Single Tone Symphonies

Brief:
Live Improvisational electronic audio performance created from sampling 1 sound.

Status:
This was an old idea that I never got around to and then somewhat by accident I looked over one of my project files in the middle of a in Sonnets fro Trees performance during the Lucky 7 Summer Camp, I saw that all the sounds emitting we sourced from a single sample of a single gong from the Balinese Trompong. This has become more of a current style of playing live. I am in production on a studio produced album with each track sourced from different singular samples.

Abstract:
One sound is all sound. One thing can become all things. There is a common building block amongst us that through manipulations, compounds and juxtapositions we become extremely unique entities. From a single tone, from a lone sample a symphony of many parts of the same source can be created.

Technical:
The show begins with the sampling of a sound. It can arbitrary, it can be planned – it can be a voice, a gong, or insect etc. I can make the sound, someone else can make it or we can just grab it from outside. That sound is sampled, and then cut, reprocessed, stretched, expanded, contracted, contrasted and woven back together with the new alien features of itself in real time to create spontaneous compositions.

Crew:
Concept and execution: Zemi17

The Gamelan Listrik Aneh

Brief:
A set of midi instruments, interfaces, and virtual software components that can perform virtual experimental Gamelan pieces from the Orkestra Jangkrik dan Gamelan Listrik Aneh repertoire.

Status:
Strategizing, brainstorming, actively seeking funding and technical alliances to realize the project.

Abstract:
I was living in Indonesia from 2004 thru 2006 doing research on sacred forms of music with sponsorship part of the time from the Departmen Luar Negri (the Indonesian Foreign Ministry) and the Program Dharmasiswa RI as a cultural ambassador from the Indonesian Embassy in Washington DC. I was living in a small town on the edge of the rice fields. When the early rains of the wet season began, dry fields would spontaneously turn into puddle filled muddy areas. As the sound of the rain subsided the sounds of frogs would begin. I would sit for hours on my front porch at night staring out into the dark field of bamboo trees, over grown rice patty and puddles listening to the multi pointed sound system of frogs. There were times that they seemed to call and respond, and even create some kind of random polyrhythms. At the time I was saturated in study of highly percussive interlocking Gamelan music. One night I drifted off to sleep on the porch listening to the frogs and I dreamed of large frog men dressed in sarongs and royal caps each sitting over single green bull frogs, dramatically and mechanically pressing the backs of the frogs like playing a piano with only the pointer finger. The frogs, triggered by the sarong wearing frog men, would croak in perfect interlocking timing of traditional Javanese Balungan (Melody lines).

The musical material of the Orkestra Jangkrik dan Gamelan Listrik Aneh was first performed live in Yogyakarta Indonesia in the last quarter of 2005. It was presented as a solo concert with Zemi17 performing live arrangements of samples pre-sequenced on the MPC 2000 and adding effects in real time with occasional play over of wind instruments parts. The music was received well but there was something obvious missing in a Gamelan performance, namely the Gamelan. The spirit and nature of most of Indonesian music, especially gamelan is in the active of gathering many people to Kerja Bersama (working together). Beyond just the content of the music, the action of coming together in a group as a social phenomenon is equally important. Having one well dressed guy in the middle of a pendopo in set in the rice field sitting cross legged in front of computers and wires did not convey this type of joint feeling that is synonymous with Gamelan music. The problem being, the instrumentation of the group would require cicadas, birds, crickets and frogs to play in polyrhythmic chants with any one of 10 gamelans from different regions all weighing 100s of KG of bronze and costing a fortune. It was clear that the instruments would benefit from using a gamelan like playing interface but would need to output sample based sounds.

Technical:
A series of custom made midi interfaces that mimic different Indonesian Gamelan instruments that can come together in a midi hub to interface with custom software that allows the composer to assign sample groups to the different instruments on the fly.

4 Balinese Wayang Gender, a 10-keyed xylophone styled instrument played with 2 round mallets. The keys would be tall thin rectangles. The bottom 1/3 of the key would function as an end signal button essential for dampening sounds. The top 2/3rds of the key would be made of drum pad material and be pressure sensitive.

1 trompong-reyong / bonang, a 14 padded instrument, whereas each pad has a striking surface of only 2x2 inches slightly rounded mounted on 6 inch poles spaced 1 foot apart of each other in 2 rows of 6 (able to be played as in 1 long Bali styled row of 14 as well). The pads would need to be programmed so that they are pressure sensitive but also so that upon striking without holding the sample will “ring”, but a strike where the key is held will end the sample.

2 Double Hand pads. This is a very simple instrument made of 2 round drum pads 10 inches in diameter. In the most basic function the pads are just sample triggers with pressure sensitivity and would be used to metric phrase instruments (Gongs, Kampul, kempli etc). In the advanced version the location on the pad would effect playback parameters of a sample. For instance the true sample would be triggered from hitting directly in the center of the pad, where as on the rim could result in up-pitching the sample or changing a rate of an effect.

Crew:
Concept, Designer, Composer: Zemi17
Midi Interface / Instrument Builder: (currently seeking assistance) possibly Todd Twin A, Steim Institute Amsterdam, Gertrude Stein DIP artist in residency program, Harvestwork and others.
Software Developer / Modifier: (currently seeking assistance) possibly Todd Twin A, Steim Institute Amsterdam, Gertrude Stein DIP artist in residency program, Harvestwork and others.
Musicians: Ivan Flores, Wayan Sadera, Suromo, More to be recruited depending on location.

Quadraphonic Mechanical Foot Gong Installations

Brief:
4 specially tuned Gong Agung hung in 4 corners of a small gallery space

Status:
Strategizing, searching for funding.

Abstract:
On a sonic level I have always been influenced by minimalism, be it in electronic music or in the repetition of a mantra. I have also had the good psycho-acoustic blessing to have had quiet time alone in a sound studio with several large skillfully tuned giant hanging gongs. The 2 together left me with the inspiration to create a sonic installation not dissimilar to work by Lamont Young's Dream House but instead of speakers, I would use large specially tuned gongs struck by mechanical powered modified bass drum kicks controlled by a midi sequence.

Technical:
4 Gong Agung specially tuned, 4 modified foot kicks for bass drum, a mechanism to physically trigger the foot kick, a midi interface that will transpose velocity into strength of strike and will trigger the auto kick drum mechanism, coupled with simple sequencer software to script the composition as a midi file.

The 4 gongs would be hung in the corners of an open door white bare empty gallery space (preferably with sky lights). The room need not be larger than 15x15 and should not have competing audio from outside the walls. The floor should be inviting for the audience to feel comfortable to sit or lay down and stay for awhile. The piece would be composed as a loop that is continuously played throughout all open hours of the exhibition.

Crew:
Concept and Composition: Zemi17
Gong Maker: Most likely a guy from outside the Kraton in Yogyakarta or Serakarta Central Java, Indonesia
Mechanical Developer: TBA
Midi Developer: TBA

The Irregular Primes

Brief:
Audio Visual Band

Status:
First performance 2 cubed.17 was at Monkeytown August 17th. The Band is looking for future engagements.

Technical Abstract:
Video is treated like a band of 4 instruments all with character and tambours playing with each other as one. Each video artist creates there own signal and projects from their own projector along side (and even over top of) the other members of the band. The Audio Band component is more a chain- Source Sounds, to the cutter on the sampler, to the processor. Acoustic and amplified audio is played. It all flows into a computer where the cutter takes pieces of it, recreates samples and loops that play over the source. The cutter sends the audio to the processor who runs the sounds through tube filters, analog synths, short wave radio etc and then projects the sound. There are elements of uncontrollable subjectiveness over the sound by all the links in the chain. The Source makers do not know what will be sampled and may not even recognize it when after the cutter works on it. The cutter can not control what the source is, and the processor can not determine what they will receive from the cutter.

Crew:
Video: Zuzuvay Collective (Olga, Christian and Peter) with Jeanne Angel
Audio Source: Kelvin Daly, Peter Principle, Liron Dan, Zemi17
Cutter: Zemi17
Processor: Dok

Black Films

Brief:
A series of audio pieces (like short stories) composed with a collection of scents (as in smell) DJ’d for a multipoint sound system in a light restricted space that follow a script and theoretical framework of a narrative film.

Status:
Scripting, on the back burner

Abstract:
Close your eyes, The visual world is a overplayed illusion that we are desensitized to. Think of the persistence of a strong memory. Do you remember with vision alone? Think of the way you body reacts to the smell of tomato sauce verses how it reacts to the a picture of it. Close your eyes and sit in a familiar space. Are there things there that you never noticed? Telling a story with the ears and nose, beautiful and profound. Years ago, friends and I organized blindfolded dinner parties. They were always well received and I got to thinking, why not a blindfolded movie to follow the dinner… now that is a date!

Technical:
Microphones for proper special recordings, Analog and electronic recording, composing and production equipment. A blackbox space with at least a 4.1 point sound system.

Crew:
Concept, script writer and composer: zemi17
Alternate script writer: Azoteas / Geoff Kuffner
DJ Smell: TBA