Marlene Fally - piece for noise and distorting voice

I am researching the scream – right now I am mostly focussing on how screaming can release, but also create, tension, how it acts as a form of (non-)articulation and how the scream can open up new layers in an acoustic as well as mental space. During this research it has been helping me to also look into theatre, breathing techniques, concepts of noise and political/social meanings of the scream as well as the usage of one’s voice in relation to their (percieved) gender. Furthermore, I am interested in the scream in a performative setting – especially in the relationship between the audience, who witnesses the scream, and the performer (who screams). I aim to explore this topic through gradually building and evolving a live performance around the scream (and it is crucial here to scream myself) and conversations with people, who are interested/work with the scream too.

Marlene Fally is currently studying sonology in the Hague. She is mostly drawn to live performance and keeping herself busy learning how to code as well as thinking about the social and political aspects of sound, music and live performance. The voice has been fascinating her for quite a while, which played into the choice of the topic for the project she is working on these days. She also composes pieces, plays in a band and every now and then she works with visual media as well.

Dinner discussion about the history and future of the RCC 

We would like to invite you all to an open discussion about the history and the possible future of the RCC. Whether you were attending or presenting at one of our events, we would be interested to receive feedback if it'd been helpful to your praxis. Unfortunately, two of our board members are leaving, so the aim and working of RCC might change next year therefore if you have some thoughts or want to impose your own agenda; now is the time.

At this event we were conducting a series of experiments that are considered to be pseudoscience by the scientific community as well as us.

Elodie Vreeburg - Garden of pavement

Zen gardens are places where new ideas are created through the use of metaphors and the fluidity of the natural sand, the street where a structure has to be followed and where there is no possibility of shaping anything by ourselves. Throughout a collaboration together with a road building company I merged those two elements together in a performance by one of the workers.

Elodie Vreeburg is a half French half Dutch conceptual artist/photographer currently studying in her 4th year fiction photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. At the moment she is working on the metaphors behind the road in which she is researching how to escape from the city structure and how to create awareness again of the core principles of living. In past projects she is intervening in the social structures in which she emphasizes on the relation between man and nature, human behaviour and obsession. Pointing out on situations, suggesting other possible ways and trying to make people react on the unusualness of some behaviours.

Lucie Nezri - once racing ceased, essentially the old 166 renumbered

centered around the single unifying concept of ‘spectrum probabilities’, my musical practice methodically examines the timbre and structure of overtones created by stochastic synthesis techniques. as a reminder (and/or an invitation to yawn), stochastic synthesis refers to a non-standard dynamic sound synthesis technique (zzzz), based on randomness and probabilities applied to a microscopic level ( ). it allows for creating sound material with uncountable degrees of instability and malleability ( = intriguing). 

for this rcc, i’m planning to present a new study, mysteriously entitled ‘once racing ceased, essentially the old 166 renumbered’, from which i intend to explain how simple compositional ideas emerged from the methodology i’ve recently been working with. 

Lucie Nezri is an experimental composer, programmer, performer, dj from france, currently studying at the institute of sonology. in her eclectic artistic practice, nezri is drawn towards the notion of propensity, the use of probabilities and deviations. yet, definiteness and restraint eventually became essential components of her work as she carried on her musical-computational explorations. (because, you know, contradictions and equivocalness are part of the equation)

Soeria van den Wijngaard - We all assume

The idea of impermanence is deeply liberating and peaceful. Liberating because it opens all the senses and pulls you in the present. Peaceful because you realize that all, bliss but also suffering, shall pass. The mind is creating such realistic images that it is hard to believe so. While reading, formation of mental images happens automatically. This is called ‘the mind’s eye’. In my opinion this is also possible with field recordings, music and other immaterial forms of art. I strive to activate your mind-eye or mind’s eye in order to create a deeper connection with your imagination, sense of self and sense of belonging. More idealistically, I want to increase listening awareness in daily life.

She studies that what we have in common.
Her main medium is (binaural) field recording.
Rather than focusing on the sounds of the city or nature only,
Soeria focuses her work on the small, intimate and above all relational.
Vulnerability and ephemerality are at the core of all her works.

Sól Ey - 2048: Systematic approach to psychoacoustics

‘2048’ is a piece that I worked on last year after allowing Excel to take over my workflow and see where it would take me. The outcome is a piece based on a mathematical system that deals with ratios and the relationship between frequencies and pulses. The system is applied to all factors used; time, space, the spectral content and the pulse.
What surprised me yet motivated me to further explore the system was that when applied musically it created multi-layered psychoacoustic effects. The piece was originally composed for the Wavefield Synthesis Sound system (192 speakers) and premiered at the WFS festival in May 2018. I will also present how this systematic study has inspired my structural thinking of time and spectral thinking in terms of sound design.

Sól Ey is an Icelandic composer, media artist and performer based in The Hague. She is studying composition and sonology and the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague.

Eric Kluitenberg - The Sound of Theory

What does theory sound like?

The sound of theory could be equated with the sound of the theorist’s voice - often largely untrained and not really set for the stage, failing, hampering, which might breathe some life and humanity into theory (even anti-humanistic, post- or transhuman theory!).
But this does not tell us what the sound of theory as such is like, i.e. as an autonomous object, independent of its ‘author’.
Perhaps it is better to address this question to a machine rather than a human - we might get a better answer.
Then again, one might opt for another approach and turn it (the theory object) into a song - what would / could that sound like?
Well, let’s see..

Eric Kluitenberg is a theorist, writer, curator, and educator working at the intersection of culture, politics, media, and technology. He is the Editor in Chief of the Tactical Media Files online documentation platform for Tactical Media. He was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, and teaches cultural and media theory at the Art Science Interfaculty and the Interactive / Media / Design program in The Hague.

Noise / Flowers - Exploring the uncontrollable, exciting and beautiful sounds of the electric guitar in a musical way

The duo came together to explore some of the fascinating and exciting sounds inherent in the electric guitar that they were unable to explore in other contexts. The set up of electric guitar, through fx pedals and into one or several guitar amps is a delicate combination of not fully controllable parameters that change in subtle ways in different spaces - partly due to the acoustics of different room. Even different electricity supplies in different buildings can cause noise and colour the sound which travels through the aforementioned the electrical circuits, and the delicate combination of different controls that can almost never be set exactly the same way twice also has a big impact. What's more, sounds such as feedback, pedal hiss, alternative tunings, beating tones and non-equal-tempered chords that can result from these are again delicate and slightly out of control parameters in this context.
Instead of trying to tame these parameters and trying to replicate them in each performance the duo performs open improvised forms, searching to create compositionally-minded performances that allows these uncontrollable parameters to be used in at times an abrasive, yet attractive and sonically rich way.

Flowers/Ghosts is an improvising electric guitar duo based in den Haag. Consisting of Gonçalo Oliveira and James Alexandropoulos-McEwan. The duo draws from their backgrounds in jazz, contemporary classical composition and rock to create performances that explore the beautiful, fragile, uncontrollable and noisy sounds of the electric guitar, creating unrepeatable instant compositions that move between ambient, jazzy, bluesy, noisy...
https://facebook.com/FlowersGhosts-2132402476977802/

username: AvantG4Rd38
password: fromcrashingcarsinitaliancountrysidetotheweirdsideofyoutube

In November 21 two persons decided to put on high visibility jackets to try and walk into places where they were not supposed to walk into. In June 22 of the same year a person had decided to follow people around with a trombone in his hand. These were not performance art pieces and neither were their conspirators aware of the voluntary car crashes, almost fatal bleedings, stalkings and the compositions of one peculiar man -who had radical ideas about what to do with your spine.- that paved the way for creating the framework on which such initiatives operate.
Thus, how can a performance artist even get away without cutting a finger nowadays?

Gokay Atabek is a person who, luckily for him, still has all his extremities attached to his body. Lately his research and practice is aimed towards overcoming his youtube addiction and also building things that - hopefully- work. In his spare time he is plotting to become the mighty Synthmaster3000 and overthrow your overlords.

Mári Mákó  - Dasein ` being there

A graphic score piece played by an ensemble with a guidance of conductor. The signs of the score will be drawn on the spot to mix the process of creation, along with challenging the commitment of being there all together in the moment. Research about composing while performing and questioning the mysticism on stage. 

Ragnheiður "Erla" Björnsdóttir - Seglskraut: Thoughts About Music And Language

Seglskraut explores the boundaries between music, language and visual art. The piece is an experiment on how to create a music-like experience through a book using words constructed with various techniques. The composition's main focus is the rhythm, phonetics and cadence of language - when logical understanding of it vanishes and moves aside for the feel of music. All drawings in the composition display the anatomy of the voice; empty pages represent silence and drawings transform into sounds. Later the material developed as an experimental improvisation for voice in poetry readings. Seglskraut will be presented as a voice sculpture at Ung Nordisk Musik festival in Pitea 2019.

Ragnheiður "Erla" Björnsdóttir is an Icelandic composer, poet and singer based in Reykjavík. She recently completed a masters degree in Creative Writing at the University of Iceland where the piece "Seglskraut” was her final project. Prior to this she graduated with a BA degree in composition under the guidance of Hróðmar I. Sigurbjörnsson at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts in 2016. Erla composes and writes for various platforms, her most recent projects include a film score for a new Icelandic film, music for the National Theatre in Iceland, a libretto for a children’s opera that will be premiered at Dark Music Days Festival 2019 as well as she is a regular performer at the Icelandic Poetry Brothel.

Daniil Pilchen - écoute et répète

This is a piece for four speakers producing infrasonic waves in a range of 0-5Hz. Two of them produce sine waves, which one can not hear, but only see the motion of membranes, and the other two produce triangular waves, which are audible as short clicks at peaks of each period. Clicks and movements are in sync at the beginning, but eventually, they start to diverge to the point of complete independence closer to the end.

I am interested in how different we perceive the very similar material visually and audibly, and also in tracing a way of how vision and hearing can be connected and how one can influence another.

Abel Fazekas - How to combat entrepreneurship 

The effects of contemporary consumerist society on our human behaviour is a frequently studied topic across many fields. Consumerism on a very basic level is a social and economic order that encourages the fulfilment of often unconscious desires by consumption of material goods. This is done by setting up a symbolic link between the said desire and the product through advertisement, which leads to the consumption of the product, in pursuit of the desire itself. Values are increasingly measured in symbolic value instead of use or exchange values, as the focus is on psychic fulfilment instead of functionality. Not only our consumption habits are effected by this order, but our everyday behaviour as well. The 'Instagram couple' or the 'happy slapping' phenomena are prime examples of how certain activities (romantic relationships and aggression in these specific cases) are deprived of their intrinsic purpose and value, and are degraded to being means to generating momentary online recognition, that serves no pragmatic function, only symbolic value. Unfortunately this is not the least limited to cyberspace. Studies have shown that as early as children, we develop a narcissistic entrepreneur-like attitude towards the world (or as our Adorno called it, become the 'manipulative type'). Our actions, lifestyle choices and personalities are also increasingly symbolic, devoid of any further meaning other than their instrumental purpose. This puts into question the real motivations and nature behind gestures of our friends, families, loved and hated ones. 

This all sounds terrible, doesn't it? Don't worry, I'm here to help! After giving a detailed presentation on the mechanics of all this horror, I'll provide you a handful of strategies to combat such entrepreneurship!

A festive RCC this Saturday 2nd of June! With the 30th (!) edition since its creation as well as it being the last one before the summer holidays, we invite you for a special treat! After the presentations we will have a collective culinary improvisation!

Presentations:

Abel Fazekas - 'Unapologetically B A D music' 

- Break -

Gökay Atabek - 'Consumer electronics and powertools sequencer'

- Break -

The world - 'Culinary Free Improvisation'

This will involve everyone! A special dinner. No pre-determined menu. The food will be the result of the collective spontaneous creative effort. 

3 rules to follow: 

1) Each person brings 2 ingredients (rice, pasta, veggies, spices, oil, chocolate, honey, butter etc.).

2) Each person gets 3 minutes in the kitchen and do as they wish.

3) It is forbidden to discuss what's going on in the kitchen.

The dinner should be VEGETARIAN!!!!!!

Emil Tan Erten - Can I Free Improv Too? 

- break - 

Ivan Babinchak Renqvist - A performative lecture on the work of Henry Flynt

At this month’s RCC, four artists will present how they are dealing with duality of Improvisation and Composition. The four presenters – Riccardo Marogna, Ábel Fazekas, Orestes Willemen and Lauge Dideriksen – will present their work in this field and then take part in a panel debate on the subject at the end.

Riccardo Marogna & Octopus Connection Redutch:

The Day of The Tentacle. Strategies for Improvisers from Word Pieces to GraphoGrams 

Octopus Connection Redutch:

Berk özdemir: electronics

Görkem Arikan: electronics

Annick Odom: double bass

Irene Ruiperez: flute

Julie Hasfjord: voice

Rob Shuttz: bass

Riccardo Marogna: saxophone

Panel discussion on Improvisation/Composition led by Lauge Dideriksen, Orestis Willemen, Ábel Fazekas

David Azaglo - Examining groove in African music (focusing on traditional percussion music from Ghana)

It is going to be an experiment with musicians to examine the results (in the light of African groove) produced from interpreting some African rhythms from different styles of notation. Focus will be on which notation gets close to the result produced by the African. “What grooves, and what doesn’t” will be a topic under discussion.

Abel Fazekas - a composition for the trio of Aurelie Lierman, Riccardo Margona and Abel Fazekas

In most cases the musical language is not an active component of a given composition. It’s purpose is to set constraints on sonic, thematic and pragmatic layers in order to outline a coherent system  - a language - within which the work can be revealed. It is rare to consider a harmonic language like of the western classical music, a format like the string quartet or simply an  acoustic phenomenon like the harmonic series already a composition. These are regarded the fabric of the composition instead of being the composition itself similarly to the role of a language. It does not express by itself, but allows expression. 

I am interested in constructing musical languages where the structure of the language functions as the sole means of expression inducing a situation where any kind of narrative can only happen on the structural level.

Domenic Jarlkaganova:

A presentation on aural and visual structural superimposition and dissonance: Dichotic listening and the perception of multiple structures within a single work

Tomer Baruch  -  Feed/me

Feed/me is a performance and an installation in which the Facebook news feed is transformed into a playable musical instrument. Using algorithmic means the sound of the incoming videos is transformed and manipulated according to the actions of the user in the news feed as well as according to the notifications they receive, thus creating a recontextualised social network experience in which everyday offhand interactions change their meaning. The audience is welcome to participate either by interacting with the performer’s using their mobile devices or by browsing the modified news feed themselves.

Feed/me is developed in collaboration with Andrea Vogrig and was supported by the Digital Culture Grant of the Stimularingsfond and by Laboratory Spokane.

Two short performances by Abel Fazekas

The Research Concert Cycle is a monthly series, aiming to promote the discourse directly related to artistic praxes. It is a place to challenge the known and explore the unknown.

After each performance at the RCC, the floor is opened for a discussion between artist and audience.

This time we have the topic of “violence in Art”. We lead a discussion about various theories, analyze artworks dealing with violence, and of course have some quick performances.

Abel Fazekas - tickling reality

I will present my investigation and ideas around radical acts within the fields of art. What defies such an act, a bit of history, how it effects us and most importantly how we can use it for artistic purposes.

Orestis Willemen - The Role of Prediction in Music

The research for RCC on 07/10/2017, will be focused around the subject of predictability and its relation to meaning and musical understanding. A well- defined piece of music contains its own logic/ process which enables it to achieve coherence and consistency and therefore is able to be understood. But what happens when this process is interrupted? Is it possible to achieve consistency when the internal logic of the piece changes? And does that change affect the way in which the audience perceives/understands/listens the music?

In order to understand and investigate those questions, I’ll present a series of short etudes which contain different degrees of consistency and logic.

Sól Ey - Beat me in Basket

Beat me in Basket is a visual and audible exploration through an object; a basketball. It is a research on how the movements and sound in a composition can be interconnected. Patterns are explored with the possibilities of movements, pitch and rhythm with the object. For further exploration of sonic expression, the basketball is amplified with a contact microphone and the sound is processed with a custom made gesture-sensor glove.

But if the matter of our sensation is through an object, is it than possible to recreate the audible and visual experience but without the object? Perhaps there are more possibilities without the ball? Perhaps this is all a hopeless dream about becoming a NBA star.

Ábel Fazekas – [no title]

This performance deals with two subjects. It plays with the listeners ability of recognising changes in musical materials where the rate of change is too slow to be directly perceived. Secondly, it is known that flickering lights and rhythmic sounds at certain rates can effect and entrain human brainwaves. With the help of a strobe, it tries to use this phenomenon for artistic purposes.

It is basically harsh drone music chopped up at low frequencies in order to mess with your brain.

Not suitable for pregnant, epileptics or children. Pregnant epileptics, pregnant children, epileptic children are welcome (I guess it cancels each out?). Pregnant epileptic children do what the fuck ever they want.

Cornelis de Bondt - 'Prelude [Fugue without Theme]'

Nikos Kokolakis - '25 monophonic canons'

percussionist: Antonio Pierna García

Cornelis de Bondt - 'Interlude [on playing 'strict', so machine vs. human]'

Vlad V Vlaev - #2 Diffused (Spatial) Sound Perspectives - Multi l/O Spatial 

Live Digitally Processed Guitar

Mike Balou - 'Postlude' [after-party]

Philipp Weiss - 3x3 (Alea – Agôn – Mimicry)

A game-piece for 9 improvising musicians

Performers are: Laura Agnusdei, Riccardo Marogna, Abel Fazekas, Volkan Turgut, Jacok Lodico, Orestis Willemen, Reto Weiche, Vladimir Vlaev and Annick Odom

Cornelis de Bondt - CHESS

Ivan Babinchak - BJ set

Dirar Kalash

Ivan Babinchak

Scanning die Reihe into accessibility

Vlad V Vlaev

Diffused Sound Perspectives #1 - Solo Live Electronics/Real Time DSP performance

Maia Francisco - 'Water Waves - Sound Waves' 

https://soundcloud.com/maiafrancisco

Volkan Turgut: cl, Sandra M.L. Bardaji: pno

'Musical Rhetorics: an investigation over possible whatnot'

Emil Erten - 'Sempre Legato'

vln: Belemir Baran

vcl: Ege Atalay

cb: Cody Takacs

e-gtr: Ivan Vukosavljeciv

e-bass: Orestis Willeme

Cindy Giron - ' I412 '

for voice, fan, metal, lights, electronics, and scene

Cornelia Zambila - Glossary I for strings

Eight simultaneous performances by "we did NOT write these plans"

Dirar Kalash - Statement (for John Tilbury)

SESSION:

Péter Ajtai - bass

Ábel Fazekas - bass clarinet

Nicholas Field - drums

Dirar Kalash - baritone sax

Markus Krispel - reeds

Jasper Stadhouders -guitar

Leo Svirsky - piano

Gregor Vidic - sax

The Research Concert Cycle (RCC) is an open laboratory for searchers and experimenters, for the curious from any field of work. For us, the laboratory is a space and disciplined occasion to think and do and think more and do more.

Maya Felixbrodt - Timeaddsup

Leo Svirsky - Battle of the Bandz

Ivan Vukosavljevic - ?

Emil Erten - Kickstarter (feat. das Ensemble ohne Eigenschaften)

Cornelia Zambila

Battlefield is an experiment in organizing mass sounding details.

Nikos Kokolakis

Work on "transformation of attention,"  for marimba

Eric Zinman 

Free improv, piano and percussion. 

www.ericzinman.com

Cornelia Zambila - Tachyon Variations 01

videoscore fragments 

I am searching for ways of eliberating the music I create from my own katharsis. While experimenting with catalogues of notation languages, I came across the idea of using the moving element of a video score as an extra aid (helping with coordination with many performers in time). I hope this can develop sideways to my catalogues research and could lead to, for example managing time with rules in a given structure, with many performers.

James Hewitt, Renán Zelada, Karmit Fadael - violin

Clara Riviere Visier - cello

Amir Bolzman - electronics

Enikö Zádor-Gösi - voice

Dirar Kalash

It's a long, slow microtonal piece for ensemble.

Ivan Babinchak - LEFT

Cristiano Melli - RESEARCH ON DRAMATIC POSSIBILITIES OF FORMULA TECHNIQUE 

Cornelis de Bondt - DEUS IN NOBIS SINE NOBIS OPERATUR 

- Brisa Fumero González

- Cornelis de Bondt

- IvancaTrump