Monsters I Love: On Multivocal Arts

Alex Nowitz

Proposing a ‘multivocal practice’ in the vocal arts, this exposition (documented artistic research project) embodies an inclusive approach to four core categories for the contemporary performance voice: the singing, speaking, extended and disembodied voice. The culmination of a four-year PhD project in Artistic Practices (Performative and Mediated Practices, with specialisations in choreography/film and media/opera /performing arts), it documents artistic research sub-projects through the presentation of multimedia material, interweaving performance recordings with reflective and contextualising texts. Multivocality addresses various models of virtuosity, all of which are informed by a multi-faceted artistic knowledge, whether experimental or experiential, technical or technological, improvisational or compositional. Contemporary vocal performance practices are loaded by questions pertaining to detecting and solving technical issues that span the vocal domains. Through a range of artistic practices—vocal, oral, bodily and technology-related—the research project unfolds what is conceived as a bountiful ‘vocal imaginary’. When voice and body meet technology-related practices that aim at the expansion of the vocal realm by using custom and gesture-controlled live electronics, a performance æsthetics of the in-between emerges. This is explored via the ‘strophonion’, formerly built at STEIM in Amsterdam and, during the course of the PhD, further developed by Berlin-based software programmer Sukandar Kartadinata who created an intricate configuration on the basis of the audio processing application Max/MSP. Through the formulation and performance of ‘The Manifesto for the Multivocal Voice’—a ‘discursive solo performance act’ that aims to provide insights into principles and premises, and to develop the discourse on the politics of today’s performance voice—the exposition attempts to establish a potential theoretical and philosophical grounding for multivocality. Its second major concern relates to the poetics of the voice, investigating the thresholds of highly individualised vocal practices by asking: what are the boundaries of the contemporary performance voice? The exposition (on the Research Catalogue) comprises video and audio documentation of public live performances, lectures and artists’ talks as well as studio productions and rehearsals. The user is invited to study scores and various texts, such as poems, extended programme notes, translations, performance instructions, comments and other reflections. The collection of essays and articles that guide the user through the edifice of ideas that the artistic research project has unveiled remains central to the endeavour.

The original pair of the strophonion's hand controllers developed at STEIM and handcrafted by Florian Göttke in Amsterdam, including the belt, designed by Heather Mac Crimmon, to be used for ultrasonic measurements

All components of the strophonion spread out on a table

1. Designing and Playing the Strophonion:

Extending vocal art performance using a custom digital musical instrument (online article)

2. Mundfundstücke: Das Konsonantenvokabular

for voice, strophonion and video

Documentation of a public live performance during the festival of interdisciplinarity Made in Potsdam, for dance, visual arts and music at the fabrik Potsdam Germany.

3. Onomatopoeticus Rex

for voice and strophonion

Documentation of a public live performance during the festival of interdisciplinarity Made in Potsdam, for dance, visual arts and music at the fabrik Potsdam Germany.

4. Studies for Voice and Strophonion: A collection of works for a solo performer
Exploring the extended voice using gesture-controlled live electronics, i.e. the strophonion, based on interactive sensor and computer technology

The Strophonion with LiSa (original verion or version 1)

Interfacing the voice with custom, gesture-controlled live electronics

Untitled for voice, strophonion and a chair to be ignored

The strophonion is a digital musical instrument (DMI) custom-built at STEIM Amsterdam exclusively for Alex Nowitz to be used in vocal live performances. It belongs to the instrument group of gesture-controlled live electronics applying interactive sensor and computer technology. The controller devices, asymmetric by design and functionality, are hold by the hands to either control the parameters of sound and music or the functionality of the instrument. The technology built inside consists of 3d-accelerometers, 2d-joystick technology, ultrasonic measurement, pressure sensor and 21 keys to control parameters of sound and music as well as the instrument's functionality.

LiSa is the abbreviation for Live Sampling, a software environment developed by Michel Waisvisz and Frank Baldé at STEIM, the studio for electro-instrumental music in Amsterdam. Over the course of almost a decade, from 2007 until 2016, I was collaborating with Frank on the LiSa configuration for the strophonion, a gesture-controlled live electronic instrument costum-built at STEIM. In order to get insights on instrument and its related practices feel invited to read the article Developing and Playing the Strophonion, published in autumn 2016 at econtact!, an online journal for electroacoustic music in Montréal (Canada). In the following sub-chapters the user finds a survey of studies to explore the potential for extending the voice with custom, gesture-controlled live electronics.

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The Strophonion with LiSa (original verion or version 1)