August 11-13, Uzeste, France
Originally Created by Gérard Assayag (IRCAM) and Marc Chemillier (EHESS), Improtech is both a musical festival and an interdisciplinary workshop that brings together actors of research and creation from all over the world around the question of musical improvisation in interaction with digital intelligences, in an assumed approach of human-machine co-creativity.
This year, Joëlle Léandre, Evan Parker, Benoit Delbecq, Jozef Dumoulin, Jaap Blonk, Justin Vali, Jean-Marc Montera, Rob Frye, Maciek Lasserre, Gaston Bandimic, André Minvielle, Bernard Lubat, Sylvain Luc, Nurith Aviv, Mari Kimura, Gyorgy Kurtag, Hervé Sellin, Benny Sluchin and many others presented and performed at Improtech, as a satellite festival preceding the famous Uzeste festival in Uzeste, France.
Together with Alain Bonardi, David Fierro, Atau Tanaka, we presented our work in progress for our Brain Body Digital Music Instrument (BBDMI) project (more to be found about the BBDMI on this blog as well). Alain and David started with explaining and then performing an specially developped EMG-controlled percussive mixed-music performance using our open-source Max/FAUST codebase. Atau then presented and performed with his most recent composition for EMG and heartbeat, using the same toolbox, which together with his voice and modular synthesizer setup created a trance-like experience. Finally, I discussed EEG in the context of the BBDMI project, presented the basics of my performance setup, and then performed a further evolution of Steady-State for an intense 5 minutes. A phone-recording of Steady-State and description can be seen below.
Steady-State is a new experimental sound performance first developed for JIM2023. It builds on a decade of experiments integrating brain activity into sound sculpting and musical performance, but takes a conceptual and sonic turn from previous works. The commonly used paradigms of voluntary control, “performance” and (conscious) relaxation are abandoned to subjectification and domination. Rather than relying on consensual, even conscious performance, these experiments explore resistance and defeat through a cortical state of sound and visual patterns. Instead of realizing positive feedback loops of musical pleasure, Steady-State explores de-personalization, noise, violence, and subjection to technological control.
Electroencephalography (EEG) shows endogenous alpha oscillations (~10Hz) in a state of (intentional) relaxation, which has been used as an artistic paradigm for sound performance since Music for Solo Performer by Alvin Lucier and Edmond Dewan (1965). In Steady-State, a so-called steady-state cortical response is induced by repetitive visual and auditory stimuli. Brain responses to these repetitive stimuli can interfere with alpha activity when presented at similar frequencies, or induce new exogenous brain oscillations through cortical entrainment. In the steady state, cortical steady state responses and alpha activity are measured by EEG (Explore, courtesy of Mentalab GmbH), analyzed by EEGsynth, and used to create negative feedback and interference loops by modulating hardware synthesizers and photic (potentially epileptogenic) stimuli.
Whitmarsh, 2023
We had many interesting encounters and conversations, received great encouragement for our own experimentations, and a general had a fun and inspiring time. It was an intense program, balanced by the generousity and positive energy of the organizers and on-site support. A special thanks to Isabelle and Olivier who took amazing care of us!
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