Yolande Harris

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The Meta-Orchestra in Maastricht / March 2004

Jan van Eyck AcademyStichting Intro / In Situ

occupying the Klankwerkplaats of Stichting Intro 15 - 21 Marchpublic presentation / performance from 18:00hrs Sunday 21 MarchCapucijnenstraat 98 Maastricht

Yolande Harris (GB/NL) / sound and video-organBert Bongers (NL) / interactivated spaces and video-organHilary Jeffery (GB/NL) / tromboscillatorCesar Villavicencio (BR/NL) / electronic contrabass recorderGuy de Bievre / (B) electric guitar and micro-controllersJos Mulder / (NL) sound design and networkingSebastian Harris (GB/ES) / set design and filmingSebastian Menendez (AR) / graphic design and percussionFlorencia Reina (AR) / graphic design and animationSpecial guest Jonathan Impett (GB) / meta-trumpet

The Meta-Orchestra presents a performance that combines electronic and acoustic sounds, video and live projections, dynamic placing of image and sound, spaces extended by sensors.The group has worked together during the last week in a Lab / workshop environment experimenting with combining their individual materials into a collaborative result. The emphasis has been on researching the seemingly endless possibilities of collaboration through computer technologies, pushing ideas into practice and combining the natural with the technological, the acoustic with the electronic, the sonic with the visual.The addition of a network layer between the very different individual set-ups of the group provides an ap-parently common ground for collaboration. A musician can control an image, several musicians can influ-ence each otherʼs sounds, the gestural movements through a space can affect the placing of the sound or image in space. The orchestra has looked at how to distribute this potential in a performance, how to make visible what is happening and how to combine this layer of networked linkage to the communication layers and roles already existing in a performance group.The informal performance presents this working setting by inviting the audience to explore the lab and its surrounding spaces whilst the Meta-Orchestra plays.

© Meta-Orchestra Maastricht, 2004

Text, photos, drawings: Yolande Harris and Meta-Orchestra membersDesign, editing: Yolande HarrisMeta-Orchestra Logo: Sebasian MenendezScore Spaces logo: Yolande HarrisFilming: Sebastian HarrisVideo editing: Yolande HarrisProduction: MaasLab, Maastricht

The Maastricht Meta-Orchestra was made possible by financial support from the Jan van Eyck Academy, and the generous hosting by Stichting Intro / In Situ, Maastricht. The orchestra would also like to thank the MaasLab for the specialist technical support, Het Domein in Sittard for the use of two projectors, and Johan Luijmes for his enthusiasm.

www.meta-orchestra.orgwww.stichtingintro.nlwww.janvaneyck.nlwww.maaslab.net

A Score Spaces Project

The Meta-Orchestra has always aimed at being a flexible group for practical research and performance since its start as a European Project in 2000. One of the found-ing ideas was that the orchestra did not constitute a fixed group of people, but could and should exist in any vari-ation with changing members and an essentially multi-disciplinary character. The term orchestra was chosen as a way to describe an asymmetric collective of artists of varying specialities, where each electronically extended instrument or environment revealed a personal and idiosyncratic solution to the complexities presented by computer technologies. Co-ordination and collaboration within such an asymmetric group cannot be resolved by one domineering score system or one approach to structuring space or time.The Maastricht meeting is the fourth Meta-Orchestra, after Dartington (2000), Amsterdam (2001) and Barcelona (2002). The group is slightly smaller, with seven original members and three new members. The special guest Jonathan Impett and Bert Bongers were the founding directors of the Meta-Orchestra project; Hilary Jeffery, Cesar Villavicencio, Jos Mulder and Yolande Harris (the instigator of this meeting) have been involved in all the previous meetings as performers and researchers; Sebastian Harris has filmed previous performances. They are joined by two graphic designers Sebastian Menendez and Florencia Reina, and musician and theorist Guy de Bievre, all researchers at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht.

Invitation

Introduction

Biographies

The Meta-Orchestra: research by practice in group multi-disciplinary electronic arts.

Reports, designs and reflections from the Meta-Orchestra

Publicity

CD-rom: video documentation of final MO performance / presentation 13ʼ34”

Biographies

Hilary Jeffery - musician - born in England 1971. Trombonist and composer working in the areas of contemporary improvised and composed music. He has recorded with Hugh Davies, Germ, the Paul Dunmall Octet, as a solo artist and with his groups Kreepa and Sand. Kreepa mix live instruments and computers to create powerful electronic improvisations. Sand have been recording and touring since 1995, they have released two albums on Soul Jazz Records and have performed around the UK, mainland Europe and with Saburo Teshigawaraʼs dance company Karas at the New National Theatre in Tokyo. In 1998 he was invited to study with the influential trombonist and composer James Fulkerson at the European Dance Development Centre in Arnhem, Netherlands. He has also studied at Dartington College of Arts, the University of York and at the Institute of Sonology. Hilary plays improvised and composed music with Paul Dunmallʼs Quartet and Octet, the Barton Workshop and the Jimi Tenor Big Band. In 2001 he was invited to join Apa Ini - a quartet with fellow Amsterdam improvisors Toby Delius, Wilbert de Joode and Serigne Gueye. Various trombones have accompanied him to many inspiring places including the Sahara Desert (1990), Dartington Hall (1990), underground raves in the UK (early ʻ90s), the Anthroposophic “Goetheanum” (1994), Abney Park Cemetery in London (1996), Vienna Volksoper (2000), Tokyo New National Theatre (2000), the Stubnitz Boat (2001), a burlesque cabaret in NYC (2001) and the Alicante Casino (2002).

Cesar Villavicencio was born in Peru in 1968. After following musical studies in São Paulo, Brazil, he obtained the Soloist Diploma in recorder at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, The Netherlands.He performs ancient music as well as contemporary repertoire. In the field of contemporary music, his main interest is the development of new techniques which give the recorder the possibilities of interacting with the electro-acoustics. He created, in cooperation with the Institute of Sonology of the Royal Conservatory, a MIDI counter bass recorder (e-recorder) which interacts with the environment of improvisation and live electronic music. With the e-recorder he has played with improvisers such as Richard Barrett, James Fulkerson, Evan Parker, Jonathan Impett, among others. His group Kreepa performs using extended instrumental techniques, live electronics, sound difusion, and dance. Villavicencioʼs performances have been presented by Steim in Amsterdam, Metronom in Barcelona, Logos in Ghent, FIU in Miami, WORM in Rotterdam, and Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. Villavicencio is guest teacher at the Classical Music Department and at the Ancient Music Department of the Royal Conservatory.He has performed and recorded with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra conducted by Ton Koopman. Periodically, gives workshops and concerts throughout Europe, North and South America.

Jonathan Impett, BMus (London), MMus (London), MSc (City), PhD (Cantab)Jonathanʼs research is in the field of interactive music systems, and combines composition, performance, computers and sensing technology. His compositions make extensive use of improvisation, real-time composition and sound-processing, and interactive techniques, and have been performed at the Venice Biennale,Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and for the BBC, and he was awarded a Prix Ars Electronica in 1994. As a trumpeter, Jonathan has given premières of solo works by Berio, Finnissy, Harvey and Scelsi, including performances at the BBC Proms and IRCAM Paris, and has developed a computer-extended “meta-trumpet”. He also plays the baroque trumpet and cornetto, and is a member of The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. He is a member of the Arts Council of England Music Panel, and of the editorial board of Leonardo Music Journal.

Sebastian Harris (England 1981) studied architecture at Cambridge University. His present architectural commissions include a Butterfly Farm and a family house, both in Mallorca Spain. He worked as principal set-designer for Cloud 9 architects in Barcelona for the John Cage memorial project in Mercat de les Flors, and has worked with the Meta-Orchestra performance in Amsterdam. Sebastian has made a number of architectural videos, including the Miro Foundation Mallorca, which he has exhibited along with his drawings in London. He is publishing a travelogue of his drawings, which investigate the relation between the mode of travelling by sail and the architectural sites and design of cities in Ancient Greece. Sebastian will continue his studies at the Architectural Association in London.

Yolande Harris (England 1975) is a composer and visual artist, concentrating on the boundaries between disciplines through performance, improvisation and event. Her graphic and visual scores explore notation as an interface and communication medium between the changing roles of composer, performer and improviser. Her performances with live video are a natural extension of these ideas, researching the potentials of augmenting architectural space through audio-visual expression.The Video-Organ instrument, developed in Barcelona with interaction designer Bert Bongers, enables the live transformation of video and sound in a multiple projection architectural setting. Performances at festivals have included Metronom Barcelona, MediaLabEurope Dublin, STEIM Amsterdam, Alicante Casino, Nau Coclea Girona, Metapolis Media House Barcelona.The Video Walks are mobile performances exploring wilderness environments with portable projections and sound. Beaches and forests of the Empurda region of Catalunya have been most recently followed by the indoor maze of Between:Two, Duet for Mobile Video Players in Maastricht. Yolande studied music, history of art and philosophy at Edinburgh University and composition and performance (flute, piano) at Dartington College of Arts, and has a postgraduate MPhil in Architecture and the Moving Image from Cambridge University. She studied composition with Peter Sculthorpe, Lou Harrison and Frank Denyer and has had her visual scores interpreted by among others Joanna MacGregor, the Composers Ensemble and Evan Parker. The graphically notated composition for 60 players “Tidal: Nomad: Mad” was performed by the Banda Municipal de Barcelona, a commission of the LEM festival of experimental music.As researcher in residence at the Jan van Eyck Academy for visual arts in Maastricht, she initiated the fourth meeting of the Meta-Orchestra. Her Score Spaces research project investigates the (musical) score as the skeleton supporting musical, visual and architectural communications. It seeks to understand relationships in complex multi-disciplinary projects where a common ground lies in technological experiments. The practical performance research group the Meta-Orchestra has been investigating the complex relations between visual arts, music, performance and architecture in a technological era of personal and increasingly ubiquitous computing. New instruments, audience interfaces, high-speed wireless networks and mobile cameras form an experimental technological environment needing a performance practice. The role and forms of a dynamic spatial score-system to bring structure to a complex collaborative project is being developed.She has published about her research on fluid notations and extended spaces and presents her work at conferences and lectures.

Bert Bongers (NL, 1964) has a mixed background in technology and the human sciences, and studies the relation between these fields. He has designed and built many electronic instruments for musicians, compos-ers, and artists, and works with architects on interactive spaces. In the past he researched novel interaction styles for multimedia systems at Philips and haptic interfaces for physically handicapped at Cambridge Univer-sity, set up an electronic arts lab in Barcelona, has been technical director and professor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (the prestigious post-graduate artist-in-residence) in Amsterdam, and has been advisor and guest lecturer at several art and design institutions. Together with Yolande Harris he developed and per-forms with a novel audiovisual instrument, the Video-Organ, and organised a festival on new interfaces in the arts and music in Barcelona.In 2000 with European Funding he founded (together with Jonathan Impett) the Meta-Orchestra, a changing and nomadic group of artists, musicians, researchers and designers, which he currently leads with Yolande Harris.He has written about his research and published in academic journals and design magazines, and presented his work at conferences. At present he is workshop leader and consultant at the Architecture Department of the Technical University of Delft, Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and lectures at the Academy for Digital Communication in Utrecht and Media Technology in Amersfoort, the Netherlands.

Jos Mulder (NL 1970) , after a successful career as keyboard player in a rockband studied music at the RoyCon in The Hague with sound engineering as a major. During his studies he developed a taste for the art of sound-reinforcement at concerts of the modernest music. He worked with many of the great famous and infamous composers and ensembles of the last decades, bringing him to regular and irregular venues all over the world. One of his many specialities is amplification of live music in difficult acoustics, such as the Concertge-bouw in Amsterdam.

Guy De Bièvre (Brussels, 1961) Self taught composer, arranger, musician, sound engineer and sound designer.I seem to have decided to quit writing (late) 20th Century music in 1999. Before that my music has been commissioned and/or performed by musicians such as Guy Klucevsek, Seth Josel, Anne La Berge. The Bozza Mansion Project, Gene Carl, Annette Sachs, Zivatar Trio and various local and international organizations.ʻPolka Dots and Laser Beamsʼ was recorded by Guy Klucevsek and the Ainʼt Nothinʼ But a Polka Band and issued on CD on the Japanese Eva label and the Italian Pierrot Lunaire label; other works have been recorded and broadcasted by the Flemish Public Radio. In 2002 a collaboration with Phill Niblock was published on the Ringtones CD (Touch).Currently, after a long period of inactivity as such, I am again active as a performer (microphone, guitar and computer), which recently issued in collaborations with composers Phil Niblock, Tom Hamilton and Peter Zummo. As a composer/performer I now focus on experiments which combine computer, live electronics, acoustics and standard arrangement formats.Next to all this I am freelancing as a sound engineer, sound designer and advisor, microcontroller developer for various organizations and artists and I am the curator of the audio art series Earwitness at CCNOA (Center

for Contemporary Non Objective Art).Recent publications: The Quest for the Sonorous Absolute in ʻCharlemagne Palestine: Sacred Bordelloʼ (2003, Black Dog Publishing, London, ISBN 1-9010333-79-1)

Florencia Reina 1975, Buenos Aires, AR. Studies 1996–2001 Graphic Design, University of Buenos Aires, AR. 1994–1995 Social Communication, Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, AR.Professional activities since 2001 Independent graphic designer.2002-2004 Researcher Design, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL2000–2001 Doppelgänger (design studio), Buenos Aires, AR.1999–2001 Teacher morphology level II (Chair Longinotti), College of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires, AR.1999–2000 Designer at Bridgerconway, Buenos Aires, AR.

Sebastian Menendez 1974, Buenos Aires, AR. Studies 1995–2001 Graphic Design, School of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires, AR. Professional activities since 1999 Independent graphic designer.2002-2004 Researcher Design, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL2000–2002 Teaching assistant course typography II (Longinotti chair), University of Buenos Aires, AR.1999–2002 Designer at TRB Pharma, AR. Exhibitions 2001 Typography Letras Latinas. Buenos Aires, AR: Borges Cultural Centre.Other since 1993 Drumset studies.

The Meta-Orchestra: research by practice in group multi-disciplinary electronic arts.

The Meta-Orchestra:research by practice in group multi-disciplinary electronic arts.

Yolande Harris

Journal for Organised Sound Vol 9/3 December 2004 Cambridge University Press.

AbstractGroup multi-disciplinary projects face difficult challenges in social collaboration, diverse technologies and aesthetic grounds. Combining sound, image and space into a sufficiently malleable set of materials for creation is a complex task. As such projects lack a common ground from which to start, an experimental, practical approach is suggested, with a non-hierarchical, informal group structure. The Meta-Orchestra project, tackling these problems since 2000, re-engaged with the issues in a fourth meeting in Maastricht in 2004. This paper lays out the context of multi-disciplinary work, influenced by developments in computer technologies, by outlining the changed roles of the orchestra, the score and audio-visual theories. The Meta-Orchestra is described against a theoretical frame of social, technical and aesthetic considerations. Although the project will not be forced into this framework, descriptions of the palette, the strategies to create common grounds, the areas opened up by wireless network technologies, aesthetic issues of layering sounds and images, and the development of a central score system, illustrate the layered complexities of the Meta-Orchestra.

1. IntroductionThe Meta-Orchestra, as an ongoing evolving project, embraces an experimental approach to the challenges of creating within complex, multi-layered projects, which use new

technologies. Research by practice appears to be a contradiction in terms, as does “experimental theory”. But if the definition of experimental is that the outcome cannot be predicted in advance, then strategies to make use of experimental processes can yield results that may otherwise not have been reached. There is a tension between wanting to control, predict and compose the outcome of a project, and allowing risky elements to grow and be discovered throughout the experimental process. The new tools of portable computer technology available to most artists today are a reason for the growth in interest in collaboration across the disciplines. This phenomenon is particularly visible at present in electronic music with the availability of software that enables live video and animation to be literally ‘played’ alongside sound. Technology is providing the means but the aesthetic motivations are often varied and restricted to the discourse of one artistic discipline. The borders that make the individual arts distinct are in many cases rigidly defended, not least by the institutions and social groups that support them. But the points of conjunction between these distinct arts are numerous and have a continuous history of flux. The projects described in this paper are attempts to create events that are more than just the sum of the parts, more than a collection of soloists from different

disciplines, and more than a combination of very distinct image sounds and space. There is a concentration on the subversion of one form into another, sound walks through space while image is played like an improvised sound event. This paper attempts to chart areas of commonality that enable a discourse between the different arts, particularly through the use of computer technologies. The discussion of The Meta-Orchestra project is used to outline some problems of combining different disciplines, the practical solutions, and the theoretical approaches that may enable future work. It moves beyond previous articles about earlier instantiations of the Meta-Orchestra project. The emphasis here is on assessing multi-disciplinary work and describing only the latest progressions in technologies used and the first steps towards a score.

1.2 Roots of the theoretical debateMultidisciplinary art has a long and polemic history. A brief introduction of the near history provides a relevant context for the experiments described in the Meta-Orchestra. Comparing some key, controversial writings from the mid 1960’s it appears that the existence and survival of the individual arts is fundamentally opposed to that of the combined arts. The debate revolves around, not only questions of the specificity of materials and techniques particular to individual arts, but also to ideas of arts relation to audience or spectator. In 1967 art historian Michael Fried argued against ‘… the illusion that the barriers between the arts are in the process of crumbling and that the arts themselves are at last sliding towards some kind of final, implosive, highly desirable synthesis. … in fact the individual arts have never been more explicitly concerned with the conventions that constitute their respective essences’ (Fried 1967). His concept of theatre and theatricality, as something produced specifically by disregarding the boundaries between the arts, is seen as radically

opposed to the construction of meaning and discourse within the individual arts. According to Fried ‘theatricality’ imposes a distance on the audience, a sense of being overwhelmed, even excluded, a confrontation rather than an inclusion. Fried, fighting against the apparent degeneration in the arts, summarises his influential argument in the following sentences (his italics): ‘The concepts of quality and value – and the extent that these are central to art, the concept of art itself – are meaningful, or wholly meaningful, only within the individual arts. What lies between the arts is theatre.’ (Fried 1967)The topics of inclusion or exclusion, of degrees of reception and participation by audience, are fuelled by current debates on interactivity and new technologies in the arts. One only has to look at the different modes of presentation of electronic music - electro-instrumental, laptop, acousmatic - to see a clash of ideologies with respect to audience involvement. The use of multiple media in one presentation, for example projected image and sound and movement, increases the density and complexity of communication. In 1964, Marshall McLuhan described his Media Hot and Cold. Unlike Fried, there is no value judgement attached to McLuhan’s statement as he describes a pervasive difference in our interaction with everyday media. ‘There is a basic principle that distinguishes a hot medium like radio from a cool one like the telephone, or a hot medium like the movie from a cool one like TV. A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in ‘high definition’…hot media do not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience. Hot media are, therefore, low in participation, and cool media are high in participation or completion by the audience.’ (McLuhan 1964)Another ancestor of our present day multi-disciplinary work can be found in the ‘intermedia’ works of the Fluxus group. As the complete antithesis of Fried, Dick Higgins in 1966 writes: ‘Thus the Happening developed as an intermedium, an uncharted land that lies between collage, music, and the theatre. It is not governed by rules; each work determines its

own medium and form according to its needs.’ (Higgins 1966) (Notice that both Fried and Higgins are discussing the area between the arts, rather than a gesamtkunstwerk or total art.) It is in the broad area of performance arts that risk, improvisation and experiment are part of the everyday tool-set for creation.

2 The history of the Meta-OrchestraThe Meta-Orchestra began in 2000 as a European Community funded project dedicated to researching the collaborative use of computer technologies and networks in a performance environment of electronically extended instruments. Hosted by Dartington International Summer School, the project entitled Hypermusic and the Sighting of Sound was directed by Bert Bongers and Jonathan Impett. The collaborating individuals were Nicola Bernardini from the Conservatory of Music in Padova, Richard Barrett from the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag and Ludger Brummer from ZKM Centre for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe. Each brought in two or three participants making the group up to fifteen people consisting of musicians, a video artist and a dancer. This early phase of the project has been written about extensively in a report (Bongers, Impett and Harris 2001) and subsequently summarised in a conference paper (Impett and Bongers 2001).The significant elements of this first meeting, listed below, formed the basic concerns of the Meta-Orchestra meetings:1. to establish an experimental atmosphere and working structure based on both practice and regular discussions. 2. an emphasis on the setting up of a cross-platform network infrastructure for the passing of sound and data between the participants.3. to test the experiments and bring them to a public through regular informal performances.4. to combine different elements such as sound, image and dance5. to experiment with connecting the

different physical spaces through movements of players and audience and linked by the technological network.After Dartington there were two subsequent meetings and performances, the first in Amsterdam (2001 De IJsbreker and Felix Meritis) and the second in Barcelona (2002 Metronom Electronic Arts Studio) with a slightly different group including two dancers, two performance artists and a video artist. Due to serious time constraints in Barcelona the performance was primarily a group improvisation structured by pragmatic decisions. The use of the network to share data, a feature developed in Dartington was implemented, but did not function as the underlying communicative layer that was intended, and therefore was only present to a limited extent in the performance as a whole. The layout of the space, including the shifting of attention from one group of players to the next, formed the primary performative gesture that gave character and structure to the whole. A far greater balance between the sonic, visual and spatial aspects was achieved than in the previous Meta-Orchestra meetings. The improvised quality allowed a great freshness to the event which suggested to both the performers and audience the enormous potentials of this group work.The fourth Meta-Orchestra took place in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in March 2004, hosted by the Jan van Eyck Academie and the foundation Stichting Intro. This paper concentrates on discussing the areas where the Meta-Orchestra moved beyond the previous work. Technologies new to the group were used which in turn raised new issues, a different group of people participated, and the final results were unprecedented in previous workshops. The continuity lies in the structure and ideologies behind the initial Dartington workshop. For one week the group of ten created their own experimental lab and workshop environment working openly in a shared space. It has always been a crucial feature of the Meta-Orchestra that the research is openly and collaboratively approached from the start.

3 Re-thinking collaboration within the OrchestraThe professions of music and the visual arts are, to a great extent, solitary activities with many hours spent alone in the studio or practice room. Collaboration, when it does take place, is usually structured by fixed role relationships within the group. The institution of the orchestra is a typical example of, what organisational psychology literature describes as, a formal group structure (Furnham 1997). One player learns and practices to fill the role assigned to them, the specific content of which is pre-scribed from outside by the composer’s score. Such structured group dynamics can barely be called collaboration as there is little or no freedom to step outside of these roles. In a group such as the orchestra, the boundary between the private work and the collaborative (and therefore public) endeavour is fixed culturally and historically and focused to form the most practical, efficient way to produce a larger work. The creative and working practices of the individual are mostly considered personal, private and unsharable, even irrelevant to the group work. In contrast, the Meta-Orchestra has always aimed at being a flexible group for practical research and performance. One of the founding ideas was that the orchestra did not constitute a fixed group of people or specific roles, but could and should exist in any variation with changing members and an essentially multi-disciplinary character. The term orchestra was chosen as a way to describe an asymmetric collective of artists of varying specialities, where each electronically extended instrument or environment revealed

a personal and idiosyncratic solution to the complexities presented by computer technologies. The added layer of a high-speed computer network connecting the players increased the potentials and complexities of group performance. It was quickly found that co-ordination and collaboration within this asymmetric group could not be resolved by one domineering score system or one approach to the structuring of space or time. New strategies needed to be developed to structurally make sense of this environment.The following questions are raised. In a multi-disciplinary experimental environment such as the Meta-Orchestra, where the traditional roles are rendered impractical and irrelevant, how should the collaboration be structured? Are the roles a necessity or a convenience and should new roles be established? Or is an open, flexible and improvisatory approach to collaboration preferable in shaping the outcome of the work?

4 The PaletteBy getting together in person in a shared space for one week the group aimed to create its own dynamics of exchanging ideas, practically experimenting with the materials, and critically assessing the results. The research approach encompassed a high degree of flexibility and critique, where each member brought in their own area of expertise and opened it up to the others in a way that encouraged the orchestra to develop a common ground of vocabulary. A simple way to start was to list the various expertises and technologies of the group and assess the palette available to us. (The cultural background of each is also mentioned in the list, as the cultural diversity of the group is an issue.)

Jonathan Impett (GB) plays the Meta-Trumpet, (Impett 1994) a trumpet extended with various sensors to create a gestural environment that interacts with his algorithmic computer system. He is also a baroque trumpeter. Joining on the last day, Jonathan was present for the final presentation.

The Tromboscillator of Hilary Jeffery (GB/NL) is a trombone extended with electronics, a mute adapted with various sensors and peripherals such as foot pedals and strobe lights. The sound processing is made in the programming environment Max/MSP with which he extends the acoustic sounds of the trombone into electronic sounds by various filters and feedback.

The Eraser-recorder played by Cesar Villavicencio (BR/NL) is an electronically extended contra-bass recorder fitted with a variety of continuous sensors and switches. With these he controls the recording and playback of material sampled in real-time, again using the programme Max/MSP. He also plays baroque recorder.

Guy de Bievre (B) works with both the electric guitar and a variety of custom-made devices and electronic circuits to create a sound environment that has a degree of autonomy and chance. This is an interesting contrast to the explicitly fine level of control aimed for in the other set-ups and uses different software, Audiomulch and Pd.

The flute and sound environment of Yolande Harris (GB/NL) uses a combination of samples and manipulation of flute sounds, controlled by an interface of sensors and instrumentlets controlling Max/MSP. The design of individual graphic and video score systems are an essential element of the palette.

The Video-Organ of Yolande Harris and Bert Bongers (NL) is a series of instrumentlets that together create a control surface for the live playback and manipulation of video and sound samples (Bongers and Harris 2002). It is expandable, can be linked to a number of screens, and can be played by more than one person. It can also incorporate video streams from more than one live camera. This is based on Max/MSP + Jitter. Three video projectors were available. The Video-Walks are an extension of this set-up by making the projectors portable and wireless and controllable in real-time.

Bert Bongers techniques for Interactivating Spaces (Bongers 2002) by sensing the movements through the spatial environment expanded the intimate personal scale of the instruments in the group, to a shared scale that could be used to incorporate the audience as well as the players. A variety of sensors were available to try out and place in the space.

The sound design of Jos Mulder (NL) allowed the distribution of the sounds throughout the spaces available to us using multiple speakers. The set-up was basic but flexible to allow for changes in the sound design over the week and included a digital mixing desk to try the dynamic routing of signals from the players. The use of the OSC (Open Sound Control) protocol enabled the distribution of data, and sound and video were streamed over the Meta-Orchestra’s network.

The graphic designers Sebastian Menendez and Florencia Reina (AR) worked with photography and mixed media to visualise various aspects of the environment. They also worked on the typographic design of the Meta-Orchestra logo for the website. Unlike the others which are performative and real time, this work added layers by revealing the processes of working over the course of the week.

Sebastian Harris (GB/ES) joined the group for the last three days as architect and set designer. He worked on the layout of the spaces, the use of mirrors and furniture to direct the flow and speed of the audience, and various projection techniques. He also filmed the workshop and final performance as video documentation.

The Maastricht Meta-Orchestra had a large variety of audio, visual, temporal and spatial aspects. The technologies brought in by each participant were combined with the general Meta-Orchestra equipment which centres around the network infrastructure, and the basic sound system and video projectors. The ‘palette’ included: instrumental acoustic sound,electronic sound,live video,camera performance,mobile projection techniques,sound diffusion techniques,physical sensor space,spatial distribution and layering in time,use of a wireless network for data image and sound,visualisations of activity by montage, photographic and printed material.set design and spatial layoutdocumentation by video

5 The nature of the multi-disciplinary fieldIf elements as broad as space, time and energy can be considered as the now established materials of multi-disciplinary artists (in the broadest sense), the finer detail elements risk becoming submerged. It is no longer a matter of pitch-rhythm-timbre or colour-form-texture relationships (to name a few) but on the larger scale level of sound-image-space and techno-human-natural relations. The ‘purity’ of discourse within the individual arts is ’diluted’ to cover broader, less precise materials.Below are some basic observations of late twentieth century developments that make multi-disciplinary collaborations difficult from the onset. Firstly, the traditional artistic roles, for example in music, of composer, performer, improviser, conductor, audience, instrument builder, have all shifted and do not make a suitable basis for approaching collaborative or

multidisciplinary art (Harris and Bongers 2002). Secondly, as pointed out by Trevor Wishart, the complexity of ‘endless possibilities’ faces an artist using computer technologies, and a general approach of experimentation rather than perfection is the only real solution. (Wishart 1994) A vast majority of the music and visual arts worlds have not taken up the challenge of using computer technology and are not familiar with possibilities and problems raised by it, making collaborations outside the world of ‘the new media’ very difficult. Within the world of new media itself there are approaches that are equally incompatible, for example those that like to mystify and those who try to clarify the technological process in their way of creating art.One way to achieve the required openness of exchange between media, given the complexity and unpredictability of the materials being worked with, is to create an experimental workshop environment that creates through trial and error. Work in such a collaborative environment would need to encourage the experimental values of improvisation and play with a freedom from rigid concept and formula. A feature of a multi-disciplinary work is its openness, its extensiveness and its reliance on experiment. The question that needs to be asked is how do we structure such a venture without contradicting its experimental nature?

6 Three levels: the social, the technical and the aestheticOne very open way to approach the problem is to consider development on three overlapping levels that can be applied to the complex problems raised in the discussion of the Meta-Orchestra. Firstly, on the social level, by exchanging different working patterns and practices it may be possible to broaden the base for collaboration. This level includes discussions of roles in collaborative work, the most suitable group structure for a particular project and the assessment of common grounds (see section 7).Secondly, on the technical level, to continually discover and create new technical possibilities from which to develop tools to enrich and update

the palette. In the projects described here this includes the development of software and hardware for new instruments, the use of the network and its wireless capabilities, and the techniques of remote video and sound. (This is discussed in more detail in section 9).Thirdly, on the aesthetic level, to develop a more thorough understanding of the nature of combining image, sound, movement and space. This level includes establishing a basis for compositional choices, the role of a central communicative device like the score, and experimenting with layering sounds, images, spaces and their times. It also implies an assessment of the previous two levels (see sections 8 and 10).

7 Strategies to identify common grounds and differencesGiven the diversity of expertises and working practices in the group, common grounds needed to be identified early on in the research process. Various attempts were made to bridge these differences as described below. Every idea proposed at the beginning of the week was tried, discarded or developed. Ideas were tested individually and in small groups, often with many layers happening simultaneously. There was deliberately no explicit hierarchy in the attempt to establish a functional informal group

structure for the research.A reading table was made in the centre of the space where every member of the orchestra contributed books, CDs, videos and articles that they considered relevant, including examples of their own work. This collection of information encouraged openness to both the different disciplines and the individual backgrounds of the members. It also had the benefit of showing the diversity of interests and influences to visitors, and so was displayed for reference as part of the final presentation. One tool to foster collaboration and communication between the group members was the use of large sheets of paper available on the reading table for anyone to draw or write on. The graphic designers created a situation where the contributions of people on one physical sheet gave a collaborative overview and focal point. The visualisations of the musicians revealed their working processes and it visualised the spatial links of the network, the architectural spaces, the layout of the sensors and projectors. Although not complete or ‘correct’, as a document it reveals the dynamics of the group. Video was recorded and played back in the same space whilst working, layering images of the previous days work into the space. The idea to attach projectors to individuals computers was to open up the private work, the methods and techniques of working in certain programmes,

with sound, or video, or design, to the rest of the group. In reality this was not always taken up, perhaps revealing an innate private / public boundary in the working practices of the members. The score (described later), which showed both the network activity and live video, was projected continuously and worked on ‘in public’. This then came some way to ‘bringing out’ the workings of the group and creating a common focus.Two common grounds can be identified in broad terms. Firstly, each member had expertise and experience with the computer technology used, both hardware and software. The possibility of linking each individual computer set-up together via a high-speed network created an area of common focus regardless of the dominant discipline. Secondly, the uses of and movements through the spatial locations (described later) created a common physical layer. These two features provided the underlying structure for the final presentation. There was more specific expertise common to the group such as: the programming environment Max/MSP+Jitter in combination with an Apple computer; the working expectations of creating a performance; improvisation skills; the possibility of offering changing parameters (sensor data) for sharing data over the network.

8 Two new opposing roles for the scoreThe issue of creating a score for the Meta-Orchestra is often discussed. Given the variety of the group, socially, technically and aesthetically, it is clear that a traditional score would have little relevance. The Score Spaces research project, initiated by the author at the Jan van Eyck Academie, of which the Meta-Orchestra project was a part, assesses the transformation of the musical score from graphic, to moving, to audio-visual, to spatial. Besides the traditional musical score and the conventions of western notation, still used successfully in composition today, the concept of a score has greatly evolved in multi-disciplinary work, and its new roles need to be emphasised.

Music is an audible time-based art but the notations that communicate its essence are visual and spatial. The musical score crosses the old boundaries of artistic disciplines as defined by our human senses by relying on a visual code to convey an audible result. Sound is transformed into visual form and re-interpreted into sound, leaving a gap for interpretation, or misinterpretation as it crosses our perceptual and cognitive systems. Yet, since its development in the Mediaeval period the transcribing of sound into visual code has shaped a musical complexity that would have been impossible to achieve by memory alone. This writing down of music has also lead to a reliance on text and the ‘absolute truth’ of the written score, where the score is the music. The gap was exploited in the 1960’s as a way to free music and musicians from the confining nature of traditional western notation. The explosion of new, often unique experiments with musical notations by composers as diverse as Cage, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Cardew or Braxton, marked a shift in attitude towards the role of musical signs and their meanings in performance. At the same time the Fluxus performers were experimenting with notations of time-based spatial events. Re-thinking the musical score could become a way to structure new group relations between performers and artists of different disciplines in a technologically extended environment. This goes hand in hand with a blurring of the roles of performer, composer and improviser. Once the music is not fixed and notated in detail but is outlined by an open structure, the authorship of a piece is no longer clearly defined. It becomes a collaboration between performer and composer, who may often be the same person. The exact sonic repeatability of a work is also no longer relevant in such an open work as for example Cornelius Cardew’s entirely graphic score Treatise. Exact authorship and repeatability is more achievable in electronic music than in the interpretation of a score as the communication between players is not an issue. However, in live electronic music and multi-disciplinary art in general, the

influence of technology on musical practice significantly expands the idea of a score. The need to visualise the changes in performance information as it develops throughout the piece can only be displayed in an updatable, dynamic and flexible score. However, the strict visualisation of data does not have the breadth and openness of a score as the gap (described above) of interpretation and therefore communication is closed. It becomes a precise numerical translation from one medium to another, very useful for the analysis of complex data structures that need to be revealed via another sense, but acting as a duplication of information in a performance environment. The data approach to combining disciplines is common in HCI (Human Computer Interaction), music and gesture research, as it offers a conceptually rational link between image and sound (see for example much of the work presented in the recent European Project Gestural Control of Audio Systems (ConGAS 2004)). The treatment of sound and image as translatable numerical data has arisen out of computer technology, but our ability to create meaning in images and sounds is not restricted to our perception of its comparative inner data structure. Film theorist Michel Chion names the “audio-visual contract” which shows how an image and a sound played simultaneously changes our understanding of the meaning of both. (Chion 1994) This is another example of the gap of interpretation described above and the alchemy described below under ‘chemical reactions’. A brief look at the role of the musical score reveals two fundamentally different perspectives in audio-visual work. One is the direct translation between sonic and visual forms via their treatment as abstract numeric data, and the other as an associative layering of contrasting sounds and images to create new meanings. This power to create new meanings through the combinations of image and sound can also be extended by the interaction with the space

it is placed in. If we see the score as an open multidisciplinary environment that provides an underlying structure that is updatable and spatial, we can understand that the score has evolved, to be not pre-scribed but to situate itself in the here and now, the present, as a spatial interface in the performance (Harris 2002). Initial experiments to make a score system for the Meta-Orchestra are in the following section.

9 Four elements: So far this paper has described the history and aims of the Meta-Orchestra, presented the diversity of the group and palette, and discussed corresponding issues of the orchestra, the score and the multidisciplinary field in general. The following four elements describe the most significant aspects particular to the Maastricht meeting, introducing the ways in which the spaces, the network, the mapping and the score were treated. In a later section it will become clear how these elements shaped the outcome of the final presentation.

9.1 the spaceThe space provides the technical infrastructure for the workshop and shapes the aesthetic decisions. The orchestra was given the use of one rectangular space of about one hundred square meters, the annex of a large town house now functioning as the contemporary art centre of Maastricht. This was the focal point of the work where the main sound system, projectors and all the individual set-ups were situated and where the research and performance took place. This was extended by the discovery of an extensive vaulted basement area with a separate entrance and a large trap door leading into the main space. The main space led onto a large walled garden area and a garden house with its own vaulted basement at a distance of about eighty meters. All these spaces were used in the final performance, as described later, and as can be seen in the video excerpt.

9.2 the networkThe network infrastructure of the orchestra,

comprised of a partly wireless LAN (Local Area Network), enabled both fixed and mobile points. Some set-ups in the main workshop space were connected with the colour-coded Meta-Orchestra green ethernet cables, via a central hub (Fast Ethernet Switch), located by the mixing desk. A wireless network was set-up with two base-stations linked together, one placed in the main space, the second in the garden house. This created a wireless network coverage over the whole area. Experiments were made to test streaming video and sound from a remote location over the network to other spaces. Creating a portable set out of a FireWire Camera and Powerbook, images and sounds from different spaces were relayed back to the central space, where they were displayed in the score and over the sound system. The mobility of the set-up enabled the remote camera to walk and explore the building and garden. The Airport Extreme WiFi base station and the iSight FireWire Camera were used for ease of configuration and therefore to save time. It is not intended to limit the technology to off-the-shelf parts, however it provided a solid efficient base for the experiments. Part of the sound system was set-up in the garden house and the basements via long

analogue cables reaching from the main space, providing another layer of placing sounds in remote locations. The video projectors were also movable and were set up in various spaces as well as being used wirelessly in the video walks.

9.3 the mappingAs the graphical programming language Max/MSP was common to (nearly) everyone in the group, the building of the basic network was relatively straightforward. Using the OSC (OpenSoundControl) protocol for distributing data over a network, several connecting paths were made between players with the information being displayed directly in Max/MSP on the main score screen. Each player could make available on the network a few their performance parameters (sensor data from their instruments), as well as accept input for external control of some parameters of their processes (sounds and images). In this way the mapping between one player’s gesture and another’s effect became clear. For example the dynamic of the breath controller in the Eraser-Recorder was directly linked to the mix controlling one video channel of the Video-Organ. Although cause and effect relationships are easy to

recognise, it is often discussed that they quickly become predictable and boring. The use of one parameter of each player avoided this by addressing one layer in a much denser sound and image environment. This simultaneous multi-layered approach gave a density more like counterpoint. A number of these experiments developed into features of the final performance.

9.4 the scoreThe role of the network within the communicative layers already in place in the

performing group needed to be examined in more detail. Considering that the network was one layer in the palette it was important to assess its relevance and its degree of visibility in general. The invisibility of dense streams of data causes complexity for both the user of the technology and the audience. A useful score system could visualise this layer as a way of revealing the continuous exchanges of data within the Meta-Orchestra during the performance.A simple score, also programmed in Max, was developed to visualise the overall network

activity of the group. This consisted of a series of interlinked colour-coded sliders spatially configured to represent the layout of players in the physical space. The information displayed was kept to a minimum so that the network activity could be clearly visible. Specific links were made between the different players when they decided they had something suitable to share. Various precise couplings were practiced between the performers, represented by a slider sending data out and a slider receiving the change in data. This shared data then, would appear on both sliders simultaneously, making clear which shared network lines were active. As each slider represents a parameter, it can be seen that two or three parameters were used by each player. As network activity was not the only form of communication or musical activity within the group, this quantity was dense enough.The central part of the score was taken up by the video images from the two live cameras. One was connected directly to the computer displaying the score and so was always filming the activity in the central space. The other camera streamed images over the network (and therefore had a lower frame rate and a time-lag) and could display images by moving through remote spaces. Although basic, the score proved to be very useful in revealing the spatial, image and data activity.

10 Chemical reactions / aesthetic experimentsTrevor Wishart paints the picture of a sonic artist no longer as an architect but as a chemist, or even an alchemist, pulling sounds apart and reshaping them from the inside to produce something entirely new (Wishart 1994). To what extent this is possible outside of the realm of sounds, or rather between the realms of sounds and images in spaces, is the question here. The analogy of the chemist could be useful to describe the experimental results of combining of image, sounds and movements, in the moment of a chemical reaction. Below are three illustrations of practical explorations into sonic / visual

/ spatial alchemy, which form a relevant background to the aesthetic issues faced by the Meta-Orchestra.Much recent work combining improvising musicians with video artists uses this sound – moving image juxtaposition in performance to create unexpected moments of synthesis and meaning. It is fascinating to experience the changes of meaning or atmosphere created by the musicians layering sounds on the video images and vice-versa. These moments of interest are usually arbitrary and beyond the ability of each player to determine, particularly as many musicians will not look at the image at all and many video artists project the image behind the musicians. Although it is this form of practical experiment that is helping to build a valuable body of experience between visual and sonic worlds, the potentials of combining the sound and video and not explored to the full.The Video-Walks of the last two years have experimented with taking images and sounds for a walk through diverse spaces such as a forest, an empty beach, a disused gallery space (Yolande Harris and Bert Bongers). Extending Paul Klee’s famous gesture of taking a line for a walk, the Video-Walks literally take the images and sound walking through space. Walking with a projector in an unlit space confuses its function as it oscillates between a torch and a projector. In the moment that it reveals the path or the object it shines on, its own projected image is thrown out onto it. The projected image itself encounters rapid changes in scale, and often disintegrates into light patterns depending on the surface and angle of reflected light. Some combinations of the real physical world and the projected virtual images are indeed like chemical reactions, sometimes spectacular in their transformations and other times un-reactive and inert. In the 2003 performance Between:Two, Duet for Mobile Video Players two portable set-ups were carried through a large disused indoor space. The two players moved through this space, somewhat like explorers, carrying the sound

source on our backs, with the audience free to move around. The mobility of the sounds and images, the performers and the audience, extended the space beyond its previous uses.The combination of the exploring mobility of audience and performers, sounds and images, with the stationary, formed a basis for the final presentation of the Meta-Orchestra project.

11 A description of the final presentationThe Maastricht meeting laid most emphasis on the research during the week rather than the final performance. The aim was to find a performative way to present the research results to an audience at the end of the week. Striking a balance between research and performance then was critical. The performance itself acted as a way to pull together the disparate research of the week into a whole, and gave an important impulse to conclude the work. In the publicity announcement the audience were invited to visit the lab/workshop where the Meta-Orchestra had been working during the week. Whilst the orchestra played the audience could move through and explore the different spaces. This was focused around the main space where the remote video was relaying images to, where the general score was displayed and where most of the performers were. The introduction started with the audience in the main space watching a live broadcast from an attic room in the building. Three musicians, at this stage playing acoustic instruments, were collected from different spaces in the house by the live camera player, forming a procession out of the house, through the garden, now also in direct view of the audience in the main space, to the building at the back where the trumpeter was found. The procession turned back, walked down the garden path, were spontaneously joined by the audience, and continued in the main space where the electronic sounds were brought in. At this stage in the evening it was still daylight.The audience were then prepared for a ‘scene

change’ and taken in to the basement via another entrance. A laser beam and light sensor across the stairs into the basement relayed the fact of every passing person to the performers in the main space via the score. A video projection in one vaulted cellar space relayed images from the video organ dissolved with the live camera images of the performance space, whilst the sounds carried through the building introducing the activity in the distant space. The audience then found their way through another cellar room where the reading material, the sheets of drawings, the designers’ prints and photographs, and an animation were placed. The layout of the cellar was shaped by the architect with an aim to direct the flow of the audience via visual attention by the use of mirrors, table layout and furniture, and lighting, encouraging them to linger at their own speed. The sounds drew the audience up into the space, in their own time, via a trap-door in the floor. The experience of entering the performance or stage from below, with the musicians now playing their electronically extended instruments and two image projections gave the sensation of reaching another space, or re-entering from a different perspective. The performance in the main space, constituting the central part of the evening, consisted of a tutti of musicians, video-organ and live camera. The network relationships between players was used and revealed on the central score. The two live cameras continued to layer the spaces by relaying the same space from different viewpoints into the score. The audience gradually emerged from the basement section, each time passing the second laser sensor, which, relayed to the score and visible to all, provided visual feedback of their actions. The space was small enough to allow the audience and performers to be in close proximity.As it grew dark outside the Video Walk set up was prepared and the duo of projector and live camera left the main space into the garden. The musicians again took up their acoustic instruments and processed out following the video. The projector and camera entered the

garden house, projecting on everything including out through the windows and continually relaying the images from the camera back to the main space. The audience could watch the exploration by moving out into the garden or staying in the space. The third laser sensor was placed on the garden door. The musicians fell silent leaving the dusk, the singing birds, and the moving images which distort to become colours, lights and abstract figures.The presentation is summarised in a short video documentation on the CDRom of this Journal.

12 Reflections and Future PlansThe multiple layers that made up this presentation were very dense and required a lot of attention. Given this complexity it was necessary to utilise specialist skills, such as improvisation, in order to keep the flow and hold the performance together. There was a conscious attempt to include the audience in the processes and to communicate some of the excitement of this dense layering. The projected score functioned as a pivotal focal point for all and came some way to presenting the multiple layers of images, sounds, spaces, performers and data.There are several ways to continue this work. The research project tested a number of possible new techniques for both the individuals and the group. The performance, although informal, brought together what could be the basis for a more expanded performance. Alternatively the research could be taken to form the basis of workshop teaching. The ideals of the original Meta-Orchestra, the nature of the changing group and different instantiations of the project, would be challenged by the creation of a travelling repeatable performance. Similarly to limit the development to workshops and teaching would not make the most of the potential for performances which would be an obvious aim of such a group. There have been a number of suggestions from the Meta members themselves, sparked by the

Maastricht meeting. There is certainly a strong feeling for continuing to focus more strongly on developing a performance practice particular to the group. The suggestions include the greater involvement of dance, set design and visualisations working towards a fuller performance practice. Another describes the folding of previous performances into each new one, which would keep the continuity and build a base to work from. Clearly the next meeting will have different influences, people and aims focused to the latest problems. This flexibility is crucial to keep.The Meta-Orchestra has often discussed the issues of how to create a composition for the group without contradicting its experimental nature. To ask a composer to write for the Meta-Orchestra would bring in aesthetic systems from outside the research created by the group. Likewise a traditional score may fix and prescribe actions and performative results which would be against the nature of the evolving research. It seems clearer for the composer, as an orchestra member, to fill a more neutral role as that of an umpire, overseeing how each member creatively constructs meaning from their position, into a whole. The score then lies more in the realm of visualisation of layers of diverse activity, allowing multiple interactions and acting as a communication medium between players and audience.

13 Conclusions This paper has layed out an overview of issues related to experimental group environments in multidisciplinary arts practice and theory. The complexity of layers, brought up by the work described, could only have been discovered by this critically experimental approach to research. The working process is ideal for an early stage in the research, as a method for discovering new directions in an unwritten, unexplored territory. Whether this results in a performance, or a theoretical piece, or a teaching method, is in many senses unimportant. The experimental approach could even be considered a goal in itself.Issues of combinations of disciplines and

relations to audience mentioned in the early part of the paper run throughout such a project providing a baseline for discussion. The Meta-Orchestra itself proved to be a very successful approach to practical research and has provided fuel for thought and future experiment in many directions. This indicates the validity of addressing theory through practice and vice-versa.

References

Bongers, A. J., Impett, J. F., and Harris, Y. C. (ed.) 2001. Hypermusic and the Sighting of Sound, Project report and CD’s for European Commission. see www.meta-orchestra.org

Bongers, A. J., and Harris, Y. C. 2002. A Structured Instrument Design Approach: The Video-Organ. in conference proceedings NIME, New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Dublin Ireland.

Bongers, A. J. 2002. Interactivating Spaces. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Systems Research in the Arts, 14th Annual Conference on Systems Research, Informatics, and Cybernetics. Baden Baden Germany. Chion, M. 1994. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Columbia University Press: New York.

ConGAS 2004. Symposium on Gesture Interfaces for Multimedia Systems, proceedings of the AISB. Leeds, UK. see www.cost287.org

Fried, M. 1966. Art and Obejcthood. In Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews 1998 University of Chicago Press: Chicago: 148-173

Furnham, A. 1997. The Psychology of Behaviours at Work. Psychology Press: Sussex UK.

Harris, Y. C. 2002. Architecture and Motion. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Systems Research in the Arts, 14th Annual Conference on Systems Research, Informatics, and Cybernetics. Baden Baden, Germany.

Harris, Y. C., and Bongers A. J. 2002. Approaches to Creating Interactivated Spaces, from Intimate to Inhabited Interfaces. In Organised Sound Journal, 7/3, Special issue on Interactivity. Cambridge University Press.

Higgins, D. 1966. Intermedia. In MultiMedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality eds. Packer, R and Jordan K. 2001 Norton: New York: 27-32

Impett, J. F., and Bongers, A. J. 2001. Hypermusic and the Sighting of Sound, A Nomadic Studio Report. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference. Havana: Cuba.

Impett, J. F. 1994. A Meta-trumpet(er). In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Aarhus: Denmark.

McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding Media:The Extensions of Man. Reprinted 2002 Routledge: London.

Wishart, T. 1994. Audible Design. Orpheus: UK.

Reports, designs and reflections from the Meta-Orchestra

Yolande HarrisCamera-Projector

One of the two main reasons to use the word ʻmetaʼ in the name of the Meta-Orchestra is the networking of everyoneʼs individual electronic set-up. It was using a wired network (Switched Fast Ethernet), for which we had decided to make a deliberate visual presence underlining its relevance by applying bright green cables. This was in 2000. Since then wireless networking became easily available widespread, which enabled us to apply WiFi (802.11 or Airport as Apple brands it) to make our network wireless. Indeed, all techniques we used in the past, file sharing, using OSC for real time data communication between Max and other applications, e-mailing during the show ;-)= and audio and video streaming, proved to work in the new situation. There was a wired and a wireless part, which worked seamlessly, and (as before) some ad hoc good old MIDI connections for those who couldnʼt incorporate OSC for resource reasons. Having looked for wireless sensor solutions for years (most sensor converters work with MIDI which is very difficult to transmit), we found an application for wireless ethernet to send performance information from a remote and mobile location using a portable computer. The network was used, as before, in layers of content:• Performance data: information about the real world (gestures of players) captured by sensors and

instruments, used to control other peopleʼs process parameters (for instance the slide of the trombone which has a sensor would control a sound in someone elseʼs set up, or the breath pressure of the recorder would control the intensity levels of one of the video channels)

• Audio: We tried to use OSC for this (see Josʼ report) but couldnʼt get it to work reliably – that is, without lag or quality loss). It did work with streaming (see below)

• Video: This was entirely new for us. Using QuickTime Broadcaster we could do simple streaming from one computer to another (with a fixed IP address). (Multicast is possible too, we didnʼt explore this but want to do that in the future particularly to extend the performance over the internet.) We then read the broadcasted video and audio stream into a Jitter object in Max.

Quite soon we realised that the limited size of the workshop space, which would be problematic for the performance (no room for the audience.....), should be extended by applying the surrounding spaces in this interesting building. The vaulted basements areas were discovered, other spaces in the house normally used for exhibitions, and the deep garden and garden house (with its own basement that had been used for storage of the barrels when it still was a beer brewery). We set up two Airport base stations, to cover almost the entire area, and when moving around the system would allow roaming – the connection was kept even when the mobile station (an Apple PowerBook) would hop from one base station to another. (We also know that antennaʼs are available that extend the range of the base station coverage.)The whole network was connected to Introʼs ADSL router, so that we could check our e-mail during the performance.

The other main characteristic of the Meta-Orchestra is it multi-disciplinary nature. In the past this was limited to adding video and dance to musicians in Dartington, more of these elements were present in the Barcelona event but still the Orchestra is very much biased towards music. This is definitely a strength, as a solid backbone of very experienced and broadly interested improvising musicians, but perhaps also a hindrance. I wish that other disciplines were as strongly present in the group. We proposed to include an architect in the group who creates the most fascinating 3D models inside the computer, but eventually realised this was too big a topic to properly address in such a short time.

Bert Bongers

Two designers joined the group, this was an old wish – the reason why Yolande and I designed all the flyers, web sites and reports of the project was not because we pretend to be designers but simply because we strongly believe that design (vormgeving, Gestaltung) is not something that can be slapped on at the end but that it has to be part of the whole process. This means that the designer (like the architect, the engineer, the painter) has to be part of the Orchestra. In the first half of the week we saw some fascinating developments by the designers, owing to their different approach to the matter. They zoomed in, as it were, on elements of the working environment and the processes, visualised them, explaining by bringing hidden things in the open, at other times alienating by decontextualising elements. In the second half of the week however the virtue of differing working styles turned less optimal, group communications relied upon between musicians (or friends) caused diversions and the designer elements didnʼt develop much further but they were present in the final performance. (But not in the postproduction process.)The artist/architect who joined the group later in the week brought in lots of fresh and useful ideas about the layout of the space – including basement and garden, using mirrors and projections to deflect or place viewpoints. He also filmed the performance in an involved way that showed deep involvement and understanding of the issues dealt with by the Orchestra. Documenting a performance like this is absolutely vital as it is outside (and between) peopleʼs expectations and experience, without the necessary knowledge like in the traditional art forms. It is also extremely difficult, everything moves around, we play with light, image, sound, motion..... many elements are improvised and cannot be rehearsed (a sun set happens only once a day). A second camera was used by one of the designers who mainly made close-ups revealing otherwise invisible things, and provided a wider coverage that included the different spaces where the performance took place simultaneously (as can be seen in the video that Yolande made). During the week the plans grew about how to use the spaces. A suitable trail seemed to emerge, for which we linked the spaces by audio and video projections from the main space, and with the wireless network enabled streaming back audio and video to the main space. The trail was to take people through the spaces. Excited by the space Yolande insisted on ʻinteractivatingʼ it at the last minute – we made laser beams paired with light sensors that would bring environmental data into the system. Visibly to the audience, we could track activity in those areas which then could be linked to content parameters.

The video-organ set up was kept quite simple. Like in the Gaudeamus concert about half a year before, we mainly used some existing MIDI control surfaces – a mini keyboard triggering video fragments applying note number and key velocity, the potmeters on this device were used to mix the video streams (including a live camera), the touch sensitive fader board and a few separate sensors. Some of the video parameters were linked to the spatial sensors (the lasers), and some to musicianʼs actions sent through the network. The latter proved to be essential – it made the musicians be involved in the visual elements. This cross-over was always thought of as being essential in the Meta-Orchestra, and we try to involve people who have a broader interest and experience than their own discipline. A good example was the stroboscope light effects that the trombone player brought in.

The concept of a special guest star was kept alive this time by inviting Jonathan Impett who had recording sessions in Oslo the whole week, and only could make it to the afternoon and evening of the performance. Even though he couldnʼt bring his Meta-Trumpet extended instrument, he brought in fresh energy at a moment when it was much needed, and with his musicianship and knowledge of the Orchestra as one of the founders, he made a valuable contribution and it provided continuity.

It was interesting to see how the instruments of the musicians had evolved over the years. The Tromboscillator was even extended with strobe lights, and the bass-recorder has a screen attached to it so that the player can get visual feedback on the processes controlled (the samples for instance) without having to look at the computer in an awkward spot.

Knowing that the space was not altogether very suitable to do a traditional concert, we announced the event as an open workshop. The pressure of having to do a full concert would have been a bad influence on the free experimentation of the workshop week, on the other hand we know from experience that to have some form of presentation at the end gives the workshop an aim, forces us to focus rather than to be all over the playground we created. We didnʼt rehearse for it, that would have taken too much time and harmed the freshness, but it meant we had to deal with some unexpected situations here and there. There were in fact several possible trails that emerged, and in the end we had to live with a kind of double start. First the audience was invited in the main space, but without the musicians present – they were fetched by Yolande and this process was relayed to the main space by video streaming. She would also introduce the project from the starting point of her trail, in the attic overlooking the garden with the shed. We hadnʼt thought of a way of communicating from the main space to her, so she had to guess when to start. When this was taking a bit long, which was awkward, I gave a pre-introduction to the people in the main space where I was. After her talk she went on her trail, encountering Hilary (trombone) upstairs and Cesar (recorder playing wicked multiphonics) downstairs, took them on a trail through the garden to find Jonathan (growling trumpet) in the basement of the garden shed. For the audience there was a slight hiccup here, as the second WiFi base station was accidentally turned off. Sound Engineer and Meta Network man Jos had to run to fix this. All the musicians then paraded from the back of the garden into the main space, where they kept playing in the same fashion as before. We now had to switch, to electronic instruments, from video-streaming computer to Video-Organ, and for the audience to experience the trail of coming in through the basement areas. This was sad, I have to live with feeling guilty for killing the magic moment that was built up after the first trail......The second trail was for the audience to explore. Through a staircase from the foyer area they had to descent into the basement, where they would find a projection relaying video and sound from the performance space, the reading table with information about the project and the Orchestra members, and the work of the designers on display. They could then come up through another staircase into the performance space. Now we played as a group, with all the extended instruments, live video, lights, receiving information about the audience movements through the space from the laser sensors, all networked, and integrated by the score. The use of the cameraʼs, live, streaming and recording, gave a fascinating effect of layers upon layers of imagery. We found that a recording DV camera (the Canon XL1) could be connected to through FireWire to act as a live camera input into Jitter – while it keeps recording. We didnʼt use it during the performance in the end, but it is an interesting possibility. The performance ended with a Video Walk. I unplugged my PowerBook, switched the video projector to the battery power pack and mains converter in a backpack, and walked out projecting images from the Maastricht carnival (filmed by Yolande and edited by Sebastian). The musicians followed, with their acoustic instruments, and Yolande with the video-streaming camera. It was dark enough, and very quiet, subtle ending of the evening, we went all the way to the garden shed basement.

Plan and section diagrams of spaces: arrow indicates movement of performers and camera during Meta-Orchestra presentation.

Description: different character of spacessequence of spaces

Method of filming:how to convey the different characters of spaces and musicianscapture continuous flow of movementsspeed and motion

Conclusions and future issues:relation between performance and experimenthow to lead audience, conduct, exploreextend continuous motion

Sebastian Harris

My instrument the “tromboscillator” is a trombone extended through electronic hardware, digital software and amplification. It was originally conceived at a course in interactive electronic music run by Bert Bongers and Jonathon Impett at Dartington International Summer School in 1999. This course introduced the use of sensor technology in combination with the programming language Max/Msp for the creation of interactive performances and compositions. It gave me the opportunity to explore this area and create a performance/composition for a concert. I thought of the name “tromboscillator” during this very intensive two weeks of programming, reading, thinking and soldering. The extended and electrified trombone was partly inspired by the experience of playing the piece “Wind Shadows” by Alvin Lucier. This piece asks the trombonist to play against two slowly oscillating sine waves, shifting in very small microtonal glissandos to create beats against the sine waves. The result is a very rich sound world where the electronic and trombone sounds mesh in the acoustic space providing rich aural entertainment! My idea was to go further into this oscillating trombone soundscape. By the end of the course I had built a prototype “midi-mute” with sensors which I used to control a reverb and pitch bend. The idea of the mute was to use sensor controls which were detachable but still very integrated into my trombone playing. Accompanying the trombone plus effects was a slowly evolving FM landscape. Despite last minute technical hitches I managed to pull off the first tromboscillator demo show which contained premonitions of what was to come...

As a result of the interest and excitement created by the Dartington course a further initiative was undertaken by Bert Bongers and Jonathon Impett in the creation of the “Meta-Orchestra”. For this they asked several musicians, programmers, performers and developers to take the roles of meta-mentors and aspiring-apprentices. I was lucky to be asked to be an aspirant and so could further my work and take off from where I started at the first workshop where the tromboscillator was conceived. For me this workshop was less successful because I couldnʼt really get a proper handle on how to use the software and I didnʼt have enough skills to build what I hoped to build. However I did learn a lot and through the experience of realising my interests and limitations committed myself to taking the course at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague. Before this the second Meta-Orchestra concert took place in Amsterdam but again I got lost in a confusing technical labyrinth of my own making and therefore couldnʼt fully play to my full capacity for that concert. During my time at Sonology I got a much firmer grounding in electronic music as well as some essential practical and theoretical principles and ideas on which to base my work. Especially useful was the technical workshop run by Lex van de Broek, the Max/Msp classes of Paul Berg and the opportunity to study and work in the analog Studio run by Kees Tazelaar. During the course the Meta-Orchestra once again appeared and I was delighted to be invited to join in at the show which was part of the Metronom Festival in Barcelona 2002. As a result of this my new group Kreepa was invited to work at Steim in Amsterdam and so the smouldering tromboscillator embers were once again given an encouraging breath! Through a combination of Sonology, the various Meta-events and the Steim residency I had 50% of my conceived set-up ready with a computer running Max/Msp, audio interface, “Microlab” voltage to midi converter and the first working Midi-Wa mute built by Jorgen Brinkman and Lex van de Broek.

From this point I needed to PLAY! To realise a fully functioning tromboscillator clearly takes a lot of work in different areas including electronics, programming, composing, analysing and performing. Much work was done on a trial and error basis and I have been able to try-out my ideas in many informal concert situations where the error aspects are an acceptable part of the proceedings! For instance I have had several opportunities to play at various concert seriesʼ in the NeverLands including “Kraakgeluid”, Gaudeamus music week, “Cracks ʻnʼ

Hilary Jeffery

Guts”, “Resort Off”, the “Workshop” and at the Institute of Sonology. A particularly useful concert in this series of improvised events was with the composer and programmer Zack Settel in combination with my trombone teacher James Fulkerson.

After four and half years of development I am pleased to say that the “tromboscillator” finally came into its own thanks once again to another Meta-Orchestra event. Through the initiative of Yolande Harris and the support of Stichting Intro, the Jan van Eyck Academie and Bert Bongersʼ new “MaasLab” I was able to fully consolidate my tromboscillator-development. I was given enough time and resources along with my colleagues to work on the instrument and try it out practically without the pressure of making a “final” or too definitive performance. In the creative and calm environment of the Klankwerplaats I steadily worked, practiced and built a functional Max/Msp patch. Bert tested my Midi-Wa mute at the MaasLab and I had time to play through a good PA along with the other performers. It was very useful to be asked to make a sketch describing the instrument - this idea never occurred to me and proved to really allow the tromboscillator to exist on a conscious level. The illustration I made describes the journey of the tromboscillator sounds: from my mind and breath - through the trombone – to a microphone - into the computer where the signal is branched / looped / filtered / ring modulated / fed though reverbs, delays and a harmoniser back on itself - used for envelope following and FM synthesis - out into the world again via the PA - where the electronic sounds interact with the acoustic trombone sounds received by the body and ears - back into my mind for further processing. Finally I could hear the singing-ring of rich trombone and electronic sound-meshes which I have been imagining in my minds ear since 1999.

Experiments: An experiment to directly control parameters on the master-mixing-desk from a players set-up. Using Osc and Midi. ʻPanfokʼ allowed a player to control his or another players panning. The limitations of the used console (Yamaha O1v) and the size of the room didnʼt fasciltiate further experimenting. An experiment to find an easy way to send cd-quality audio over the computer network, with a minimal latency. Max in itself is not powerfull enough to allow for this. Packetbuid~/packetpars~ seem not to work well enough. More experiments can be done to try and optimise this. A different solution has been found but not tested: Wormhole a VST- plug in for streaming audio over tcp.

Amazing and Exiting Discoveries: -Ease of use of wirelessnetwork thanks to Airport.-Attempts to, and succesfull streaming of audio/video to and from max/jitter. -Precise coupling of players sensordata to events in other peopleʼs set-up. Rather than setting up a system where everybody can read everyoneʼs date, in the way we have done before. During rehearsals these relations can be tested. Players can negotiate when to use or not use this relation. These relations and wether theʼre used can be shown in ʻthe scoreʼ-The vintage power of midi has been shown once again by connecting a sole nonenetworkwindows-unit to the network susing max osc an midi.

Ideas for future pojects. -The score has prooved to be a great step allowing both players and musicians to see what is going on. Someone with a designing background should be invited to develop this further. Perhaps Max can be left be-hind and a stronger graphical (3d) tool can be found to allow for more possibilities yet not loosing any of the clarity/simpicity of the ʻmaastricht set-up.-The use of ʻprecise parameter linkingʼ and the possibility of sending audio over a computer network allows for great experiments in the area of spatialization. One can even think of the actual ʻthrowingʼ of sounds or samples from one player to another. The ʻthrowingʼ could both be visiualised and be made audible. -The concert in maastricht; the use of the score and the arrangment of the event gave many hints for a ʻperfomance practiseʼ. I envision a next concert/performance where the metapeople are gathered in the centre of a room, in the focus of sound (and attention). This will allow greater and preciser use of spatializing of sound. A standard 4 channel system will allow a big part of the audience to enjoy spatialization.The room/building & surroundings can be incorporated in the event through the use of lifecamʼs or a videowalk. The ʻexploring-expositionʼ might be used in many different forms, depending on the vicinity. A development of a performance-practise will indulge or challenge us to do more concerts in a shorter period of time i.e. a tour. For instance: one week or ten days of ʻrehearsal-developmentʼ and a concert in Maastricht. Then concerts in Korzo Frascati, Huis aan de Werff or the like.

Technical stuff:-The ʻoff the shelveʼ technologies should not be the limit of ideas and quests for new experiments. Clearly a better bigger and more expensive mixing desk will be needed next time.-In order to allow for a fast, dedicated and maintainable network we will need one strong computer running osx-server.

Jos Mulder

In this last meta-orchestra I gained different views and concepts on how to use the space for such a spontaneous multidisciplinary way of producing and artistic experience. First, it is for me clear that one decisive factor is connected to the fact that advances in technology permit the processing of images faster. Second, I felt much more congruence in meaning between the images and the type of sounds this ensemble produces. Although there were also at times realistic (birds, cars, spiders, landscapes, etc) the context in which they were presented gave me more to interact with. Images suggested somehow a rhythm at times, which was a very useful thing for me as an improviser to interact with.Combining the sounds of the different members of the ensemble was for me surprisingly difficult. I recall having this difficulty in the first project in Dartington where I tried to gain control on my new gadgets by experimenting in many ways compromising sometimes any sort of concentration in trying to produce consistency. I also brought I new interactive “patch” in this occasion, and was experimenting new ways of interaction, but I had an awareness of what was going on and it didnʼt sound very solid at all. This should have been probably discussed. Free-improvisation requires an intersubjective connection between the players that I think it was missing in Maastricht. This probably because of a lack of communication on esthetic and ethic matters. I do not think trying to reach a sort of agreement in those aspects will limit or make the free-improv less free. On the contrary it will build a decorum in which members can contribute with more security and trust to build the artistic experience. Although this might seem as a negative result, it actually opens a new field of discussion which I sincerely hope will take projects in the future to another level of human interactivity.

Are we connected? By cables running across the room? A week of investigating the added value of hardware connectivity and musical practice, by musicians who are used to the combination on non-verbal communication, time brackets and scored agreements and visual practitioners, designers and video makers. The added value surfaced - maybe even more during the slow process of the events prior to the closing argument - as a multi-morphic potential begging for further experimentation.

Cesar Villavicencio

Guy de Bievre

Florencia Reina and Sebastian Menendez

Design sketch on following page.

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