Livecoding set (Ben Swift & Ushini Attanayake)

Green Noise (Mark Olivero)

• Notes: "Green Noise" is a live electronics (maxmsp), a/v (jitter) and noise (eurorack modular) multimedia performance work that explores environmental disintegrations, as juxtaposed to sonic (frequency/amplitude) disintegrations (or dissolutions).

  Performed, programmed, composed by Mark Oliveiro.

• About the Artist: Dr Mark Oliveiro is a graduate and distinguished alumnus of the Sydney Conservatorium, the College of Music, the University of North Texas and the School of Music of Indiana University.

  As well as working as an academic lecturer at AIM, Mark is a composer with diverse extra-musical interests including history, mythology and ancient literature.

  At present, he has an interest in exploring, by way of conceptual abstract and musical aesthetic, the notion of reconstructing lost or imagined performance traditions. Dance and movement, theatrics and technology, language and social media, are just some of the non-musical solutions most apt for his ever expanding, contemporary composer tool belt.

  With a keen and equal interest in acoustic and electronic music as well as interactive media, Mark’s music has been represented at national and international conferences and festivals including the World Saxophone Congress, the International Horn Society, the International Computer Music Association, the Society of Electroacoustic Music, Electronic Music Midwest and Vivid Music.

Ascent to Hell (Clinton Watkins)

• Notes: In 2020 the time came to unleash the darker and noisier side of my sound practice. The project consists of utilising recordings that have been made and achieved on multiple formats over the course of many years within many contexts. Resulting compositions and live performance consist of selections from hundreds of recordings to form concise and rapidly moving arrangements of sound. Computer based technologies have allowed for the live mixing and performance of sound and the ability to combine material from a wide range of proximities. Ascent to Hell is a ten minute live performance that provides an intense overview of this side of my practice which has been lurking in the shadows for many moons.

• About the Artist: Clinton Watkins has worked for over 20 years across a number of fields and genres, from audio-visual installation to experimental music. Building on his interest in scale and fidelity, Clinton’s projects frequently employ repetition, distortion, and duration as a means to explore the characteristics of processing of sonic and visual stimuli. His works are notable for their visceral and precise presentation of scales and phenomena beyond the human by way of video projection, television monitors and screens, and custom-made audio and video hardware. At the centre of much of Clinton’s minimalistic and materially-oriented pieces lies the impulse to investigate the affect that combinations of sonic and visual information have on audiences. Frequently his works also feature stark translations of visual content into the sonic realm (and vice versa), but, regardless of their visual or sonic foundations, are recognisable for Clinton’s determined commitment to intensity of experience and persistent focus on experimental and formal exploration. Clinton’s works for gallery spaces have been presented by institutions throughout Aotearoa – New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Asia and the United States, and his recorded work has been released on a number of prominent experimental and electronic music imprints.

Sentient (Donna Hewitt)

• Notes: This is a new work I am developing that explores the notion of a machine becoming sentient. One of the ultimate goals of AI is to create a machine that is sentient and has the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. A sentient machine is self aware and can feel, understand, and express emotion. The voice is a wonderful way to express and explore this experience from the perspective of the being that is becoming sentient. This work makes use of human and artificial voice and examines the transition between human and machine through the use of voice. The work takes the perspective of the machine and also questions the ethics of creating a sentient machine whose primary function is to serve us.

• About the Artist: Donna Hewitt is a vocalist, composer, instrument designer and academic. Her creative practice explores mediatized performance environments and new ways of interfacing the human body and voice with electronic media. Donna is the inventor of the eMic, a sensor enhanced microphone stand for contemporary vocal performance.

  Donna’s work has been featured in prominent festivals including VIVID Festival (2018), The Bondi Feast Festival (2018), Halifx, Nova Scotia MINT (Music in New Technologies Festival) (2018). In 2019 she performed her #MeToo works in Tokyo and at the Convergence Festival of Music, Technology and Ideas, UK. These works explored the perspectives of women in response to the #MeToo movement.

  Donna is currently a collaborator on a 5 year project funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities research council (SSHRC) Reflective Iterative Scenario Enactments (RISE) is a Le PARC based 5-year (2020-2025) research-creation project designed to enact and investigate futuristic challenges through a series on mini operas. Donna is currently working on the development of an AI Opera with The House that Dan built with the support of the Australia Council for the Arts.

  She is currently the Head of Department of Creative Arts and Communication at the University of New England.

Proxima Ocean (Cayn Borthwick)

• Notes: Proxima Ocean - for live saxophone, laptop electronics and sonification of local ocean conditions. This ambient series explores themes of climate change, sonic geography of ocean and connection to place through sublime experience. The performer enters the GPS coordinates of the closest beach to the performace into a bespoke Max/MSP program. The patch queries local ocean weather conditions and uses information such as wave hight and swell period to generate soundcapes in Max and VCV rack. The performer improvises with the soundbed, and the live audio processing is also controlled by ocean weather data. This piece forms part of a larger body of practice-based research exploring how sonification can be used in an interactive composition practice. It expands on the work of artists and composers such as John Luther Adams, Ryoji Ikeda, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

• About the Artist: Cayn Borthwick is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and researcher based in Naarm/Melboure. He creates left-field experimental dance pop, art music and public art installations. He has been described as "a persuasive compositional voice" (Sydney Morning Herald) creating "a completely transportive listening experience" (Trouble Juice). Cayn is a PhD candidate at Melbourne University. His research and practice is concerned with sonification in interactive composition, the auditory sublime and the relationship between humans, technology and the environment. He is an avid surfer and interweaves themes of ocean, surfing and sound. His interactive installation work with Playable Streets has been commissioned throughout Australia including The Sydney Opera House, Australia Museum, MPavillion and Artplay. Cayn has composed for the Arcadia Winds Ensemble, Speak Percussion, The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Fringe Festival and was a 2021 Hatched Academy Composer for Ensemble Offspring. He is a writer and performer for critically acclaimed bands NO ZU, Mighty Duke and the Lords, Sui Zhen and Cong Josie. He has toured Australia, the UK, Europe, the USA, New Zealand and Russia, performing at SXSW, Strelka Summer Festival and Primavera Sound, Meredith Music Festival, Falls Festival, and Dark Mofo.

Farewell Fairlight (Manuella Blackburn)

• Notes: This composition exclusively makes use of sounds sourced from the Fairlight CMI. These sounds include the factory pre-recorded samples which came loaded on 8-inch floppy diskettes on the Fairlight CMI series II from its manufacturer in 1982.

  Other sounds are derived from the mechanics and internal workings of the Fairlight, for example, the power switch, power up and power down sounds, the innovative light-pen making contact with the monitor screen, the drop down panel, disks loading/reading and the unmistakably loud fan noise emanating from the instrument. These mechanical sounds were sourced from the Fairlight CMI IIx housed in the Clockhouse at Keele University, UK where I worked between 2019-2021.

  The work fundamentally explores a historically important and treasured sound library that defined the sound of 80s pop. The legendary bottle smash, ORCH 2, and Trevor Horn stabs are just some of these well known Fairlight sounds that now feature in new configurations in this work. These samples are reimagined with musique concrète techniques, layered, processed and looped to create a new montage.

  Working with a sound library of such significance and magnitude has made me wonder about the curatorial decisions in putting together this library of sounds of how this rather mixed bag of materials came about - conversations with Peter Wielk (studio manager for the Fairlight) has shed light on the backstory of many sounds in the collection. My impetus for creating this work was the knowledge of the sounds’ common feature - their brevity. The sounds last no longer that a second in most cases due to the limitations of RAM and processing power. Another very noticeable feature all all Fairlight samples is the low resolution and generally low audio quality the sounds possess. With 8-bit samples, with an 11kHz sample rate, audio quality was certainly somewhat compromised which is exhibited through a gritty, but much loved character.

  Many thanks go to music technicians Cliff Bradbury and Ian Bayliss at Keele University, Rob Puricelli and Paul Harkins for igniting my interest in the Fairlight and for Peter Wielk for sharing his knowledge about the sample libraries.

• About the Artist: Manuella Blackburn is an electroacoustic music composer who specializes in fixed media creation. She has composed for loudspeakers, instruments and electronics, laptop ensemble improvisations, and music for dance. Manuella has worked in residence in the studios of Miso Music (Lisbon, Portugal), EMS (Stockholm, Sweden), Atlantic Centre for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, FL, USA), and Kunitachi College of Music (Tokyo, Japan).

  Manuella’s practice focuses on microscopic sonic detail and how these miniature materials can be organised within works of sound art. This process has led to new creations based on inherently small materials (clocks ticking, ice cubes cracking, light switches turning on/off and electrical appliance bleeps). Her interests also extend to the world of sampling and intercultural exchanges that translate into music making.

  Manuella has received a number of international awards and prizes for her acousmatic music including: Grand Prize in the Digital Art Awards (Fujisawa, Japan, 2007), First Prize in the 7th and 10th Concurso Internacional de Composição Electroacústica Música Viva (Lisbon, Portugal, 2006, ’09), First Prize in the Musica Nova International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (Prague, Czech Republic, 2014), International Computer Music Association European Regional Award (Australia, 2013), 3rd Prize in the Diffusion Competition (Ireland, 2008), Public Prize in the Concurso Internacional de Composição Eletroacústica (CEMJKO, Brazil, 2007) and Honorary Mentions in the Centro Mexicano para la Música y las Artes Sonoras (CMMAS) competition (Morelia, Mexico, 2008) and in the Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo (CIMESP ’07, Brazil). She is currently a researcher based at The Open University, UK.

Elemental Grains (Nathan Carter)

• Notes: ‘Elemental Grains’ is a technical and improvisatory artistic demonstration of live-performance granular synthesis on an in-development Max/MSP tool, 'Delay Granulator'. This tool gains inspiration from the established realm of delay-line granular synthesisers (e.g., 'ArgotLunar', Ableton Live’s 'Grain Delay'), but aims to extend upon them by affording the user additional DSP-effects and flexible parameter options for a more comprehensive, standalone sound-design system.

  As such, this performance will explore a wide parametric range of the 'Delay Granulator' through the theme of elemental sounds: water, earth, fire, air, and other forces/matters of nature. Improvising on a small selection pre-recorded audio as the grain source, the performance will chaotically evolve and likely feature rich grain atmospheres, glitched/warped transformations, and sparse, pointillistic passages - a mixture of both literal and metaphorical representations of the elemental subject matter.

• About the Artist: Nathan Carter is an emerging sonic artist/composer and multi-instrumentalist hailing from Wellington, New Zealand. Currently completing Honours study in music technology at the NZSM, his music practice combines programming, production, and live performance/recording to create soaring acousmatic soundscapes, intricate ambient expressions, long-form EDM-based tracks and multi-media tools. His project ‘Alter Natural’ is his most prolific outlet for composing; his university studies, meanwhile, have brought his focus to the world of musical programming and software/hardware interfacing. Here at ACMC2022 is where he will showcase his current music tech project: a DSP-extended granular synthesis tool built in Max/MSP, developed for both live performance and composition.

Holding Patterns (Grayson Gilmour)

• Notes: The title track from Grayson's forthcoming album, 'Holding Patterns' bridges Grayson's work as a film score composer with his interests in ambient, modal and improvised music. Inspired by musings on the Anthropocene, low visibility fog wandering in the Te Kopahou reserve, and the environmental compositions of John Luther Adams, 'Holding Patterns' features contributions from the following performers:

  • Salina Fisher: Violin

  • Tristan Carter: Violin

  • Sophia Acheson: Viola

  • Charley Davenport: Cello

  • Lachlan Radford: Double Bass

  • Michelle Velvin: Harp

  • Rachel Andie: Bass Clarinet

  • Ruby Solly: Taonga Pūoro

• About the Artist: Grayson Gilmour is an award-winning song writer, film score composer and performer. He has toured internationally as both a solo artist, and part of the post-punk outfit So So Modern, releasing works on labels such as Flying Nun (NZ), Transgressive (UK), Unter Schafen (DE), RBMH (AT) and P-Vine (JP).

  Curiosity is the driving force behind Grayson’s musical journey. Having released his multifaceted album Otherness (complete with its 360° music videos and web sampler) to critical acclaim, he is currently lecturing at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts in-between film scoring projects and live performances.

Glitchcraft (Jessica Robinson)

• Notes: Inspired by previous decades of cyberfeminist thought, Legacy Russell’s 2020 Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto posits that “one must innovate, encode, engineer the error into the machine [...] prompting its failure as a radical act”. In direct opposition to techno-solutionism, glitch feminism “celebrate[s] failure as a generative force”. This work applies this concept to a DMI context by designing an unpredictable, ‘glitchy’ instrument causing the relationship between player and instrument to be in flux during performance. This unpredictability aims to foster all four of Don Ihde’s human-technology-world relations while playing (background, alterity, hermeneutic and embodiment).

• About the Artist: Jessica Robinson a composer and sound artist from Tāmaki Makaurau, currently studying undergraduate composition and mechatronics engineering at the University of Auckland. Her practice focuses on integrating these fields, through software-based sound design and composition and digital musical instrument design.