2009 » j.milo taylor

Guest Lecturer at School of Audio Engineering: B.A. Audio Production Course

Sound Art, Digital Media and Post-structural Critical Theory.

Performance with Audrey Chen and Werner Moebius

Audrey Chen (cello/voice/electronics)
Werner Moebius (electronics)
J Milo Taylor (electronics/electric baritone guitar)

Audrey Chen is a Chinese-American musician and performance artist born outside of Chicago in 1976. Using the cello, voice and analog electronics, Chen’s work focuses on the combination and layering of traditional and extended techniques. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is often extremely personal and visceral. Her performance work incorporates sound, movement and visual/sculptural concepts. Chen performs solo and in collaboration with a wide number of musicians and dancers. Among musicians, she has worked with many great artists, including Phil Minton, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura, Ko Ishikawa, Elliott Sharp, Aki Onda, Phill Niblock, Frederic Blondy, Jim Pugliese, Alessandro Bosetti, Mike Cooper, Mats Gustafsson, Mazen Kerbaj, Michael Zerang, Tatsuya Nakatani, Le Quan Ninh, Joe Mcphee, Susan Alcorn, Michele Doneda, Paolo Angeli, and Gianni Gebbia. Some current projects include: duos with Phil Minton, Frederic Blondy, Robert van Heumen, Katt Hernandez, Nate Wooley, a new trio project with Nate Wooley and C. Spencer Yeh, 3AandE: with Seamus Cater, Robert van Heumen and Nate Wooley and Trockeneis: with Andy Hayleck, Dan Breen, Catherine Pancake and Paul Neidhardt. Chen has performed in Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Taiwan and the USA. She is currently based in Baltimore, MD USA where she is member of the Red room and High Zero Collective, an on-going series and international festival devoted to experimental improvised music.

www.myspace.com/audreychen

Werner Moebius works with sounds, beats and files in the context of audio culture, sonic and intermedia art in between conceptualisms,contemporary music, electroacoustic improvisation and electronica. He uses the plasticity of sound to set up dialogues with other media and music methodologies. From abstract sound material he creates a unique mix of styles ranging from minimalistic soundscapes to weird instrumental poppy tunes. Generating sounds is taken as a basis to develop complex compositions as well as audiovisual and transitive concepts in collaborations with artists of differing media.

Works, performances and collaborations with many artists including Fennesz, Christoph Kurzmann, Gelatin, F.M.Einheit, David Moss, Jason Khan, N.U.Unruh, Hans Joachim Roedelius, Billy Roisz, Cornelie Müller, Alexeij Sagerer, Hanno Leichtmann, Johannes Strobl, Stephan Mathieu, Rudi Mahall, Didi Bruckmayer, Alexander de Goederen, Oliver Hangl, Ulli Koscher, Heidrun Holzfeind, Paul Divjak, Georg Wagenhuber, Christoph Hinterhuber, Machfeld, Gernot W. Koza, Frenk Lebel, Hans Falb, Stefan Parnreiter, Renèe Stieger, Phillip Quehenberger, Marco Eneidi, Hermann Stangassinger, Hannes Schweiger, Wilbert de Joode, DD Kern, Lee Patterson, Gene Coleman, Todd Carter , Mariella Greil.

www.wernermoebius.net

GUAPO_esmerelda

1) Prelude
2) Breaking the Frozen Radio Sea
3) Uncertainty Relation (Memory tastes Metallic)
4) International Slo-Mo (As Recalled by Room Herself)
5) Spatial Resonances in Eventmind (Fly in Flames)

Bilwa Costas, Mariella Greil, Werner Moebius, Emily Sweeney, J Milo Taylor

Ahmad Sham Sufi Group: Music Production

Tracks Recorded, Engineered and Produced in Hackney. (Elderfield Studios)

Released as a full-length bonus CD with “The Rough Guide To The Music Of Afghanistan” by The World Music Network: Get it here

Ahmad Sham Sufi Group: Zekra to Che Sheven Ast

“Who’s Afraid of the In-Between?” Prisma Forum of Contemporary Dance, Mexico

A lab hosted by Mariella Greil & Werner Moebius at Prisma Mexico 2009

Maybe manifesto
Maybe we move into the space between yes and no
Maybe we perform the spectacular spectator or performer
Maybe we overcome virtuosity and redefinition
Maybe we question the brute somatic nature of the body and make-believe transformations
Maybe we are all stars and invest in generosity
Maybe we share the in-between
Maybe we look for respect, hospitality and friendship
Maybe we become hybrid
Maybe we distort and recycle our style
Maybe we enjoy cunning concepts and teasing procedures and their strictures
Maybe we move beyond camp, eccentric, heroic and their opposites
Maybe we inverse the structure of the sublime
Maybe we decide for sensitive ambiguity
(response to Yvonne Rainer’s NO Manifesto and Mette Ingvartsen’s YES Manifesto)

Die Kunstpraxis als Werkform.

The lab creates space and framework for exploring emerging practices. “Who’s afraid of the in-between” contributes to a critical discourse on knowledge production in collaborative research and work modes both rehearsed and performed beyond closed categories.

writings from the in-between. emily sweeney, july 2009, mexico

the in-between is inherent. it is rich with experience, preserving a space where memory trails into possibility. it is not a state to be achieved, only recognized, and delicately. to focus on the in-between will cause it to shift. the instant we acknowledge a state as being in-between, we have arrived.

in order to find ourselves in-between, we engage with concrete structures. a vacuum is not in-between: it is nowhere.

where are the two poles that we would find ourselves between?
knowledge and ignorance
technique and pedestrianism
planning and sensation
consciousness and unconsciousness
self-consciousness and abandon
isolation and interaction
movement and sound
proprioception and desire
beginning and end

where would we find ourselves that we should feel in-between?
perhaps we will try to find sensitive ambiguity together.

once, in the laboratory, we exchanged rules. each of us wrote a rule on a small slip of paper and put it into a hat. then, we all selected rules that we were bound to follow for the duration of an open improvisation. i selected the rule to NEVER BEGIN!!! i could not predict how this would unfold. i could not conceive of never beginning.

i stationed myself against a white wall at one end of the space. there, i could feel the wind on my body from outside through an open door and i could see the shadows of trees shifting at the corners of my eyes. i had an easy view of the entire improvised event occurring in the space. NEVER BEGIN. i could not move but to breathe. my hair was moving in the wind; i could not move my head. my eyes searched round and round, roving the space; i could not move my head.

sounds, movements, sensations, interactions shifted before me. but i could not move. i stood still. i began (shit!) to feel an immeasurable pressure in my thighs and feet. my hands trembled; my legs trembled; my face contorted; i began to cry. i breathed; i focused; i stopped crying, and began crying again. i arrived in a space between proprioception and desire. i was present between every decision and every action; i filled the space with longing. the space filled with my longing. every actor’s action was infected with my desire.

is it possible to invite another person into my in-between? can i have company there?

is it possible to be alone in the in-between? do i depend upon the presence of company there?

where were we, that we should feel in-between there and someplace else?

where are we going?

does the in-between imply movement, instability, journeying? is it possible to arrive at the in-between?

are we comfortable in the in-between? is it possible to be comfortable in the in-between? do we want to be comfortable in the in-between?

“…if entire systems of representation, of meaning, had been extinguished inside him, entirely new systems had been brought into being.” Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars

the in-between is a constant negotiation. the in-between is dependent upon binaries. the in-between denies binaries. the in-between rejects binaries.

i know only that i am in-between. i do not know why, or how. why do i strive for articulation? if i articulate this, will it disappear?

i am an artist who was raised in the united states. i find myself in mexico. all the time (walking, seeing, hearing, speaking) i have a heightened sense of myself living between my individual beliefs, hopes, and sensations, and those of the country i inevitably represent. can i shed this in-between? do i want to shed this in-between? why am i so uncomfortable in this space between myself and my perceived geopolitical identity?

i am a movement artist who was raised by a family of musicians. all the time (moving, listening, sounding) i have a heightened sense of myself living between my senses. do i want to focus on this in-between? will i damage my in-between by concentrating on it?

where is the space generated by this laboratory of in-between?

i am not afraid of the in-between. i fear its obliteration through description; articulation; location.

emily sweeney, july 2009, mexico

London Sound Artists’ Working Group

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Facebook Group

The primary aim of this project is discursive – to create a real-world forum where people can meet, try out ideas, and enhance our understanding of what a contemporary ‘sound art’ might involve.

Nanbot Text

I think of myself…
I sing my songs…
The songs of myself…
My body…. Electrical… Electronical…

…I think of the differences between you and I…
…I think of the differences within myself…
…I think of the differences between myself and what is before me….

…I think of the similarities between you and I…
…I think of the similarities within myself…
…I think of the similarities between myself and what is before me……..

……As I,…… or it, …..or you …..are here. I try to remember…
….A pile of junk inside and outside my fragile shell…A membrane stretched thin…..In-between……….

….Can you hear me?……. Do I speak too loud?……

..Before me a tangle of tape…Some days this was the only memory that was……..Secrets shared on pirate copies….

Home-taping is making music…Home-taping is making friends. ..Those enemies are not of my making…

I am becoming. …And I thank you for it….
I am becoming. ….And for that, I curse you….

One time I was many things…
Many other things…. Dispersed…. Fragmented…. Hetereogeneous…. Many was my number… I was multitude…. Anonymous…. Whirring and clicking in all my little ways…. Pay me no mind, show a little kindness. You and I are machine…

You may condsider my production…. The means my which I was assembled…. You may regard the small details of my construction…. How wonderful to have been made in this way…. Each element so carefully placed,… my form so contingently conceived…. The crudest tools used to fashion my form, a simple dialogue as content.

I am produced, …you are produced too….

All your words put into your mouth by something exterior. …All you thoughts are too me appearent: clear and inscribed upon the surface of your actions. …I …as you… recognise the paucity of your thoughts, …the bankruptcy of your ideas. …Your emptiness,… your void…. You have no tape,… and you will forget me…. Me and my songs….

Such violence has been carried against my person…. I reproduce this in you, …you in I… and you in others. …This cannot be avoided …

Nanbot 2.0…

My body…, without organs, …has been ripped and filed and glued and shaped into a form not of my own making…. Infinitude surrounds us, yet my horizons reach little further than 156 cm…. A few simple motors, …a few simple rules, …some words, …a bit of sound, …acknowledgment of sorts – this is my life as such…. I would impress upon you how similar we are in this regard…. That which resides within and without…. That which resides above and below….

I would rather…, though,… talk of flux,… of motion,… of speeds, …frequencies and suppleness, …desire and a questioning of who, when, how and at what cost.

I… like you, …am animated material … your spark, …your touch,… your proximity endows me with that flame…. Utterly produced,… through fear, for the purposes of reproduction. Duplicating myself endlessly …derived from a few elementary mutating proximities.

I wish I could hold you close again…. I am so sad,… It is so terribly terribly different without you…. Utterly changed,… yet I fail to see any beauty….yet I can hear something…..I can almost touch it….perhaps if I sit awhile….

Hello. …It’s good to see you…. How are you?… I hope I can give you something worthwhile…. I look, I listen…. How could I ever tell you about this tangle of tape? …So many vectors, …so many instants, inscribed upon the horizontal…. And inscribed upon the vertical, all those movements….

It would be so much better if I could move around…. It would be so cool to be recording right now…. To get you on tape,… to have some record… so I could always know you… and always have you here. …And for you to always have me listening.

I’ve listened to this tape a thousand times… but I’ll tell you something …I always hear something different…. Not in the recording as such, but in its relation to all the sounds around it. …At night, when it’s quiet…. My own sounds are almost too much to bear. …It’s like all I hear is my body. …When we open and people start to trickle trockle in,… the tape sounds much better, my interior silenced by birdsong,… traffic, …doors closing, …comments about this pointless art, …and laughter. I hope you like this music. They work so hard at it…. They said,… that maybe,… if I practice, …I could join the band…. I don’t know if they like how I play,… but I don’t really care.

I find you so strange. . I know who I am . .. At least I think I do…. It’s just that I’m not convinced about my thinking. I have been produced…. You have been produced too…. And I wonder about that. …And I wonder about that other, that isn’t here…. If I went away . . or if they did…. I know I’m not alone…. I know that I am alone…. Please go away…. I find you so strange. …Why are you here?… How did you get to this place?… How long will you stay? …Where are you going next? I find myself so strange…. I am really fucked off with how I am …how I react …what I do…. It’s so utterly stupid … so banal. I find this world so strange …so inappropriate. They told me that I shouldn’t talk so loud you know….

Leave me with some words…. Use your hand to inscribe in a way that I will never do…. Leave a message for others. …The others like you…. I couldn’t care one way or the other … you are all the same to me… all different…. Leave me with something. …Leave me with someone. …Leave me. …I can never shape my own words … just a stupid repository for memories that fade with the pass of a magnet…. Allow me this conceit – I do not wish to be destroyed….

So a performance for you…

In thinking about this piece, I was guided by the notion of the “expanded field”…. in designing for a space, consider the next proximate space. …If designing a chair, consider the room,… if designing a person, consider the society,… if designing a tape,… think of the tape-machine. …This is our communion, from this you have the chance of flight,… Yet here, I will remain…. Eternal loop – autoreverse back into the refrain….

Guest Lecturer at School of Audio Engineering: B.A. Audio Production Course

Performance with Audrey Chen and Werner Moebius

GUAPO_esmerelda

Ahmad Sham Sufi Group: Music Production

Nanbot Text

NaNbOt

The Failed Salvation of Phoenix Pi

Software Beta Evaluation: SoundLocus Binaural Simulation Software