KEY MATINEE AT NOVARS BY VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGIST, DR RUPERT COX

Pictured above, Tokyo. Photo by I. Pico.

(Thursday 26 March, 11.30, Studio 1).
NOVARS Research Centre welcomes Dr Rupert Cox, Lecturer in Visual Anthropology, to the Matinee Series.

Dr Cox conducts, amongst other things, cultural and community research from an aural-based anthropological point of view. He has recently been engaged with field research and recording work in areas of Japan, which he will be talking about in his Matinee Session.

Bio (University source): Specific research interests

Regional specialisation: Asceticism and the traditional arts in Japan. The visual history of mutual perceptions of Japan and Europe following the first contacts in the sixteenth century. The history and culture of Orientalist automata. Silence and place in Japan.

Topical interests: Visual history of anthropology; history, heritage and memory in museums; philosophies of representation; soundscape studies.

In his own words: 'My regional orientation is Japan where I have conducted extensive fieldwork into the Zen Arts, meaning practices such as the tea ceremony and the martial arts, work which as since been published with Routledge Press. Currently, I'm completing another multi-sited fieldwork study which investigates the history and practices associated with the idea of Japan as 'copying culture'. In these two projects and, while working as archivist of the photographic collection at the Royal Anthropological Institute and as co-director of an independent documentary film company, Native Voice Films, I have developed extensive interests in the broadly defined field of visual culture. These interests extend beyond filmmaking to encompass the history of forms of visuality and material exchange as they have been constructed since the first contacts between the West and Japan in the 16th century and the impact of new media technologies, in particular photography, on philosophies and practices of representation in Japanese Zen. In a new project that aims to develop soundscape studies and the use of sound recording within anthropology, I am investigating the perception and significance of silent places in Japan'.

Japanish Garden installation by Kenji Endo

PROCESSING workshop by Sam Salem at NOVARS

pictured above, Sam explaining how the OpenGL library operates within processing

Research Composer Sam Salem gave a workshop on PROCESSING (*) to the RESEARCH ASSEMBLAGE GROUP 5: the Synthesis & Software RAG.
Some members attended the call remotelly.
Please visit the following link for more information about RAGS group at NOVARS
To download the Processing Workshop materials click here

pictured above, an example run in class

(*) Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions

'Sir George' in Texas !!

Last February 2009, Centerpieces concerts series orginised by Dr Andrew May, featured works created at the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia and the NOVARS Research Centre, utilising new technologies and intermedia. Among other works, audiences at the Merril Ellis Intermedia Theater, listened to new works by Joseph Butch Rovan , Tsen-Ling Lin, Ricardo Climent.
'Sir George', created in Studio 1 by NOVARS's composer Ricardo Climent, in 2008, is a Fixed media composition which serves as a point of encounter between legendary British pop-rock sound and transitorized contemporary computer music synthesis of today. It takes the best of the flavour of tube-operated mixing consoles combined with classic outboard gear and four-track one-inch recorders and confronts it with a glitchy hi-tech computerized sonic scenario. Although one may argue that Sir George (which referes to Sir George Martin, also known as the fifth Beatle), is place for dreams and nostalgia, it is more my sonic exploration of a loss.

Housed within the Composition Division, the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia (CEMI) provides a unique environment for exploration of the time-based arts. An interdisciplinary center within UNT's Division of Composition Studies, CEMI is internationally renowned for its long history of innovation, particularly in the realm of electroacoustic music. Students, guests, and collaborators from a variety of disciplines engage in research, creation, and performance in CEMI's six production studios and the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater. This concert in the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater is made possible by the dedication and expertise of the CEMI Teaching Assistants: Nick Bober, Greg Dixon, Stephen Lucas, L. Scott Price, Ilya Rostovtsev. Andrew May, director

BARRY TRUAX - GUEST COMPOSER AT MANTIS SPRING - 7th-8th March 2009

Photo source: eartotheearth.org
MANTIS SPRING 09 FESTIVAL and the NWNW Conference (TheNorth West—North Wales Music Exchange Conference) at Manchester University, UK are delighted to have Professor Barry Truax as Guest composer this year, alongside Thomas Bjelkeborn (Resident Composer at NOVARS Research Centre).
Prof. Truax will perform his multichannel work The Shaman Ascending and will attend the conference.

Bio: Barry Truax is a Professor in both the School of Communication and the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University where he teaches courses in acoustic communication and electroacoustic music. He has worked with the World Soundscape Project, editing its Handbook for Acoustic Ecology, and has published a book Acoustic Communication dealing with all aspects of sound and technology. As a composer, Truax is best known for his work with the PODX computer music system which he has used for tape solo works and those which combine tape with live performers or computer graphics. A selection of these pieces may be heard on the recording Sequence of Earlier Heaven, and the Compact Discs Digital Soundscapes, Pacific Rim, Song of Songs, Inside, Islands, and Twin Souls, all on the Cambridge Street Records label, as well as the double CD of the opera Powers of Two and the latest CD, Spirit Journies. In 1991 his work, Riverrun, was awarded the Magisterium at the International Competition of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges, France, a category open only to electroacoustic composers of 20 or more years experience. He is also the recipient of one of the 1999 Awards for Teaching Excellence at Simon Fraser University. Barry is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre and a founding member of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community and the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. For more information, here's the Globe & Mail's In Person profile. And here's a video profile shown on Knowledge Network's program, "The Leading Edge", first broadcast March 22/06. For Bio source, click here

Programme note: The Shaman Ascending evokes the imagery of a traditional shaman figure chanting in the quest for spiritual ecstasy. However, in this case, the listener is placed inside of a circle of loudspeakers with the vocal utterances swirling around at high rates of speed and timbral development. The work proceeds in increasing stages of complexity as the shaman ascends towards a higher spiritual state.
The work and its title are inspired by a pair of Canadian Inuit sculptures by John Terriak with collectively the same name, as well as Inuit throat singing. All of the vocal material heard in the piece is derived from a recording of the Vancouver bass singer Derrick Christian.
The Shaman Ascending was realized in 2004-05 at the composer’s studio and mixed in the Sonic Research Studio of Simon Fraser University (SFU) (Vancouver, BC) and was premiered on February 12, 2005 during the festival trans_canada at the ZKM_Medientheater in Karlsruhe (Germany). The piece was commissioned by the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM). The 8-channel version of this work was created with Richmond Sound Design's AudioBox computer-controlled diffusion system. The stereophonic version of The Shaman Ascending was first released by Cambridge Street Records in 2007 on the CD Spirit Journies (CSR 0701). Premiere: February 12, 2005, trans_canada, ZKM_Medientheater (Karlsruhe, Germany).
For Programme notes Source, click here