Electronic Arts Ensemble
Workshop Date:
Mon, 06/18/2018 - Fri, 06/22/2018
Electronic Arts Ensemble is designed for musicians, visual artists, programmers, designers, writers, dancers, actors, or artists of any discipline to collaboratively develop improvisatory performances using custom digital toolkits.
The workshop will address topics including:
- performance practices, with a focus on improvisation
- music performance software (Max/MSP, Max4Live, Ableton Live, etc.)
- video performance software (Jitter, Premiere Pro, After Effects, etc.)
- hardware and sensors (Arduino, Kinect, MIDI controllers, etc.)
- networked performance (OSC, JackTrip, etc.)
The schedule includes lectures, demos, discussions, and lab time. At the core of the workshop, daily group improvisations using customized toolkits will enable participants to develop a novel approach to their individual artistic practice. Participants are encouraged to experiment with the technology presented during the demos, and to engage with their peers in synergetic creation. The multidisciplinary ensemble will stage a public performance on the last day of the workshop.
Participants should have an artistic and/or programming background. Artists of all disciplines are encouraged to apply. Experience with improvisation is not required, but willingness to perform is crucial.
About the instructors
Alex Chechile is an artist and composer whose work develops in parallel with research in neuroscience, psychoacoustics, and the biomechanics of hearing. His electroacoustic compositions and installations bring transparency to otherwise invisible processes in biology and technology. His projects have been supported by The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), Harvestworks (NYC), Issue Project Room (NYC), the Experimental Television Center (NY), the Deep Listening Institute (NY), and the American Embassy, and his work has been presented worldwide at venues including MoMA (NYC), IRCAM (Paris), and ICMC (Utrecht). Alex performs in the SideLObe chamber laptop ensemble with Ge Wang, was a founding member of Pauline Oliveros' Tintinnabulate ensemble, collaborated with Mercury Rev, and opened for Primus. Chechile is a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), and holds an MFA in Electronic Art from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a BA in Music from Tufts University.
Constantin Basica is a Romanian composer living in the San Francisco Bay Area, whose current work explores perceptual illusions in the context of audiovisual performance. His compositions include pieces for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestra, and opera. In recent years, he has been composing multimedia works for acoustic instruments, electronics, and video, which have been performed in Europe and in the United States by artists such as Séverine Ballon, Tony Arnold, Elision Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Ensemble Liminar, JACK Quartet, and Spektral Quartet. Constantin is the Alice Wilber Chapman graduate fellow at Stanford University, where he is working toward a D.M.A. in Composition. He received an M.A. degree in Multimedia Composition from the University of Music and Theater Hamburg, Germany, and two B.A. degrees in Composition and Conducting from the National University of Music Bucharest, Romania. As a teaching assistant at Stanford University, Constantin received the Chair’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2015. He was also one of the lecturers at the 2016 Sound and Music Computing Conference and Summer School in Hamburg, Germany.
