OUTSIDE INSIDE from IOM-AIM Research, produced by LOOS/Studio LOOS (NL)
Everday at the Gallery of Kleylehof as part of NICKELSDORF KONFRONTATIONEN FESTIVAL 2022
Since the end of 2013 Peter van Bergen and Johan van Kreij have an artistic dialogue and work together in the IOM-AIM Research. IOM-AIM researches interactive computer music improvisation with as a starting point improvisation defined as “solving problems caused by unstable and unpredictable activities” (Van Bergen).
Van Bergen researches definitions, notions and concepts of musical improvisation and composition and their relationship, communication, interaction, instability and transformation and discusses the outcomes with Van Kreij. The role of Van Kreij in the research is the development of specialized software realizing computer aided interaction for performance. This development can be described as an ongoing refinement and implementation of a musical language and musical interaction. At the core of the system, that can be described as a collection of agents, is the analysis of input and a variety of generative processes that create distinct musical responses. Ultimately IOM-AIM is an (software) environment in which computers and humans cooperate, interact, communicate and generate.
OUTSIDE INSIDE is a next step in IOM-AIM Research (Peter van Bergen & Johan van Kreij). IOM-AIM researches improvisation as an art of instability in human computer interaction (HCI). Central themes are the present and the absent, human-computer interaction, improvisation, interactivity, public participation, instability and transformation, dialogue, the private and the public domain.
OUTSIDE INSIDE is a complex, multilayered composition/environment in the tradition of Voyager of George E. Lewis in which various behaviours, choices and processes influence each other like in a web: automatic algorithmic sound generating processes; compositional seeds partly genetically based on tone patterns substracted from for instance Evan Parker’s solo soprano saxophone performances; data coming in from a variety of sensors measuring audience activity (the audience) and sound inputs by musical performers. Together they feed and form an musical environment that starts a dialogue with the environment/the room, the audience and musical performers. Themes are ensemble, feedback, grains, tubes, choir. Audience is invited to enter the gallery Kleylehof and start their own dialogue with IOM-AIM. Musical performers are invited to enter the gallery and start a musical dialogue with the room, artificial ensemble and choir.
The content of extreme forms of syn- en asynchronicism, communication and non-communication, stability and instability, minimalism and complexity, expectation and surprise logical and non-logical, finds an artistic expression in the aesthetic form through which the drama is unfolding itself, and the performance is created, developed and changing in the moment. The explosive and implosive power generated by the notion of desintergration and the transformation that comes from the re-intergration constitues a guideline for the research and the creative process. In this sense the above mentioned form and content unite in a big bang of possibilities.
Peter van Bergen
Peter van Bergen hyper winds, tenor- and soprano saxophone - improvisor, composer, interpreter, artistic researcher in contemporary interdisciplinary music studied at the Royal Conservatory The Hague and studied with Evan Parker. Founder/director of LOOS (Foundation - Ensemble - Studio). Performed with a.o. Cecil Taylor, Evan Parker, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Misha Mengelberg, Maarten Altena, Radu Malfatti, Gert Jan Prins, Thomas Lehn, Georg Gräwe, . Premiered a wide range of new works of composers like Louis Andriessen, Gilius van Bergeijk, Cornelis de Bondt, Huib Emmer, Martijn Padding, Guus Janssen and more. Received several scholarships and awards and is an artistic researcher. He started IOM-AIM Research and is currently PhD candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, promotor Prof. Dr. Kathleen Coessens, subject “Improvisation, Interactivity, Instability: Artistic Transformations”.
Johan van Kreij
Improvisor, composer and maker, who uses software and hardware to develop improvisation instruments following his very individual ideas about sound synthesis. During his long running practice he has worked with a variety of instrumentalists, improvisors and composers.
In this performance, Johan plays a selection of his self developed instruments that revolve around instability, feedback and electromagnetism. For example, a set of chaotic oscillations create a wide variety of sonic results in which small parameter adjustment can result in dramatic variation in the produces sound. Another setup makes use of motors of which electromagnetic waves are turned into sound pressure waves. In addition Johan will participate with Peter van Bergen to navigate and feed the IOMAIM environment, to which his musical gestures serve as an input.