘coding’ musical language. Third – action of the conductor, who not only interprets the piece, but also conducts it’s form, narration and content.
Performers:
Wojciech Kaszuba (electric cello);
Michał Janocha (conductor);
λ-ensemble (Poznań Laptop Orchestra): Damian Banasiak, Konrad Baranek, Artur Białoskorski, Rafał Ciećwierz, Marek Garniec, Marek Godlewski, Kamil Górny, Mateusz Górzyński, Damian Kaczmarczyk, Paweł Karczewski, Jędrzej Klepacki, Anna Aleksandra Kopińska, Anna Aleksandra Kopińska, Bartosz Kordylewski, Patryk Krzyżaniak, Michał Malinowski, Wojciech Matuszewski, Eryk Miszczuk, Sandra Neukirch, Sylwia Nowastowska, Jędrzej Panczak, Tymek Sala, Jakub Siedlecki, Hubert Słomion, Aleksandra Słyż, Łukasz Tatrocki, Peter Umreyan, Joann Wilczyńska, Andrei Yakushau
2. A Very Short Introduction to Phonetic Languages and Poetry
Oleksandr Zhabenko
In the performance paper a question of creating the somewhat suitable for poetry and music text is explored. An idea of ”phonetic” languages is introduced, for which the phonetic properties are of greater importance than the grammar rules with possibly preserving the semantics of the text. Several programs in Haskell are used to test the idea. An algorithm and respective programs in Haskell are introduced to evaluate the suitability of the text in such a phonetic language for poetry and music. The results are used to create and analyze some Ukrainian texts and music using the programs and additionally SoX. Shown that The idea can be extrapolated and extended for the other languages especially those ones that do not request a strict words order.
3. The (not so) lonely Haskell Multimedia Live Programmer
Manuel Barenz
During lockdown, you can get bored. Very bored. So why not write yourself a little 2d video game and add some audio effects? If only there was a way to have other people interact with it over the internet…
In his spare time, Manuel Barenz turns into a Functional Reactive Programmer in Haskell who has recently acquired a taste for Live Coding.
4. Improv: Live Coding with TidalCycles
Ron Herrema ( http://ronherrema.net/ ).
“I once asked Pauline Oliveros if it was possible to make a mistake when improvising. She answered that the only mistake would be to not listen. For me live coding begins and ends with listening - initially to what is happening in my ‘inner ear’, and subsequently both internally and externally. I work with the affordances and constraints of TidalCycles to see what kind of journey this process will lead to, searching for a place of balance, and engaging in what Tim Ingold calls ‘the textility of making’.”
Ron Herrema is a composer, developer & digital artist. Senior Lecturer in Creative Computing, Bath Spa University.
5. Lightning Bug
Donya Quick ( http://www.donyaquick.com )
Lightning Bug is a largely algorithmic audio-visual work heavily inspired by the Goa Trance genre. The musical score was created largely using Haskell and the Euterpea library, and MIDI output from the code was processed through a variety of synthesizers, both analog and digital. Reactive visuals were created in Processing, where numerous agents, some seen and others unseen, influence each other and dance in response to the various parts in the music.
Donya Quick is a researcher in AI, language, and music who regularly uses Haskell in her work.
6. Rhythmr, Or Semi-Automated Audio Loops
Gregory Travis
Rhythmr is an interactive system, implemented in Haskell, for creating ear-pleasing rhythm loops from randomly-acquired audio files. The user iterates through an unending stream of randomly combined music loops, swiping left or right on each one to indicate whether they like it or not. Rhythmr derives a model of which combinations sound good based on user input, and from that, produces a complete song by inserting the chosen combinations into a predefined score.
7. Time Garden, Morning
Zach Duer, Scotty Hardwig, and Charles Nichols
Time Garden, Morning is a choreographic work operating at the intersection of physical and imagined virtual spaces. A single human’s movements are digitally captured, quantified, and translated into a digitally replicated army of avatars performing a ritual of the surveillance age. The work is set in an impossible virtual environment, where the body’s lymphatic system becomes a signal routing apparatus merging with a glitched infinite non-space of surreal digital fantasy.
The music was composed by mapping streams of position and distance data, from motion capture of the joints of the dancer, to granular synthesis and digital effects parameters. The granular synthesis was applied to recordings of a male vocalist, singing long tones with different vowels and reciting a poem written by the dancer. Stems of these granulated textures were attached to the avatars whose data were sonified. The jittery chorus of sung pitches and spoken words were accompanied by granulated falsetto and vocal percussion samples, triggered by data from a simulated lymphatic system, that surrounds the company of dancing avatars. Data from the lymphatic system controlled digital effects parameters, applied to these accompanimental textures.
Trees of expressions each receive input parameters, perform a set operation, and produce a result. Streams of motion capture data, branching from separate recordings of choreography and from each joint of the dancer’s body, were mapped to 3D models of the dancer’s limbs and parameters of audio synthesis and processing, to produce a visualization and sonification of the dancer’s movements. The work presents a chimeric vision of the human body fragmented in the cyber age, examining the relationship between physical and digital versions of self. We outline a novel space in dance visualization by examining the body’s contemporary position in the liminal space between physicality and digitality. Our research furthers a philosophical thread connecting the human body and technology through the organic to the posthuman by hybridizing them in digital space, where body and movement become replicable and simulateable.
Performers:
Zach Duer (Virginia Tech, http://www.zachduer.com) is an educator and artist. He is an Assistant Professor teaching in the Creative Technologies Program in the School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. His work lies at a series of intersections: sound and visualization; careful composition and improvised performance; intuitive musical spontaneity and structured digital systems. Spanning media including fixed-media sound and video collage, improvised multimedia performance, immersive environments, and projection mapped and 3D-printed sculpture, his works have been shown internationally in the United States, South Korea, Mexico, and Spain. He holds an MFA in Kinetic Imaging from Virginia Commonwealth University (2014), an MA in Music Composition from Mills College (2009) and a BM in Music Composition from Minnesota State University Moorhead (2007).
Scotty Hardwig (Viginia Tech, http://hardwigdance.com) is an experimental movement artist, performer, and teacher originally from southwest Virginia. His research practice stems from the confluence of sensory media and the moving body, creating movement-based artwork through live performance, installation/site-specific, and cinematic frames. He received his MFA in Dance from the University of Utah, and has served on the faculty at the University of Utah and Middlebury College, and is currently an Assistant Professor in Movement, Performance and Integrated Media at Virginia Tech, where he is experimenting and creating choreographic and cinematic works at the intersection of technology and the body.
Charles Nichols (Virginia Tech, http://www.charlesnichols.com). Composer, violinist, and computer music researcher Charles Nichols explores the expressive potential of instrumental ensembles, computer music systems, and combinations of the two, for the concert stage, and collaborations with dance, video, and installation art. He has worked with ensembles including the Beo String Quartet, Earplay, FLUX Quartet, Hypercube, Klang String Quartet, loadbang, PEN Trio, Sapphire Trio, Third Angle Ensemble, and Transient Canvas, and soloists including Brett Deubner, Susan Fancher, William Lang, Darragh Morgan, Sarah Plum, Kathleen Supové, and Steve Vacchi. He has collaborated with choreographers including Jane Comfort, Scotty Hardwig, and Amy Ragsdale, and artists including Paola Zellner Bassett, Meaghan Dee, Marie Yoho Dorsey, Zach Duer, and Joan Grossman. He teaches Composition and Creative Technologies at Virginia Tech, is a Faculty Fellow of the Institute for Creativity Arts and Technology, and earned degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Yale University, and Stanford University.
8. 18th Century Vivid
Tom Murhpy
Tom Murphy is a Haskell programmer, musician, and filmmaker. He is the author of Vivid, a Haskell library for music and sound with SuperCollider, and is one of the founders of Livecode.NYC.