Medea Electronique

Open Call Works For Saxophone and Electronics

2010-02-08T06:15:00.000-08:00

Application Fee: None

Project description: During Summer 2010, Medea Electronique will produce and publish with the saxophone player Guido De Flaviis a program of new music for saxophone and electronics. The recording is planned for online release and it will be a part of De Flaviis touring program. Interested composers are invited to submit works for consideration. For more details, please see the full call for scores at www.medeaelectronique.com

Eligibility: Composers of all ages and nationalities may submit music for consideration. We would prefer to receive no more than two submissions from each composer. Each piece should be no longer than 12 minutes. Selected composers must agree to the rules for participation.

Please Note: all works should be unpublished.

Before sending any materials, please complete the submission form.

Instrumentation: Solo Saxophone or Saxophone and computer/electronics. Works involving surround/multi-channel audio and/or incorporating video are welcome. The saxophonist can play soprano, alto, tenor and baritone sax. The piece can be written for one or more sizes of saxophones.
For more details about the instrumentation contact: guido.deflaviis@gmail.com or visit the web site www.guidodeflaviis.com

Submission address:
Manolis Manousakis
Feidou 11 Gerakas
153-44
Athens Greece

Materials to submit:
Score for each piece

•For review purposes, please submit either stereo or 5.0/5.1 versions of the works on CD, DVD, or DVD-A.

Projected timeline:
June 1st, 2010: submission deadline
July 15, 2010: announcement of results of selection process
October 2010-January 2010: rehearsal/planning
Dec 2010: recording
Feb 2010: commercial release of recording
Rules for participation:
To the extent possible, mechanical license fees will be paid to each selected composer. However, if production costs require it, composers will agree to waive mechanical license fees and/or accept 10 copies of the released DVD/DVD-A in lieu of fees. The finances of this project will be transparent and available for review to all selected composers throughout the process. Composers will retain copyright in their works.

For return of materials, please enclose SASE. Other materials will be retained and may be considered for future programming.

Open Call Koumaria 2009

2009-04-27T13:14:00.002-07:00

MedeaElectronique media lab residencies
Koumaria2009 – international open call

MedeaElectronique www.medeaelectronique.com is a cooperate group of individual artists that share a predisposition for innovation in performing arts. Working in fields like music, video, design, painting, multimedia, robotics, interactive technology and media production, we allow the integration of our distinctive areas of research and practice to define a unique style in the realization of various projects – from multimedia theatrical plays to experimental audio-visual shows and from electroacoustic compositions to human-machine-computer interfaces. MedeaElectronique also co-organises Electromedia Works, an annual multimedia festival ( HYPERLINK "http://www.emw.gr" www.emw.gr).

Between the 23rd and 31st of October, 2009
MedeaElectronique organizes Koumaria fall residency offering a week’s retreat for media artists in rural Sparta, Greece.

At the foot of Mount Taigetos, a huge private olive grove will be transformed into a laboratory for contemporary art. Offering a 400 square meter residency made into a modern mixed media art studio, we aim to bring together artists of different disciplines in order to develop a collective mixed media art project.

We are interested in the process itself, as a hypothesis and as an experiment in the search for an emerging work ethic, an intense and refreshing experience that will serve as a model for future creative gatherings.

The outcomes we are looking for include:
A public performance on the 31st of October in Athens, Greece
Material and ideas for further research and processing
Recorded improvisations and other emergent pieces of work to be shared and distributed in appropriate forms between the participants
Documentation of the whole process to be analysed and elaborated on
Further inspiring and productive collaborations to be initiated

The specificity of the place hints towards thematic directions relating to the ideas of creation and growth, serenity, light and the processes of natural flow, universals, as well as the journey outward and within. Anything else that might resonate with the participants during the residency will be greatly appreciated.

There will be a fare amount of relaxed personal space, friendly communal life, conversations, common experiments and improvisation, as well as daily key group sessions for reviewing, processing and structuring of ideas and materials.

We are looking for practitioners active in such diverse fields as: Electroacoustics, sonic art, live electronics, field recording, instrumental improvisation, performance art, VJing, video art, creative computer programming, creative hardware modification, plastic arts, conceptual art, drama, philosophy and semiotics. The list is non exhaustive and we will be happy to consider any interesting proposal.

The ideal participants would have interdisciplinary interests and a strong creative drive. They would be happy to share and embrace ideas, techniques, material, time and energy. They would need good social and communication skills, as well as the ability to function in a wide range of situations. A respect to the craft and the powers of improvisation will be also greatly appreciated.

We are expecting participants to enjoy a degree of self-sufficiency concerning creative tools: e.g. laptop, soundcard, recorder, microphone(s), headphones, camera(s), instruments and so on. We will be providing basic technical support including: a Mac G5 with Logic and Final Cut, assorted plugins, a 32-channel digital mixing desk, high-end monitoring, a range of studio microphones, preamps and sound processors, digital recorders, projector, materials, internet, etc.

Organic food from the farm and transport to nearby villages will be also provided. There will be access to a telescope dome observatory on the roof of the building. MedeaElectronique offers a limited number of bursaries meant to cover travel and other expenses (depending on each case). Particular technical and other arrangements will be made with each individual after initial selection.

Please download the application form from
www.medeaelectronique.com/residencies.html

Submit not later than the 15th of June 2009, by email to HYPERLINK "mailto:stgiann@yahoo.com" stgiann@yahoo.com
Selection will be completed by 15 July 2009.

www.medeaelectronique.com for more information, or contact the project curator Stelios Giannoulakis at
stgiann@yahoo.com

Case of Emergency Live Electronics/Cinema/Painting Performance project by MedeaElectronique

2009-04-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

Case of Emergency
Live Electronics/Cinema/Painting Performance project
by
MedeaElectronique

Case of Emergency is the project title of a performance that deals with the ongoing multi level decay of the historical (and not only) part of down-town Athens, Greece. Athens, like most EU capitals, is loaded with a sequence of historical events, cultural tendencies and practical particularities, which are embodied in variable percentages as aspects of the city’s contemporary character. Such an aspect with a major impact relates to the city’s architecture – buildings, streets and land marks – shaping our habitat and so our everyday life. Our “walkthrough” starts exactly here.

We examine the older, past century buildings that survived (not intact of course) the cruel cannibalism of modern urban “development”. Buildings that nowadays are left to rot under the unbearable weight of overlapping layers of dust and time. We document and explore the relations between the obvious structural decay of the habitat and the degree of influence that this decay has on the people living in it. Not in a scientific or philosophical way, but in a more simple first level aestheticist way, concentrating on their appearance, external colors, eye sight direction and maybe mood… That is of course related to “scientific or philosophical” related variables, but we’ll not deal with this either here or now… Nevertheless, we can’t hide our sadness and rage about it. What for others might be a settled everyday situation, to us is an unacceptable non stop insult to our dignity both emotional and spiritual. We experience striking events and strong emotional stimuli during our day-to-day life, so for us telling stories about these experiences and sharing these emotions through live performance is a crucial artistic approach, as well as a strong need for a cathartic release.

Finding the most interesting and powerful path that would combine our individual mediums for expression was just a part of the creative process. We concentrate on collection of materials on-site, studio creation and manipulation, structured improvisation and rehearsals. We want and need this project to be as direct and as “perception-of-our-own-reality” accurate as possible. We use the following tools and creative methods to achieve this:

- Live Cinema techniques that involve live editing / mixing between live and prerecorded footage
- Live Electroacoustic music created through manipulation of prerecorded and generated elements
- Live Painting on a variety of materials while operating a video camera

Case of Emergency is not intended to dictate or insinuate wise solutions or attribute responsibilities or blames. Case of Emergency is to portray, communicate and so comment on a sequence of evocative real life events, for people to see and maybe think through virtually experiencing it. This is our side of the story; this is our slice of contemporary life…

From Athens with Love

MedeaElectronique

Future Sound Of London In Athens

2009-03-05T05:19:00.000-08:00

NEW Up Loads

2008-12-06T01:26:00.000-08:00

Lust Illusions in A pond Of Lillies http://www.medeaelectronique.com/videos.html
New Papers http://www.medeaelectronique.com/papers.html

NEW SITE

2008-12-06T01:25:00.001-08:00

Check our NEW Site
www.medeaelectronique.com

PLEASE DO NO SEND ANY MORE APPLICATIONS OPEN CALL ENDED MARCH 31st

2008-04-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

PLEASE DO NO SEND ANY MORE APPLICATIONS OPEN CALL ENDED MARCH 31st

DEAD LINE

2008-03-02T04:50:00.000-08:00

OPEN CALL ELECTROMEDIAWORKS
For Dead Lines Visit
www.electromediaworks.eu

Application Form

2008-03-02T04:48:00.000-08:00

DOWNLOAD APPLICATION FORM

FROM

www.electromediaworks.eu

Open Call

2007-12-05T08:14:00.001-08:00

Medea Electronique
ElectroMediaWorks 08

OPEN CALL FOR PROJECTS & PROPOSALS

Medea Electronique - ElectroMediaWorks ’08 international presentation of Mixed Media Electronic Arts, will be held in Athens from May 14 to - May 18.
ElectroMediaWorks ’08 is open to anyone interested in the theory, technology, philosophy and practices of mixed media arts, in today’s state-of-the-art cultural landscape.
Medea Electronique, EPHMEE (Electroacoustic Music Research and Applications Lab, Music Dept. Ionian University) and CMCP (Center for Music Composition and Performance) co organize an intense five day and night program listing international shows and productions, for innovative media art, electronic music and cross-over art with artists such as musicians, video artists, performers, involving different arts and lifestyles.
The use and utilization of some of the 20th century’s technological breakthroughs by a number of creative people have played a decisive role in moving Art to an all-new terrain, in terms of both scope and form. Fine Arts started being examined from the viewpoint of a new reality, a reality defined by the newly acquired ability to capture image and sound by means of the New Media. This was only the beginning. If the term «New Media Arts» is hastily starting to express what contemporary art has been about the last couple of decades, then «Mixed Media Arts» explains the current holistic tendency to mix as a means to the end of completion. The wide availability of the new technologies and its maybe slow but deep penetration in modern life, have provided the artists with new creative tools, more powerful than ever, helping decisively towards a spectacular –if not dramatic – reinvention of art.

Medea Electronique - ElectroMediaWorks ’08 will be hosted at a 900-square meters industrial space down town Athens. A complete 16-channel diffusion system will be in place for the electroacoustic works and the live electronics and a 5.1 surround system for the video art installations.
The Artists can introduce their work to ElectroMediaWorks 08 by filling in
the entry form correctly. (Download Entry Form)
Please add adequate project documentation to your entry.

Deadline for applications
Composers - 31 March 2008
Video Artists – 15 March 2008
Performers - 29 February 2008

For More Information Contact Maria Aloupi, maria.aloupi@gmail.com
For Technical Enquiries Contact ptsagkarakis@yahoo.com

Or visit
medea-electronique.blogspot.com
www.cmcp.gr

Application Form

2007-12-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

Medea Electronique
ElectroMediaWorks 08
Application Form

Select Category
- Video Installation
- Performance Installation
- Video art/ VJing / LightJing
- Live Electronics
- Electroacoustic Music
- Videodance

Name:
Surname:
Country:
Email:
Address:
Phone:
URL:
Project:

1. An A4 size page with your proposal (about 500 words)
2. Relevant links
3. Press Release/ Pictures
4. Credits
5. 200 words CV
6. Selected additional audiovisual information
7. Tech Chart for installations. Audio requirements (Stereo, 5.1, 8 channel)

Deadline for applications
Composers - 31 March 2008
Video Artists – 15 March 2008
Performers - 29 February 2008
Installations – 29 February 2008

Sent all enquires to

Medea Electronique
Manolis Manousakis
Feidiou 11
Gerakas
153-44
Athens – Greece

Or by e-mail to medea_electronique@yahoo.com

For More Information Contact Maria Aloupi, maria.aloupi@gmail.com

For Technical Enquiries Contact ptsagkarakis@yahoo.com

Or visit

medea-electronique.blogspot.com

www.cmcp.gr

— 9th NWEAMO International Festival of Electro-Acoustic Music

2007-10-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

— 9th NWEAMO International Festival of Electro-Acoustic Music —

Greek Myth and Urban Legends
Athens (Greece) VJs put a new spin on the myth of Medea; DJs for the homeless mount their laptops onto shopping carts to gather unique sounds from San Diego’s inner city, and SWARMIUS conjures a new genre based on classical and speed metal.

Festival dates: Fri. Oct. 5 — Sat. Oct. 6 (2 nights, different program each night)
Venue: Smith Recital Hall
School of Music and Dance
San Diego State University
Tickets: $12 general; $8 students & seniors
Box Office: 619-594-6020
Information: 619-303-1509
Website: www.nweamo.org

“In nine years of NWEAMO no artist has ever put 3 shopping carts on the top of their equipment rider,” says Joe Waters, Artistic director of NWEAMO. “This posed an ethical dilemma: Should we attempt to acquire the shopping carts in the usual manner? Luckily Von’s came through with 3 loaners.”

NWEAMO festival seeks ways of connecting new, rebellious, controversial popular music and culture with the most ancient human rituals. This year NWEAMO looks at Greek Myths, notably the myth of Medea, enchantress and wife of Jason, in a live video opera that transplants Medea into the virtual tumult of electronic media saturation, instant global communication, and the intrigues of politics, terrorism and deceit. The greatest themes are ancient and modern. Along with this, other artists explore contemporary urban culture: the irony that makes super computer laptops cheap and available and puts them into the hands of every college student, while the shopping cart, symbol of plenty and homelessness, is the urban vehicle of necessity for the disenfranchised residents of a culture that depends on wheels. The legend of the promise of technology and the American dream.

On a parallel path, SWARMIUS makes music that takes the anger, intensity and idealism of speed metal and fuses this with classical chamber music (but a lot louder!). Is this what Beethoven would be messing around with if he was alive now?

This year NWEAMO expands to 4 cities, on consecutive weekends throughout October. The festival starts in San Diego, then moves each weekend to Boulder Colorado, Morelia Mexico, and winds up the weekend before Halloween in New York City. The programs have a bit of overlap, but mostly are unique this year, featuring a broad spectrum of styles and genres in electro-acoustic music from all over the world.

Program:

Friday, Oct. 5, 2007
• Mobile Performance Group (DeLand, Florida) with Leslie Seiters Dance
Shopping Cart DJ trio & improv. dance
• Medea Electronique (Athens, Greece): Video Opera
• SWARMIUS (San Diego): punk classical

Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007
• Noah Keesecker: urban dance video (a la Square Pusher)
• Joseph Vogel classical electronics and voice
• Synchronism Project : live film score
• SWARMIUS (San Diego) punk classical
• Fransisco Colasanto (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
• Milo Estrado: flamenco & electronics

Detail (information for each night):

Date: Friday, Oct. 5, 2007
Event: NWEAMO concert #1
Time: 8 — 9:30 PM

Artist Name: SWARMIUS
Contact: Jozefius aka Joseph Waters
Email: jwaters@josephwaters.com
Phone: 619-750-7125
Address: San Diego
Website: http://www.swarmius.com/
http://josephwaters.com/
Sound Files: http://www.myspace.com/swarmius

Title/Description: Grand Larceny: a bank heist: grab the money, race for the door, jump into getaway car, knock over fire hydrant as you tear around the corner, cops & sirens in pursuit. Based on speed metal.

Lucas — the Bringer of Light (March 21, 2007) explores the world through the senses of a 7 month-old baby. Babies have great vocals, from animal shrieks to cooing, to sounds made purely for play. The sounds are pure, honest, and vulnerable.

The other subject of this work is, paradoxically, machines, our love of them and the sounds they make. The whole enterprise of music revolves around a dependency and love of machines, whether electronic or mechanical. Machines ARE us — they are fingers and feet. They sing to us and soothe us. We bathe in their voices — the urban soundscape is a aural orgy of unpoliced whirring, growling, revving, purring — some call it noise pollution — most do not think about it — it is said that the wooshing of liquids in the womb sounds like a vacuum cleaner.

Biography: Comprised of SAXIMUS (saxophone), Fiddlus el Gato (violin), Crotalius Redfoot (percussion) and composer/laptop performer Jozefius Vaatierz Rattus, the quartet is committed to creating contemporary classical music with beats in streets, clubs, and bedrooms.

Contemporary African-American Music

SAXIMUS, in addition to having impeccable chops as an avant garde classical performer, also has a deep connection and knowledge of contemporary African-American music, electronica, punk and contemporary rock. He also played bass in a punk band for several years as a teenager, and this music had a formative effect on his tastes and attitudes as a mature musician.

Equally important to his performing style are the years when he was sponsored as an amateur skateboarder. "Being a skateboarder, has taught me that you have to have balls, you have to go for it. If you are speeding across a parking lot, about to kickflip-ollie down a set of 15 stairs, you have a choice to make. Either you pull the trick or you're going to end up bloody as hell, getting stitches and picking at scabs for the next three weeks. I keep the same mentality now when performing."

The youngest members of the group, both barely thirty, are SAXIMUS (aka Todd Rewoldt) and Fiddlus el Gato (Felix Olschofka). SAXIMUS, the quartets' saxophonist, completed his Doctorate in Saxophone performance at the tender young age of 26 at the prestigious Eastman School of Music.

Fiddlus el Gato was a recording artist at the age of fourteen and was a star at the renowned Berliner Hochschule für Musik (Germany's best conservatory). He performed for the president of Germany at age nineteen, and concertized widely across Europe as a teenage prodigy.

He said, "Most of my friends are not musicians – they are fun, active, modern young professionals from all over the world. They love classical music intensely but also want new music in a language that speaks to our time, our interests, our passions. I want to make that music for them!"

Towering Presence

At six-feet and three-inches tall, Fiddlus el Gato is a towering presence with huge hands that enfold his fragile, priceless violin.

According to SAXIMUS: Fiddlus has that whole European look going for him. You know, the 'fan' hairstyle, the tight jeans, and that lovely grin, with a laugh just behind the eyes. Each of us has a wild side. For Fiddlus this emerges when he is performing. Onstage he is a like a giant cat — prowling around the stage, making the violin sing, purr and growl, ready to pounce.

Fiddlus el Gato continues to play the great classics with orchestras throughout the world, and now is also focusing on the performance of contemporary literature, in particular, the music of SWARMIUS composer Jozefius Vaatierz Rattus (aka Joseph Waters). Jozefius is a member of the first generation of classical composers who grew up playing in rock bands, studied at Yale and has worked to create a startling musical brew that juxtaposes such odd bedfellows as hip-hop and Mahler, for example.

"I'm not interested in making simple, or, 'dumbed-down' music for the masses. On the contrary, I think in general people are smart, that the musical choices they make are important and worthy of serious consideration. I love classical music, and realize that for it to remain healthy it must connect in the most vital way with the music that most people listen to in their daily lives and that speaks to them and that they care about. I also love this music — it is where I came from and it resides deep in my gut.

Frequent Special Guest

Crotalius Red Foot (aka Joel Bluestone) was tapping things before he could walk, maintains a rigorous performance schedule of horse racing, rock drumming & head-banging. According to Crotalius, "I'm just a kid with two sticks who likes to party and extract sound from anything that does not protest too loudly." Crotalius' unique flair provides SWARMIUS with a blast of rhythmic color.

Traveling the World

SWARMIUS plays at diverse venues across the planet in places such as Bonn, Germany, Ljubljana, Slovenia, the Veneto Jazz Festival in Venice, Italy, rave club Rivolta in Marghera, Italy, Flykingen in Stockholm, Berlin, Morelia, San Diego and New York City.

They are working on their first CD/DVD release, due out in early 2008.

Artist: Medea Electronique

Contact: Emmanuil Manousakis
Email: manolis.manousakis@yahoo.com
Phone: 011306978118448
Address: Athens, Greece
Website: http://medea-electronique@blogspot.com

Title/Description: Peirama 1 — based on a contemporary reading of the Myth of Medea. The inner voice of Medea, is the human conscience trying to change the course of the events and prevent murder.

Medea figures in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts. Medea is known in most stories as an enchantress and wife of Jason. She is the granddaughter of the sun god Helios and a niece of the witch Circe.

This modern day Medea has memories of televised wars, Reuters’ pictures in her mind. Recorded, radiophone sounds are reproduced in parallel to her inner voice, making the latter indiscernible. Bits of Audiovisual information fly around her head affecting her judgment.

The play relies on Interactive technology to create a dynamic environment where visual and sonic data of the performance are continuously processed and re-imported into the play. The audience affects the play by commenting with electronic sensors. The creation of this virtual environment is achieved through use of multiple video screens, scattered around the audience, so that the projected action the engulfs the audience. The audience interacts with his virtual environment, co-directing the play.
s
Biography: Medea Electronique, based in Athens, Greece, founded 2006, is composer Manolis Manousakis, Panagiotis Tsagarakis (computer programming, interactive technology) and Yannis Lolis (video art and computer animation).

Artist: Noah Keesecker
Contact: Noah Keesecker
Email: n@noahkeesecker.com
Phone: 612-360-8360
Address: Minneapolis, MN
Website: http://www.noahkeesecker.com

Tonegoblin (2007) is a complex layering of many extremely intricate surfaces into a hyper-surface experience that disregards 'deep' in favor of an obsessively precise directness. The result is simultaneously startling, absurd, funny, intense and danceable.

Biography: Noah Keesecker is a multi-disciplinary artist, primarily working in sound. His interests span into the realm of video, installation, text and performance art.

Artist: Mobile Performance Group
Contact: Nathan Wolek
Email: nathan@lowkeydigitalstudio.com
Phone: 386.848.2551
Website: http://www.mobileperformancegroup.com

Description: With laptops and video projectors mounted on shopping carts and powered by marine batteries, Mobile Performance Group (MPG) presents mobile and improvised audiovisual performances using materials gathered specifically from the festival location. During the day, MPG collects sounds & images from sites surrounding the venue using audio & video recording equipment, in addition to other small found objects. At night, MPG improvises live using custom software that enables the performers to manipulate these materials in real-time. Using modified shopping carts, MPG is able to move around the city and locate public spaces in which the group can present their unique brand of audiovisual performance.

Biography: Based in Florida, Mobile Performance Group (MPG) is a collective of new media artists interested in finding new ways to present art and music outside of traditional venues. MPG disseminates their work by using automobiles, video projection, cell phones, FM transmission, wireless hotspots, and any other technologies that allow artist to engage the public. The Group was founded by Matt Roberts and is part of Stetson University’s Digital Art program.

Date: Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007
Event: NWEAMO concert #2
Time: 8 — 9:30 PM

Artist: Joseph Vogel
Contact: Joseph Vogel
Email: joseph.m.vogel@gmail.com
Phone: 612-825-1899
Address: Minneapolis, MN
Website: http://www.abbiebetinis.com

Title/Description: Dancing Light uses text to create a sonic landscape. The melody was written as a text painting with its accompanying material reinforcing these ideas. The tape part consists of vocal material and a melody sung by a female vocalist that I digitally manipulated. The work is partly an exploration of what the female voice is capable of. The performer here is given a lot of freedom, within certain guides posts, to shape her part as she sees fit.

Artist: Synchronism Project
Contact: Ross Karre & William Brent
Email: ross.karre@gmail.com
Phone: 440 935 2489
Address: San Diego, CA
Website: http://www.synchronismproject.com

Title/Description: Dziga Vertov makes clear his intentions of a "total separation from the language of theatre and literature" in his 1929 formalist masterpiece, the Man with a Movie Camera. As one of the first examples of cinema verite', Man with the Movie Camera seeks to capture life through the eye of the camera; with no narrative, plot, or scenario. Ross Karre and William Brent's live score strives to emphasize the formalist spirit of this pre-WWII film with the sounds of the 21st century: percussion and electronics. With a mesmerizing and meticulous musical structure predicated on a synchronized one-note-per-cut formal system, the live score transports the audience member into the intricate world of Dziga Vertov’s “Kino-eye”.

Biography: Ross Karre has presented video and percussion works in the art galleries and performance halls throughout the USA & Europe. He has worked with legendary music figures Pierre Boulez,SO percussion, Simon Rattle, Steven Schick, Meredith Monk and Joan Tower.

William Brent has worked with Fred Frith, Alvin Curran, and Pauline Oliveros.

Artist Name: Genre?
Contact: Milo Estrada
Email: agroelectronic@yahoo.com
Phone: 541-385-4902
Address: Bend, OR
Website: http://www.genre.altpro.net

Biography: Milo Estrada is a traditional Flamenco guitarist who incorporates elements of Alternative, Industrial, Electronic, Edgy, etc. Genre? has heavy Synth lines, Intricate guitar, driving drum beats, and smooth melodic vocal.

Artist Name: SWARMIUS
Contact: Joseph Waters
Email: jwaters@josephwaters.com
Phone: 619-750-7125
Address: San Diego
Website: http://www.swarmius.com/

Title/Description: Lucas — the Bringer of Light (March 21, 2007) explores, mainly, the world as perceived through the senses of a 7 month-old baby.. The infant expresses itself with an enormous range of vocalisms, from animal shrieks to soothing cooing, to vocal sounds made purely for experimentation. The sounds are pure, unbiased, capable only of honesty, dependent, fragile and vulnerable.

The other subject of this work is, paradoxically, machines, or more precisely our love of them and affection for them and the sounds they make. The whole enterprise of music revolves around a dependency and love of machines, whether electronic or mechanical. Machines ARE us — they are fingers and feet. They sing to us and soothe us. We bathe in their voices — the urban soundscape is a aural orgy of unpoliced whirring, growling, revving, purring — some call it noise pollution — most do not think about it — it is said that the wooshing of liquids in the womb sounds like a vacuum cleaner.

Biography: Comprised of SAXIMUS (saxophone), Fiddlus el Gato (violin), and composer/laptop performer Jozefius Vaatierz Rattus, the trio is committed to creating a contemporary classical music and contemporary dance that reflects and connects to the music in the streets, clubs, and bedrooms of today's world. Each of SWARMIUS' members is a virtuoso in his own right.

The youngest members of the group, both barely thirty, are SAXIMUS (aka Todd Rewoldt) and Fiddlus el Gato (Felix Olschofka). SAXIMUS, the quartets' saxophonist, completed his Doctorate in Saxophone performance at the tender young age of 26 at the prestigious Eastman School of Music.

Fiddlus el Gato was a recording artist at the age of fourteen and was a star at the renowned Berliner Hochschule für Musik (Germany's best conservatory). He performed for the president of Germany at age nineteen, and concertized widely across Europe as a teenage prodigy.

He said, "Most of my friends are not musicians – they are fun, active, modern young professionals from all over the world. They love classical music intensely but also want new music in a language that speaks to our time, our interests, our passions. I want to make that music for them!"

Towering Presence

At six-feet and three-inches tall, Fiddlus el Gato is a towering presence with huge hands that enfold his fragile, priceless violin.

According to SAXIMUS: Fiddlus has that whole European look going for him. You know, the 'fan' hairstyle, the tight jeans, and that lovely grin, with a laugh just behind the eyes. Each of us has a wild side. For Fiddlus this emerges when he is performing. Onstage he is a like a giant cat — prowling around the stage, making the violin sing, purr and growl, ready to pounce.

Fiddlus el Gato continues to play the great classics with orchestras throughout the world, and now is also focusing on the performance of contemporary literature, in particular, the music of SWARMIUS composer Jozefius Vaatierz Rattus (aka Joseph Waters). Jozefius is a member of the first generation of classical composers who grew up playing in rock bands, studied at Yale and has worked to create a startling musical brew that juxtaposes such odd bedfellows as hip-hop and Mahler, for example.

"I'm not interested in making simple, or, 'dumbed-down' music for the masses. On the contrary, I think in general people are smart, that the musical choices they make are important and worthy of serious consideration. I love classical music, and realize that for it to remain healthy it must connect in the most vital way with the music that most people listen to in their daily lives and that speaks to them and that they care about. I also love this music — it is where I came from and it resides deep in my gut.

Contemporary African-American Music

SAXIMUS, in addition to having impeccable chops as an avant garde classical performer, also has a deep connection and knowledge of contemporary African-American music, electronica, punk and contemporary rock. He also played bass in a punk band for several years as a teenager, and this music had a formative effect on his tastes and attitudes as a mature musician.

Equally important to his performing style are the years when he was sponsored as an amateur skateboarder. "Being a skateboarder, has taught me that you have to have balls, you have to go for it. If you are speeding across a parking lot, about to kickflip-ollie down a set of 15 stairs, you have a choice to make. Either you pull the trick or you're going to end up bloody as hell, getting stitches and picking at scabs for the next three weeks. I keep the same mentality now when performing."

Frequent Special Guest

Crotalius Red Foot (aka Joel Bluestone) was tapping things before he could walk, maintains a rigorous performance schedule of horse racing, rock drumming & head-banging. According to Crotalius, "I'm just a kid with two sticks who likes to party and extract sound from anything that does not protest too loudly." Crotalius' unique flair provides SWARMIUS with a blast of rhythmic color.

Traveling the World

SWARMIUS plays at diverse venues across the planet in places such as Bonn, Germany, Ljubljana, Slovenia, the Veneto Jazz Festival in Venice, Italy, rave club Rivolta in Marghera, Italy, Flykingen in Stockholm, Berlin, Morelia, San Diego and New York City.

They are working on their first CD/DVD release, due out in early 2008.

Stage 2

2007-05-14T03:07:00.000-07:00

Interactive Condition

2007-05-14T03:05:00.000-07:00

Interactive Condition

In modern performance, technological means are the sine qua non of the creation and the expression of the play-act-drama. Interactivity in its bare-bones version entails the communication among the performer, the musicians and the public. Breakthroughs in technology led to the establishment of a new relation – between man and personal computer. This opened new grounds for change in performance art.

Medea Electronique suggests a convolution of different art forms, such as theatre, dance, sonic art, video and music under an interactive condition, providing the communicative means that will give the artist/ creator with the possibility to express all man’s experience. The spectator for his part exposed in this rich breadth of stimuli experiences a particular and “extended” experience.

In brief, the aim behind the designing of the interactive systems for the present application is the recognition of human body movement and its conversion to digital data, using a personal computer. These data are used for the controlling of the sound and visual result as the play develops.

Taking under consideration the need for the presentation of the play in different types of venues, two different interactive systems have been developed, focusing on the performer’s actions and audience’s movement respectively.

1. Interaction between performer and computer: In plays taking place in theatres and other venues where people are seated, the interactive system analyses the performers motion, providing him with the ability to add to his expression arsenal new means, on top of movement and speech.
2. Interaction between audience and computer: In cases where the venue does not have seats – foyers, lounges, open-air festivals – the sensors capture the action/reaction of the public, thus influencing the visual environment and lighting conditions of the show. The interaction between the audience and the computer increases the former ’s participation and thus its holistic experience; this way the outcome of the act is - to an extent - modified.

Design of the Lights Control System

In our aim to create a dynamic environment, the fixed and mobile sources of lighting function as the unifying element for the sense of sight. Briefly put, they express the sentimental alternations of the performers in each scene and unify the multiple sources of visual material (projections) in the space. Further, with the combined use of interactive systems they express at times the action performer and when the spectators, depending on the system and the space of presentation of work.

The controlling parameters of the lights system come from three data inputs, which are blended together depending on the circumstances.

1) manual settings stored in memory presets
2) data from the performer’s movement recognition
3) data from the audience’s movement recognition

The system used for controlling audio, video and lights is based on a multimedia platform designed and developed by Panagiotis Tsagkarakis and Iannis Zannos (Head of the “Audio – Visual” department, Ionian University). It was firstly presented in the “Programming Interactive Installations” workshop (“Info-System” exhibition, Hellexpo, Thessaloniki 2006).

System Design for the live processing of video material

2007-05-14T03:02:00.000-07:00

System Design for the live processing of video material

In this modern day transcription of the play, we are called to create a dynamic environment surrounding the audience and changing during the course of the play. This will be made possible through the installation of multiple sources of picture and sound and light around the audience, which will create the sense of multi-dimensional action. The use of interactive systems allows for the immersion of the spectator in this environment; the spectator’s reactions will co-defines the overall aesthetics of the play.

One of the basic needs for the design of a system that will process live visual material is adaptation in different spaces of presentation of work, such as theatres, foyer and open-air spaces. This need led to the design and implementation of a flexible system, constituted from interconnected units of image processing. This way, depending on the particular venue a custom structure is built with the respective interconnection of these units, covering thus both the technical needs of the show and the team’s collective creative expression. Such needs are for instance a change in the number of image sources (projections) so that each particular place is covered, the effortless re-arrangement of the visual effects layout (so that the desired aesthetic result is achieved) and the connection of an external control device for the live mixing and editing of visual data.

An increase in the number of projections in the venue, has an analogous effect on the processing power needed, with a single computer not being able to handle the workload. Hence the network of personal computers used, one for controlling the others, and the others for image rendering.

Two software packages have been used for the generation, processing and control of the video material:
Max/MSP/Jitter for the creation of a series of management and processing units, which are used according the presentation condition: video playback, visual effects, picture separation, to name a few.
SuperCollider controls the aforementioned units and the inter-computer communication. Both software packages are in direct communication through the use of the OSC [open sound control] protocol.

Interactive Condition

In modern performance, technological means are the sine qua non of the creation and the expression of the play-act-drama. Interactivity in its bare-bones version entails the communication among the performer, the musicians and the public. Breakthroughs in technology led to the establishment of a new relation – between man and personal computer. This opened new grounds for change in performance art.

Medea Electronique suggests a convolution of different art forms, such as theatre, dance, sonic art, video and music under an interactive condition, providing the communicative means that will give the artist/ creator with the possibility to express all man’s experience. The spectator for his part exposed in this rich breadth of stimuli experiences a particular and “extended” experience.

In brief, the aim behind the designing of the interactive systems for the present application is the recognition of human body movement and its conversion to digital data, using a personal computer. These data are used for the controlling of the sound and visual result as the play develops.

Taking under consideration the need for the presentation of the play in different types of venues, two different interactive systems have been developed, focusing on the performer’s actions and audience’s movement respectively.

1. Interaction between performer and computer: In plays taking place in theatres and other venues where people are seated, the interactive system analyses the performers motion, providing him with the ability to add to his expression arsenal new means, on top of movement and speech.
2. Interaction between audience and computer: In cases where the venue does not have seats – foyers, lounges, open-air festivals – the sensors capture the action/reaction of the public, thus influencing the visual environment and lighting conditions of the show. The interaction between the audience and the computer increases the former ’s participation and thus its holistic experience; this way the outcome of the act is - to an extent - modified.

Design of the Lights Control System

In our aim to create a dynamic environment, the fixed and mobile sources of lighting function as the unifying element for the sense of sight. Briefly put, they express the sentimental alternations of the performers in each scene and unify the multiple sources of visual material (projections) in the space. Further, with the combined use of interactive systems they express at times the action performer and when the spectators, depending on the system and the space of presentation of work.

The controlling parameters of the lights system come from three data inputs, which are blended together depending on the circumstances.

1) manual settings stored in memory presets
2) data from the performer’s movement recognition
3) data from the audience’s movement recognition

Technology

The system used for controlling audio, video and lights is based on a multimedia platform designed and developed by Panagiotis Tsagkarakis and Iannis Zannos (Head of the “Audio – Visual” department, Ionian University). It was firstly presented in the “Programming Interactive Installations” workshop (“Info-System” exhibition, Hellexpo, Thessaloniki 2006).

Stage

2007-05-03T06:05:00.000-07:00

Peirama 1 (Project 1)

2007-05-03T03:47:00.000-07:00

The first creative offering of the Medea Electronique team is titled Peirama 1 (pronounced Peeramah Hena). It is based on a different reading of the Myth of Medea. The Chorus, the inner voice of Medea, is the human conscience reacting to what will follow and tries to change the course of the events and prevent the act of murder.

The psychological swings of the characters are of utmost importance to this play, and Medea’ s dilemma is repositioned on the moral-immoral, fair-unfair axes, given today’ s different circumstances. The modern day Medea, has different experiences in many domains. She has been listening to different music, has memories of televised wars, Reuters’ pictures in her mind. Recorded, radiophone sounds are reproduced in parallel to her inner voice, making the latter indiscernible. Bits of Audiovisual information fly around her head affecting her judgment.

The play is in many ways diversified from a classic Euripides Medea. In terms of content, plot, presentation and rigidity. It is largely relies on Interactive technology to create a dynamic environment where visual and sonic data of the performance are continuously processed and re-imported into the play. The spectators, contrary to what would happen in during a play in ancient Epidaurus public, are not expected to keep their sentiments to themselves. Spectators are unlike. The creation of this virtual environment is achieved through the positioning of multiple visual sources of moving picture, sound and light around the audience, so that the projected action creates a strong impact on the viewer as well as a feeling of being part of it. The spectator interacts with his virtual environment, co-directing the play, offering his recorded feedback. The sentimental swings of the performers are expressed through the audiovisual material and the projections alternate between the action of the performers and the spectators’ reactions.

Poster

2007-05-03T03:29:00.000-07:00

Medea Electronique

2007-05-03T03:23:00.000-07:00

To say that the 20th century has provided mankind with a wealth of scientific and technological breakthroughs, while awfully common, is rather well-established. It is also well established that a number of those breakthroughs quickly found their way in peoples’ everyday lives. What might be less widely accepted or inadequately documented is that some of them, used and utilized by a few gifted men have in fact helped to move Art to an all-new terrain, both in terms of scope and form. Fine Art started being examined from the viewpoint of a new reality, a reality defined by the newly acquired ability to capture light-vision and air – sound by means of the New Media. This was only the beginning. If the term «New Media Arts» is hastily starting to express what contemporary art has been about the last couple of decades, then «Mixed Media Arts» explains the current holistic tendency to mix as a means to the end of completion. The wide availability of the new technologies and its maybe slow but deep penetration in modern life, have provided the artists with new creative tools, more powerful than ever , helping decisively towards the creation of a framework for a spectacular –if not dramatic – reinvention of art. Speaking of an approaching cosmogony would only be a slight exaggeration.