Bischoff: AUDIO COMBINE (mp3)

 Atchley: 233.08 (mp3)

 Bischoff: DECAY TRACE (mp3)

 Atchley: TURTLE (mp3)


Artist: John Bischoff

Titles: Decay Trace, Sidewalk Chatter, and Audio Combine

Bischoff will perform three recent pieces that project sound into a framed space where details are highlighted and recycled as a context for further contemplation.

In Decay Trace, a performer activates an amplified brass rod and the resulting sonic impulses trigger the fragmentation of pre-recorded samples. As fragments accumulate, synthetic tones gradually replace them and articulate sonic combinations in a new way. Sidewalk Chatter employs an analog "crackle box" circuit (made by STEIM in Amsterdam) as a sound-making input for initiating a digital audio response via laptop computer. As a performer plays the circuit by touching exposed metal traces, the computer program analyses peak loudness and pitch contours in the analog sound and generates its own synthesized voices and responses based on those patterns. His third piece, Audio Combine, employs the sounds from a toy chime, a music box, a detuned ukulele, and a hand drum. As the objects are activated one at a time, sounds are amplified, colorized, and recycled in fragmented form based on the timing patterns of their initial occurrence. One can think of the piece as the real-time construction of a sonic collage where the initial materials are clipped and juxtaposed together automatically based on performer timing.

JOHN BISCHOFF (b. 1949, San Francisco) has been active in the experimental music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years as a composer, performer, and teacher. He is known for his solo constructions in real-time computer synthesis and the pioneering development of computer network music. His performances around the US include NEW MUSIC AMERICA festivals in 1981 (SF) and 1989 (NYC), Lampo (Chicago), and the Beyond Music Festival (LA). He has performed numerous times in Europe at such venues as the Festival d'Automne in Paris, Akademie der KŸnst in Berlin, Fylkingen in Stockholm, and Tesla in Berlin. He was a founding member of the League of Automatic Music Composers (1978) and he co-authored an article on the League's music that appears in "Foundations of Computer Music" (MIT Press 1985). He is also a founding member of the network band The Hub that released a 3-CD set of their work in 2007 titled ÒBoundary LayerÓ on Tzadik. In 1999 he received an award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (NYC) in recognition of his music. Recordings of his work are available on Artifact, 23Five, Tzadik, and Lovely Music. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Mills College in Oakland, California.
=================
www.johnbischoff.com


Artist: K. Atchley

Titles: turtle, v.2, 233.08 (original and stolen), bell field

K. Atchley presents laptop interpretations of digitally generated sound waves and legacy field recordings that reflect and maintain the current of absorbed thought and empirical romanticist leanings.

1) turtle, v.2 is a laptop concert work recently adapted from an installation.

The primary sound is generated by six sine wave tones forming a chord (equal temperament) sustained throughout the piece. The performer plays by modifying the amplitude and spatial placement of the six tones to produce harmonic and timbral changes that vary depending on the listener's position in the hall. The performer also draws on distortion, reverberation, and delay to create variations on an elegantly limited set of materials.

In performance spaces where video projection is available, attending video landscapes are generated by defining sets of points within a single, germinal image and interpolating and displaying those sets as new images. As the point sets are redefined, new views and new landscapes are discovered, defined, and projected.

The title is an homage to an afternoon spent absorbed in observing a solitary turtle on a rock, in a small pond, in the midst of a city garden.

2) 233.08 (original and stolen)

The sound material is rendered in a field disconnected from the arguments: can a sonic artifact that results from the inter-connection of commercially designed and marketed equipment produce a sound that is original? Can the primacy of that sound be authenticated? If two artists first hear this sound at the same time, do both have the right to claim it their own and use the sound in performance? A third field is introduced: perhaps these topics are more suitable for discussion after a show; a thoughtful conversation, perhaps accompanied by drinks, and a distant air.

3) bell field

In this duet, Bischoff's computer generates synthetic ringing tones and noise bands in sympathy with Atchley's evocatively disembodied pastoral bells: the unique field of points (gathered from among data available at a specific and historically definable range of moments and locus) are analyzed and abstracted over the current (moments and locus) of performance: as if the gossamer that constituted the original were manipulated and draped over the present: verdant, but not naive; experienced, well along the process; remaining open, expectant: the subtle differences between reiteration and repetition.


KENNETH ATCHLEY (b. 1954, Lebanon, TN) is a San Francisco Bay Area sound, video, and installation artist who fashions and performs works ranging from pure-tone and noise hymns to distortion-studded, electro-acoustic devotionals. Much of his work from 1997 to 2005 included the use of fountains and his current presentations continue to be informed by that work and study.

Atchley's performances and works have been featured in venues and festivals including Alternating the Medium (SF), San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, The Kitchen (NYC), T.U.B.E (Munich), CEAIT (Redcat, Los Angeles), Echo De Pensees (CCA, SF), Bang On A Can (NYC), CageFest (SF), Rachel Hafferkamp (Cologne).

Atchley's CD of solo, electro-acoustic-noise works Fountains was released by Auscultare Research. His duet Sealed Cantus with John Bischoff has been released on Bischoff's 23Five CD Aperture. An interpretive score for 14251 was included in SoundVisions (published by PFAU Neue Musik, Germany, 2005). The libretto of his opera Edision's Last Project(ION) and lyrics to the choral work Lumiere de Main were published in the book the guests go in to supper (Burning Books, USA). His article, "An Introduction to the Operatic Works of K. Atchley Including an In-Depth Discussion of an Original Opera Titled Don Giovanni," published in the Leonardo Music Journal. A profile of his work appeared in the June, 2005 issue of The Wire (#256).
=============
www.katch.com