International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies (IJACDT), vol. 2, no. 1. As a relatively young department in an aesthetically conservative, remote college town, the Department of Performance Studies at Texas A&M University is building a culture of innovation through strategic facility development, a focus on students sharing work through public performance, and a commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration. The authors have embraced the celebrated strengths of their university in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) by developing interdisciplinary experiences and inspiring facilities (through technology and curriculum grants). These experiences contribute to the university at large by demonstrating how technology can connect with the human element and how technology impacts human expression. The authors’ Music, Performance Studies, and Theatre Arts students benefit by joining the faculty in exploring the new and also rediscovering the traditional
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Fresh Minds Festival
Texas A&M University invites fixed media works of visual music or other non-narrative fine art animation, video, or film in which the sound/music and visuals play equally important roles in the work, for a presentation on the Texas A&M University campus called the Fresh Minds Festival. The event will be mass curated by hundreds of TAMU students learning the elements of visual and musical design with the goal of presenting a program of works that are engaging and rewarding to curious newcomer audiences. This is an event filling the gap between “for experts only” and “people’s choice” type events. Each year, several hundred students co-curate the festival. Each year’s evaluation cycle is launched with the screening of the previous year’s finalists.
A faculty panel will use the students’ evaluations of submitted works to shape a program. Creators of selected works are encouraged but not required to attend the event. Multiple entries will be accepted. There is no entry fee.
Due to the large number of students participating in the selection process, works will reviewed in stereo on student-owned equipment, delivered via internet links for evaluation. Works selected for the event will be presented in full quality in surround sound, spatialized live by TAMU students.
Deck performed at Big Range Austin Dance Festival 2012
6/28–6/29/2012 at the Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin , TX (ticketed)
Choreographers Christine Bergeron and Carisa Armstrong worked with me to create a set of four brief pieces, each one minute long, on the central theme “Deck:” Deck of Cards, Decked Out, Hit the Deck, and Wooden Deck. Continue reading
Deck for Dance and Electronically Processed Found Sounds
As part of our respective research programs, TAMU Dance professors Bergeron and Armstrong and I won a Collaboration Grant from the IDHMC in support of developing feasible approaches to incorporating live media in contemporary dance performance.
While dance is an art form that is typically viewed live more than other disciplines, logistical challenges commonly leave dancers to adapt prerecorded music to their performances. TAMU’s PerfTech (Performance Technology) initiative develops methods to use technology in-and-as live performance without simply replacing traditional instruments with synthesized copies. With modern live technology techniques, we plan to merge the early twentieth century technique of Foley art for live radio broadcasts with the techniques of musique concrète (fixed media art music) developed since the late 1940s to develop approaches to building meaningful connections between dance and sound through common semiotic ground. Similarly, we explored incorporating digital imagery into this intermedia performance.
We developed this in a collaborative performance called Deck in four brief movements, each exploring a different sense of the word: “Hit the Deck,” “Wooden (Backyard) Deck,” “Decked Out,” and “Deck of Cards.” This work was accepted for performance at the Big Range Dance Festival 2012 in Houston as a juried submission. The equipment funded with the grant will be used to support future collaborations of this type among faculty and TAMU students.
Brazos Valley Makerspace workshop: A Fresh Look at Audio
Hands on?
You’ll need:
- My hands-on files
- Audacity (Linux, Mac, or Windows)
- Max (free Runtime version)
Microtonal Étude for Horn at the International Horn Society
This work explores the technology of the horn. Since it is a mature acoustic instrument, we tend to overlook the artificial structures it imposes on the way we think about making music with it. Also, musical conventions lead horn players to struggle against the natural tendencies of the instrument, e.g., to force notes to be what we consider to be “in tune.” In its earlier forms, the horn had no valves Continue reading
Sound Design for Prelude to a Kiss
We had some fun with the sound design for the TAMU mainstage production of Prelude to a Kiss directed by Anne Quackenbush. In addition to using music from TAMU alumni band The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (some of which was recorded in our own studio), the music for the new age wedding ceremony is an algorithmic composition featuring Theatre Arts and Music student J.J. Ceniceros. We called the project Pomegranate Aspiration. Continue reading
A Treatise on the Æsthetic of Efforte
This composition was invited for a compilation CD on the theme of steampunk, an art movement celebrating the ingenuity, effort, and danger of technology of the industrial revolution. In “A Treatise on the Æsthetic of Efforte,” I perform what is called live coding, creating music by Continue reading
Available for Intermedia Performance Workshops
Over the years, I’ve developed a model for composition interdisciplinary/intermedia performances and have used it to devise performances with my students, typically getting a dozen students involved in one performance. I can do this at your school too, adapting an existing composition to your students’ skills or working with them to create a completely new performance. I can also do extended intensive residencies in which students develop Continue reading
“The Collected Solo Piano Works of Ferin Martino, as Conjured by Your Presence”
This is an interactive art installation using a piano playing computer algorithm I wrote that generates music reminiscent of early twentieth century expressionist composers like Arnold Schönberg. Since the software is capable of generating its own œvre, I gave it a human-like name, Ferin Martino. Continue reading