On April 19th, the first edition of INTERSECT. series will kick off at Studio Loos

With a focus on improvisation and interactivity, the edition will include showcasing Kinesis an interactive VR experience by Arash Akbari, a live performance by Görkem Arıkan playing the Wirwarp, an instrument commissioned by Sonic Acts for the Touched by Sound project, designed and built in collaboration with Joris Takken, Lucas Vonk, Rahsaan Bleijs, and Roman Willems. Kristin Norderval ( voice & live electronics) and  Kaat Vanhaverbeke (accordion & live electronics) will perform “Between air, folds & voltage” integrating gestural movements with a focus on acoustic interactions with the space and the qualities of spatial extension. Gobi_10k’s improvisation will explore Machine Learning techniques in live computer music performance. 

Kinesis by Arash Akbari

Kinesis is a digital sonic environment that explores the relationship between sound, space, performer, and computation. A group of AI agents were trained using reinforcement learning to create generative spatial sound objects that react to human presence using their unpredictable behaviors. The result is an ever-changing digital audio-visual structure that transforms the space in an unrepeatable manner. The listeners/performers become active by walking and positioning themselves among the objects and indirectly navigating the composition. The agents constantly react to the performer's actions. These reactions affect the sonic features such as frequency pitch, duration, and amplitude. While the system interacts with the virtual plane of continuous differentiation of its components, every subjective experience becomes a part of the system by encountering it through sense-making.

Arash Akbari is a transdisciplinary artist. He investigates the interplay between dynamic art systems, human perception, nonlinear narrative, and the convergence of physical and digital realms. His exploration spans the domains of generative systems, interaction design, immersive technologies, and real-time processing. Approaching the dominant technological paradigm with a critical perspective, he seeks alternative narratives where computational processes and interactive cybernetic systems give rise to concepts, ideas, and questions, eliciting affective personal and social impacts and responses. Akbari directs his experimental practices into audio-visual performances and installations, interactive software, sonic environments, and multisensory experiences.

“Between air, folds & voltage” – Kristin Norderval & Kaat Vanhaverbeke 

a first performance with the support of Studio LOOS

• Kristin Norderval, voice & live electronics 

• Kaat Vanhaverbeke, accordion & live electronics

“Between air, folds & voltage” explores sound and movement in the framework of free improvisation involving voice, accordion, and real-time audio processing with gestural controllers. Both performers are using Genki WAVE MIDI rings as controllers to highlight and integrate gestural movements into their musical practice. Acoustic interactions with the space and the qualities of spatial extension are a central focus. As two performers 40+ years apart in age and from different countries (US/BE), Norderval and Vanhaverbeke investigate the aesthetic possibilities that can emerge from collaborations between composer-performers from different generations, nationalities, and musical training, using different modes of real-time signal processing.     

Kristin´s work explores the human expressivity of the acoustic voice and the complexities of the mediated voice. Kristin writes: During my recent PhD research fellowship at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts I designed a performer-controlled vocal processing system for singers that could accommodate mobility and allow interaction based on auditory and haptic cues rather than visual. In other words, a system allowing the singer to control their sonic output without standing behind a laptop. I wanted to create a performer-controlled interface that would enable nuanced and variable vocal processing and freedom of movement. I also wanted to identify a sound design that would afford a balance between the self-amplified, embodied operatic voice and its sampled, processed and disembodied voice(s) or “sonic avatars”.  I call the system I developed the Expanded Vocal Improvising Instrument (the EVII) as a tribute to and acknowledgement of the influence of Pauline Oliveros and her Expanded Instrument System (EIS). 

Kristin Norderval is a Culture Moves Europe grantee and an Artist in Residence at Studio Loos. 
This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. 
The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

Kaat´s work explores futuristic music for accordion, electronics, and theatrical-choreographic movements – which she calls the “3D accordion XL”. Kaat writes: The accordion is an incredibly versatile, dynamic and generous instrument. In 3D accordion XL I’m enlarging that generous character in an attempt to explore extra-dimensionality as the main conceptual idea of the performance. Extra-dimensionality refers to moving the accordion bellows intentionally forward and backwards at different angles, prompting an extra musical dimension of spatiality and motion in music. In the performance, the movements of the bellows take centre stage and are linked by electronics to musical parameters such as pitch and rhythm, challenging the instrument’s acoustic limits – the extra-dimensionality is expanded and becomes uncommonly explicit. The accordion bellows come to life, becoming a strange and fascinating moving entity in a unique sound world. 

Wirwarp by Görkem Arıkan

Görkem Arıkan will play the Wirwarp, commissioned by Sonic Acts for the Touched by Sound project, designed and built in collaboration with Joris Takken, Lucas Vonk, Rahsaan Bleijs, and Roman Willems. 

Drawing inspiration from Michel Waisvisz’s distinctive approach to sonic interactions and musical expression, Wirwarp incorporates conductive rubber cord stretch sensors. These sensors create a dynamic mesh on a wooden frame, providing a touch canvas for sonic exploration through the manipulation of tension dynamics. Playing the instrument involves warping and tangling the mesh – pulling the cords, pushing the nodes, and adjusting the frame’s angle with movable hinges.

An interdisciplinary sound artist and performer, Görkem Arıkan is a music technologist at SoundLAB in Amsterdam and the co-founder of the non-profit experimental music formation A.I.D. He graduated from the Instruments and Interfaces program of Sonology at STEIM and KONCON, where he developed ARMonic, a gestural electroacoustic music system consisting of wearable D.I.Y sensors and electronics. Afterward, as a research associate at Sonology, he created the sound installation Singing Sparks, which is made of ignition parts of a car engine, presented alongside a documentary film about the listening practice of car mechanics. He actively engages in various projects, blending arts, technology, and culture, exploring expressive sonic interactions, and creating experimental electronic instruments and sound installations.

Gobi_10k

Gobi_10k (Alec Gordon) is a Scottish musician and instrument inventor working in the Hague. His work deals with oversaturation as a method to explore atemporality. This performance will expound on the limits of machine learning synthesis, using material gathered through web scraping and web 2.0-inspired piracy.

Gobi_10k (Alec Gordon) currently lives and works in Den Haag, Netherlands. Gobi_10k’s work is concerned primarily with noise in a variety of “saturated” states, driving noise through numerous cycles of feedback, often using frequencies that occupy the entire range of human hearing.