The Telecolonization Performance

One of the joys in performing telematically is the ability to not only hear your collaborator, but also to see them. Therefore, a challenge in presenting artistic video imagery for a telematic performance is to do so without obscuring the image of the distant performer. One way to do this is to create a custom software application that can manipulate the (virtual) space within which the performer exists. This was achieved for the concept of the Telecolonization performance at ICAD 2007 by presenting a series of still images representing the spaces to be "colonized" -- hence referred to as "static images." The performers would then be revealed within these spaces through their movement as they performed with their instruments. The more motion created by the performer, the more their image would be revealed. Gradually over the course of the performance the static image of the space would become increasingly opaque, and the end would reveal the performers in the actual space of the studio.

In order to achieve this effect a video frame taken of the performance space was captured into a buffer at an adjustable interval of every 500ms to 2,000ms. This frame was then subtracted from each successive frame of live video. Any differences between the pixels of the stored frame and the pixels from the live video signal constituted movement. The different pixels were then blended with the alpha channel of the static image, revealing the movements of the performer. The imagery for the Telecolonization performance consisted (in order of appearance) of a landscape image of a sunset, the texture of a cave wall, and a partly cloudy sky. The images were changed based upon the progression of the performance.

The video system for this performance consisted of two cameras, an analog video mixer, and a computer running the Max/MSP/Jitter application. A second computer, running a special video streaming software, was used to stream the effected video to the remote location. This same system was used for the later performance at Siggraph 2007. The Siggraph performance, however, used a series of videos in place of static imagery. This gave the visuals for that performance a more fluid feeling.

Music with roots in the aether: Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros
By Carlos A. Inada / From São Paulo
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer, and a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music. In a text on John Cage, Oliveros and Eastern and Western philosophy in music, Tracy McMullen highlights Oliveros’s importance:

Oliveros’s work has often been overlooked by music historians, most pointedly after her turn to the body and improvisation. Her focus on embodiment, improvisation, and the dismantling of the mind/body dualism troubles the primacy of the individual and the universal over the contingent. As such, her work has been marginalized in discourses with a stake in maintaining a Western enlightenment view that demands a split between self and other, a split that improvisation calls into question.
[…] In my view, the most radical elements of Cage’s and Oliveros’s work involve their questioning of the artistic self or “ego” and can be traced to the influence of non-Western philosophies such as Buddhism.

In the interview below with composer Robert Ashley, for his program Music with Roots in the Aether (1975), Oliveros discusses her work and her view of listening:

I have been working on my consciousness, and the result is the music. I have a task to do, I have to give up my intentions as far as the sound is concerned. If intention arises, I have to wait until I have no intentions. Then the sound changes from there. It becomes involuntary. […]
I realized I wasn’t listening very much. So I gave myself the task of listening to everything all the time, from that point. And reminding myself when I wasn’t listening, I became more and more aware of not listening. Then I began to listen more inwardly as well as outwardly.

Landscape with Pauline Oliveros, from Music with Roots in the Aether (1975). Video via UbuWeb

“Bye Bye Butterfly” (1965), by Pauline Oliveros. An accomplished accordionist, Oliveros was also fascinated in her childhood “by the whistling noise found when searching for radio stations”. This excerpt “demonstrates her mastery of sonic texture ― impressively fluttering between a ‘found sound’ opera piece and a quivering electrical hum.” The video is adapted from a 1920 documentary called Heavenly.

Pauline Oliveros interprets “The Fool’s Circle”

http://blog.dharma.art.br/post/4972598525/music-with-roots-in-the-aether-pauline-oliveros