Scorescapes

Re-Active Platform multimedia and performance group, Academy of Media Arts, Cologne

Tuesday 4 November 2008

Goals:

• To develop an understanding of the relationship between scores, sound, environment and performance.
• To use this concept as the framework for proposing a new work whether intervention, performance or installation.
• To develop a working Scorescape that translates navigation data into sonic and/or visual media for a performance or installation.

Introduction: 

My concept of a Scorescape arose from a need to grasp relationships between sound and image, environment and communication, performance and installation, composer and audience. Working with techniques and concepts of both navigation and audio-visual performance, I developed two projects, Taking Soundings (KHM fellow 2006) and Sun Run Sun / Satellite Sounders (Montevideo/STEIM Residency 2008) that explore these ideas of score, landscape and the position of the spectator within them. Taking Soundings turned GPS data into sounds and images live, Sun Run Sun is a collection of pieces in different formats centered around the Satellite Sounders, small portable instruments that transform the position and motion of the GPS satellites in the sky into live sound related to the participants movement. By experimenting with the conceptual context and technical development issues around these two works, Scorescapes establishes an open platform to shape new works and new ideas.

Theory:

As a conceptual tool we will use a radically expanded notion of the score. Conventional musical scores are characterized by static notation, enclosed spaces, predefined roles of composer performer and audience, an object kept in a library. How can this be made relevant to contemporary performance practices with new technologies? It starts with the experiments that treated the score a medium of communication, in early performance art as a conceptualization of action and interpretation. In relation to media theory, the score can be seen as a medium that influences and carries meaning from a site to a source of reception. The score is fundamentally an intermediary between audio and visual, and subject to interpretation, whether human or technical.

Practice: 

As a technical tool to explore these ideas we will gather data from the Global Positioning System (GPS). We will examine the raw NMEA data (National Marine Electronics Association) that we receive to try to understand the technical principles of satellite navigation and the relation to earlier forms of celestial and coastal navigation. We will then select parts of the data, for example the longitude and latitude, the elevation and azimuth, the calculated speed and altitude; and map these to sound processes, visual processes or other forms. To do this we will use the NMEA data parser in PureData (PD) or Max/MSP.

Process: 

• In the sonification and visualisation of data, the technical translation of numbers into sound, can we identify the points where interpretation is needed and where the imagination takes over?
• When collecting streams of data about our location in space, can we interpret this data as a score, as sonic or visual maps, that heighten our embodied experience of being in environment?
• What choices do we make when translating numbers in sound and image?  It is important to consider this mapping in terms of the conceptual provocations of the score and implications for performance or exhibition.
• Think of these as live scores to be made available to others, provocations of action, of discussion, of performance. When making the visual or sonic summary of each score – think what the most important features are for communication, what makes your piece what it is?

Deliver: 

We will work in small groups so that we can try to achieve a practical result by the end of the day. We will have small test pieces up and running, and a sketch outline of ideas for a performance or exhibition work using what was touched on in the workshop. These will be open source, open to modification, re-use and re-interpretation and will be uploaded as a small collection of score sketches online.

Equipment:

• Computers running either Max/MSP+Jitter 5 and/or PureData
• GPS NMEA data parser in Max/MSP and/or PD
• Bluetooth GPS (to input live to the computer)
• Projector and sound system to present the works to each other

Timing:

• 11:00 Satellite Sounder walks
• 11:30 Presentation and discussion led by Yolande
• 12:30 NMEA parsers and data
• 13:00 lunch – decide on an idea/approach
• 14:00 Practice, programming, testing
• 15:00 Presentation/performance of new Scorescapes
• 16:00 end

Links / References:

http://sunrunsun.nimk.nl

http://www.macba.es/uploads/20080617/Programa_PDF_ENG.pdf

http://www.yolandeharris.net

http://www.scorescapes.net

others to follow