ALMAT @ impuls - Workshop 2019 by Hanns Holger Rutz

Algorithms that Matter (ALMAT) focuses on the experimentation with algorithms and their embedding in sound works. Rather than conceiving algorithms as established building blocks or the a priori formalisation of a compositional idea, we look at them as performing entities whose consequences are irreducible to models. Algorithms “matter” in the sense that matter and meaning cannot be distinguished, neither can artists and their computational tools. Algorithms actively produce spaces and temporalities which become entangled with their physical embeddings. In 2019, we created a workshop within the impuls . 11th International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music, taking place in the Museum of Perception (MUWA) Graz, February 11–21, 2019. It focused on the development of a site-specific sound installation. The installation explored the interactions of algorithmic and physical spaces and their dynamic and mutable properties. Participants worked on the premise that spaces and our perception of them change depending on presence, absence, the movement of visitors, the time of the day, the rhythm of the surroundings as well as the sonic and algorithmic interventions we bring into them. The workshop sought to attract computer music practitioners, sound artists and composers by offering a platform for exchange and reflection about their personal approaches towards algorithmic experimentation. The participants were invited to develop their various approaches within an atmosphere of collaboration, where special emphasis was given to the translation of environmental data (such as sensor input from the surroundings and visitors) through computer music systems developed and assembled by the participants and tutors. The workshop was held with technical infrastructure provided by the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM), including an 48-channel sound system and a selection of sensors. The workshop ALMAT was developed by David Pirrò and Hanns Holger Rutz (both IEM Graz) and was held together with the special support by Robin Minard.

return

1. This is what might be called an echo tree. Listening slowly. You can gently touch, whisper, or make sounds around it and it will respond in its own time.
  
  {origin: program notes, keywords: [echo, tree, listening]}

Project proposal

Initial thoughts:
- Playing with feedback timbre and spatialisation as if living 'ambient fluid' (after Tim Morton)
- Microphone and camera as sensors
- In addition to feedback, also timestretching and sampling of input audio in realtime
- Audience interact with / control the sounds and spatialisation via camera and/or audio tracking
- Audio data from tracking of pitch, amplitude, spectral centroid, and derivatives / rates of changes of these values, all using Max
- Perhaps use an additional small web cam to run either jit.cv patches for basic motion detection [https://jmpelletier.com/cvjit/] or the posenet system hosted on Max8 and Electron for gesture tracking [https://cycling74.com/forums/skeleton-tracking-with-posenet-and-node-for-max] [https://github.com/Cycling74/n4m-examples]
I'm interested in the audiences' ability to create and manipulate the space and time of sounds within the installation. Inspired by the term 'ambient fluid' mentioned in Tim Morton's writings. A combination of feedback sounds and warped samples of the audience created and controlled in realtime could suggest this invisible ether like sonic substance.

I would also like to give some control to the computer so that for the audience there is a suggestion that there is another (machine/spatial) agency at play in the installation in addition to their own, and so somehow I'd like the work to create an interaction between an quasi-autonomous space/sound being and the audience.

I would like to work with Max and on my own laptop if possible.

In general I'm happy to explore different approaches and possibilities that might compliment other participants' work, and are practical with the available technology.

I'm interested to see how these ideas could combine with other participants' work. Perhaps rather than many individual installations there could be some way to connect them, or even work in groups? I'm looking forward to getting started!

{origin: project proposal, keywords: [space, time, timbre, feedback, stretch, ambient, fluid]}

Nicholas Moroz

---
meta: true
date: Feb-2019
event: impuls academy
place: muwa
keywords: [exhibition, sound art]
author: Nicholas Moroz
---

Tip

Tip