Dafna Naphtali: Audio Chandelier | Hans Tammen: Endangered Guitar

Dafna Naphtali: Audio Chandelier | Hans Tammen: Endangered Guitar
Date and Time
Thursday April 25th, 2019
7:30 - 9:30pm
Location
CCRMA Stage, The Knoll
About this event

This double-bill event at CCRMA Stage will include two different artists' programs in one evening.

Dafna Naphtali's Audio Chandelier: Gears, Outtakes, Fry is made up of individual grains of nearly static sound dispersed to 8-16 speakers and altered as granular synthesis illuminates and refracts moments in time. In each of this set of three pieces, field recordings and audio samples and live vocals are processed as one “grain” is sent to each speaker available. By manipulating the grains of sound (which remain static in each speaker) a surprising array of sounds and environments are created — from shimmering motion to reverberant spaces, to low crashing waves, to hyper-electronics refraction of sound, layered with additional audio using “SpeakerKeys,” a MIDI keyboard-controlled routing of sounds as “notes” — one note per speaker, so the speakers can be played as large group of individual sounding instruments. Audio Chandelier has been presented since 2008 as multi-channel fixed media, an interactive performance, by smartphone ensembles, and by laptop orchestras (PLOrk, NYU) in Berlin (Urban Solar Audio Plant, Orbis Festivals) and at Societé des Artes Technologiques in Montreal.

Hans Tammen likes to set sounds in motion, and then sitting back to watch the movements unfold. His music has been described as an alien world of bizarre textures and a journey through the land of unending sonic operations. Signal To Noise called his playing “…a killer tour de force of post-everything guitar damage”. The Endangered Guitar is a hybrid interactive instrument meant to facilitate live sound processing, which grew out of an already decade long practice of Fred Frith-inspired "prepared guitar" performances. An interactive software developed since the year 2000, the analysis of the incoming guitar sounds is used as control source for the processing of the same sounds. Subsequent programming of more and more “uncertainties” into the response of the software (such as data from his own DNA analysis) resulted in performances that were using the instrument more like a “co-player”. It has been presented in 23 different countries on 4 continents; in solo to large ensemble settings; through stereo to multichannel sound systems including Wavefield Synthesis; in collaborative projects with dance, visuals, and theater; and across many different musical styles.

Event Sponsor
Department of Music, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics