Paweł Dziadur
A few sentences about the electronics:
For about two years I have been developing a computer application called wave_attack which is basically an electro-acoustic improviser interface developed in the Max/MSP environment. The goal is to achieve the highest possible swiftness in real-time operation and to allow creative possibilities for the electronics with zero-level of pre-sets or arrangements and without focusing on the need to prepare pre-recorded material.
The software developed allows many possibilities in the manipulation of live input signals, like those from acoustic instruments, and can similarly be extended into the possibility of transforming audio samples, enabling synthesis and also most of all rapid gestural control. To explain in more depth, I would like it to work as quickly as we can picture morphing shapes and colours in real-time visual animation; the source material is received from live sampling but in a matter of a few gestures it can be transfigured into some other sound figure perhaps of completely dissimilar shape or perhaps retaining some unspoken connection to the source material – this is an open question. The swiftness of operation and richness of transfiguration factors is a very important factor in the interface, so the performer can really improvise and have their arching imaginative force controlling the electronic music system and not vice versa.
We know that in advanced electronics the transfiguration can be a closed circuit (however gating in some external input). We just need tooling to use it in real-time instrumentation. This is the goal and it is this, in addition to just working on how to express our souls and inner artistic worlds, which is being created and worked on with the software in the technical side of our DM&P performances.
The natural course of development of improvised electronics is to highlight the dominance of transfiguration over the quality of transformed material. Within this conception, electronics becomes a special improvising instrument. But as it is an instrument played by the performer together with other acoustic instruments, the goal is also to keep them in synergy with each other. At the same time, this process is driven by the assumption that there are no aesthetical boundaries to the produced sound. This approach can be regarded as painful to some listeners yet it needn’t be if they open themselves to the expression of the performer, supposing this to be sincere and still having something to say. It is sometimes painful but the artist takes responsibility for their statement. Let's hope that we don't damage anyone’s hearing, as this is important from an ethical perspective.
Creating electronics setups utilising custom software allows the acceptance or discussion of certain elements in the music tradition. As a simple example, I usually work with micro-tonalism or I break through the mechanics of sample-range-looping and repetitiveness of sounds by introducing destabilisers based on environmental factors. I actually prefer these: the environment or gesture derived control data streams, human input rather than random factors which are also possible in the same situation. I have to admit that my electronics were largely influenced by co-working with the saxophonists and saxophone-like individualised modes of expression as the saxophone is very versatile and rich in these. At the same time, the achievements of signal-manipulative electronics are fed back into their playing styles as mentioned.
Electronic music has special qualities to it as it can involve its conceptual element, the creation of interfaces and performance as the occasion dictates; it is a special art of our time. It is also interlinked with very popular art. Lots of people nowadays try their hand at computer-supported electronic music as it is very accessible. Anyone can try. However, working within the limits imposed by the market and traditional usage, these artists struggle with or obey a mode of thinking imposed by the software designers and struggle with or agree to think in line with the widely available user interfaces. Thus they are accustomed to assuming that electronics technique is, for example, mainly about arranging repetitive sequences and applying some filter effects. While in fact with the strengths inherent in our hardware really being able to assist the creative force, there is technologically so much more that can be made possible, and as such from the technological and artistic perspective, electronics as a language is only limited by the barriers of our perception and imagination.
A few sentences about the electronics:
What I do and what I am trying to achieve.
For about two years I have been developing a computer application called wave_attack which is basically an electro-acoustic improviser interface developed in the Max/MSP environment. The goal is to achieve the highest possible swiftness in real-time operation and to allow creative possibilities for the electronics with zero-level of pre-sets or arrangements and without focusing on the need to prepare pre-recorded material.
The software developed allows many possibilities in the manipulation of live input signals, like those from acoustic instruments, and can similarly be extended into the possibility of transforming audio samples, enabling synthesis and also most of all rapid gestural control. To explain in more depth, I would like it to work as quickly as we can picture morphing shapes and colours in real-time visual animation; the source material is received from live sampling but in a matter of a few gestures it can be transfigured into some other sound figure perhaps of completely dissimilar shape or perhaps retaining some unspoken connection to the source material – this is an open question. The swiftness of operation and richness of transfiguration factors is a very important factor in the interface, so the performer can really improvise and have their arching imaginative force controlling the electronic music system and not vice versa.
We know that in advanced electronics the transfiguration can be a closed circuit (however gating in some external input). We just need tooling to use it in real-time instrumentation. This is the goal and it is this, in addition to just working on how to express our souls and inner artistic worlds, which is being created and worked on with the software in the technical side of our DM&P performances.
The natural course of development of improvised electronics is to highlight the dominance of transfiguration over the quality of transformed material. Within this conception, electronics becomes a special improvising instrument. But as it is an instrument played by the performer together with other acoustic instruments, the goal is also to keep them in synergy with each other. At the same time, this process is driven by the assumption that there are no aesthetical boundaries to the produced sound. This approach can be regarded as painful to some listeners yet it needn’t be if they open themselves to the expression of the performer, supposing this to be sincere and still having something to say. It is sometimes painful but the artist takes responsibility for their statement. Let's hope that we don't damage anyone’s hearing, as this is important from an ethical perspective.
Creating electronics setups utilising custom software allows the acceptance or discussion of certain elements in the music tradition. As a simple example, I usually work with micro-tonalism or I break through the mechanics of sample-range-looping and repetitiveness of sounds by introducing destabilisers based on environmental factors. I actually prefer these: the environment or gesture derived control data streams, human input rather than random factors which are also possible in the same situation. I have to admit that my electronics were largely influenced by co-working with the saxophonists and saxophone-like individualised modes of expression as the saxophone is very versatile and rich in these. At the same time, the achievements of signal-manipulative electronics are fed back into their playing styles as mentioned.
Electronic music has special qualities to it as it can involve its conceptual element, the creation of interfaces and performance as the occasion dictates; it is a special art of our time. It is also interlinked with very popular art. Lots of people nowadays try their hand at computer-supported electronic music as it is very accessible. Anyone can try. However, working within the limits imposed by the market and traditional usage, these artists struggle with or obey a mode of thinking imposed by the software designers and struggle with or agree to think in line with the widely available user interfaces. Thus they are accustomed to assuming that electronics technique is, for example, mainly about arranging repetitive sequences and applying some filter effects. While in fact with the strengths inherent in our hardware really being able to assist the creative force, there is technologically so much more that can be made possible, and as such from the technological and artistic perspective, electronics as a language is only limited by the barriers of our perception and imagination.