Performance Video - Rotating Brains / Beating Heart at DRHA in London

A successful performance September 5, 2010 with Stelarc, Pauline Oliveros and Franziska Schroeder at the Digital Resources for the Humanities and the Arts Conference, Sensual Technologies: Collaborative Practices of Interdisciplinarity (Brunel University, UK).

Click here for link to Video

Yael Gilks filmed the event, including live performers Martin Parker (electronics) and Franziska Schroeder (saxophone). AOM and Free Noyes (Pauline Oliveros) are on screen with Stelarc and Pyewacket Kazyanenko (controlling Stelarc automatons). The Second Life camera operator Steve Millar (Arahan Claveau), and Second Life audio techs Biagio Francia and Dennis Moser can be seen in the background.

Thanks to Steve Millar/Arahan Claveau for editing and uploading the video.

Rotating Brains / Beating Heart - Collaboration with Stelarc

AOM rehearsing Rotating Brains / Beating Heart.

Photo by Yael Gilks / Fau Ferdinand

ROTATING BRAINS / BEATING HEART

Premiere at the opening night of the

Digital Resources for the Humanities and the Arts 2010 Conference:

Sensual Technologies:
Collaborative Practices of Interdisciplinarity

5th of September 2010 @ 8.30pm UK

A networked collaboration between performance artist Stelarc, the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse and composer Pauline Oliveros in Second Life, with composer/sound artist Martin Parker and saxophonist Franziska Schroeder live at Brunel.

The ROTATING BRAINS / BEATING HEART performance takes place simultaneously at RMIT Creative Media in Second Life and in the Real Life space at Brunel University, London. Second Life visual and audio environment will be streamed to a large projection screen and multichannel sound system at Brunel, and also to the Internet. Second Life performers will be located in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Australia, Canada and the United States.

Stelarc will appear in Second Life where he will interact with the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse and Pauline Oliveros (as avatar Free Noyes) while Martin Parker (live-electronics) and Franziska Schroeder (saxophone) will be performing in the Real Life space at Brunel. Franziska will interact with the musical materials that are emitted from the Avatar Orchestra in Second Life, focusing on the production of air and vocal sounds modulated by her instrument and the live-electronics as performed by Martin Parker.

The Second Life graphic environment consists of an installation of giant body organs - a ring of rotating semi-transparent brains and a beating heart, floating in the virtual space. The transparency of the organs allows avatars to travel ‘inside’ them, triggering the emission of sounds and particles of light. Stelarc’ s avatar, accompanied by automaton Stelarc clones, will perform a choreography of prompted and scripted avatar movements within the ‘organ installation’, mimicking limb movements of Real Life Stelarc muscle stimulations. Stelarc's clones and visual text scripts will be performed by Second Life artist Pyewacket Kazyanenko.

Pauline Oliveros, as her avatar Free Noyes in Second Life, will sound a set of nine drones, built into a virtual mixer. The drones contain sounds of Stelarc's brain waves and muscle stimulation, Franziska's sax playing, a drone from her virtual reality composition Heart of Tones, and sounds of the voices of Viv Corringham (Zonzo Spyker) and Tina Pearson (Humming Pera).

The Avatar Orchestra will perform with a set of two audio visual instruments. One contains increasing frequency heartbeats, sounds of circulation and mechanical sounds, and the emission of textured particles released simultaneously as the sound samples. The other instrument consists of sine tones built on harmonic series frequencies from AC currents. While playing their audio visual instruments, AOM will be using a set of ten looped avatar movement sequences as they come together and fall apart in gracefully entwined avatar shapes. The avatars are encased in amoeba-like forms that glow and emit particles that light up the surrounding space and target the giant organs when sound is emitted.

A project such as this one, which resides the elusive nature of virtual interactivity, attracts the support and partnership of many. Alongside the creative partnership with Stelarc, Franziska, Martin and Pauline, intrinsic creative and technical input was and is contributed by

Pyewacket Kazyanenko, an independent artist working within the realms of Second Life, building and performing with Stelarc since 2008. Pyewacket will be performing the Stelarc automatons and visual text scripts. Pyewacked also created with Stelarc the Rotating Brains / Beating Heart installation, and has consulted about the project with AOM and the creative team since its inception.

Yael Bachar (Fau Ferdinand in SL), who has been a dedicated visual and technical consultant to the team. Fau chose the SL Environment setting for the performance, coloured the giant brain particle textures, assisted with scripting, and consulted on camera operations.

Dennis Moser (Maxwell Biddle in SL), functioning as the Second Life microphone transmitting to the performance venue, has been dedicated to the documentation process of Second Life performance. His assistance with technical and coordination aspects of the project has been invaluable.

Steve Millar (Arahan Claveau) is the camera operator filming the Second Life performance for projection at Brunel. Steve's eye and experience have given shape to the smooth visual representation of the complex performances within the Heart and Brains installation.

Biagio Franca (Blaise de la France Voom), AOM member, is acting as the bringer of Real Life sound (that of Franziska and Martin) to the Second Life performers.

a special thank you to Lilith, whose in-womb heartbeats form the core of one of the AOM audio visual instruments.

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse creative team for Rotating Brains / Beating Heart:

Andreas Mueller (Bingo Onomatopoeia in SL),

---Design and construction of the two AOM performer virtual audio-visual instruments

---Sound samples and Virtual Sound Design (Mechanical sounds, Heartbeat sounds), Particle textures

---Particle textures for both instruments

Norman Lowrey (North Zipper in SL),

---Design and construction of the virtual 9-channel mixer and animations used by Pauline Oliveros (Free Noyes in SL)

---Sound and particle design for the 5 Giant Brain installation,

---Design and construction of virtual 5-channel Giant Brain mixer

---Brain wave, Circulation and other sound samples

Tim Risher (Flivelwitz Alsop in SL)

---design and construction of avatar animation set used by AOM in performance

---Circulation sound samples

Tina Pearson (Humming Pera in SL)

---Conception of AOM performer audio-visual instruments

---Sound samples (sine tones)

---Composition structures - AOM

Avatar Orchestra PERFORMERS

Bingo Onomatopoeia, aka Andreas Müller (Regensburg, Germany)

BlaiseDeLaFrance Voom, aka Biagio Francia (Agropoli, Italy)

Carolhyn Wijaya, aka Carolyn Oakley (Boulder, Colorado, USA)

Flivelwitz Alsop, aka Tim Risher, (Durham, North Carolina, USA)

Free Noyes, aka Pauline Oliveros (Kingston, NY, USA)

Goodwind Seiling aka Sachiko Hayashi, Stockholm, Sweden

Gumnosophistai Nurmi, aka Leif Inge (Oslo, Norway)

Humming Pera, aka Tina M. Pearson (Victoria, BC, Canada)

Maxxo Klaar, aka Max D. Well (Regensburg, Germany)

North Zipper, aka Norman Lowrey (New Jersey, USA)

Paco Mariani, aka Chris Wittkowsky (Regensburg, Germany)

Saara Edring, aka Seidi Palonen, Helsinki, Finland

Zonzo Spyker, aka Viv Corringham (Minneapolis, MN, USA / London, UK

The concept and structure for ROTATING BRAINS / BEATING HEART was collectively created by Stelarc, Pyewacket Kazyanenko, Franziska Schroeder, Pauline Oliveros, Tina Pearson and members of the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse.

AOM HUD (Heads-Up-Display) controls, seen on screens of performers. L-R: portion of WOMB sine tone HUD; Thump HUD (3 columns); 9-channel drone mixer used by Free Noyes; 5-Brain Mixer used by North Zipper. 

Rehearsal with Stelarc

Avatar Orchestra makes magic!

Here below is a review of the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse performance March 27, 2010 at Sea Turtle Island in Second Life. It was written by Michael Peters on his Time Stands Still blog
(Photos by Jeff Duke)

The concert was organized by AOM member Flivelwitz (Tim Risher) and was performed by

Flivelwitz Alsop (Tim Risher, North Carolina)
Bingo Onomatopoeia (Andreas Mueller, Bavaria)
Humming Pera (Tina Pearson, British Columbia)
Maxxo Klaar (Max D Well, Bavaria)
Zonzo Spyker (Vivian Corringham, Minnesota)
North Zipper (Norman Lowrey, New Jersey)
Gumnosophistai Nurmi (Leif Inge, Oslo)
BlaiseDeLaFrance Voom (Biagio Francia, Agropoli)
Paco Mariani (Chris Wittkowsky, Bavaria)
Lizsolo Mathilde (Liz Solo, Newfoundland)

The four compositions performed were Bjorn Eriksson's Fragula, Tina Pearson's PwRHm, Tim Risher's Ritual and Andreas Muller's Aleatricity.

Time Stands Still: My Avatar is Not Blue
by Michael Peters

"I went to an amazing concert yesterday - while sitting at home. Or shall we say, as my 'real' body was sitting at home? I was watching the performance while sitting in some kind of amphitheatre, surrounded by two or three dozen of very strange other people. Maybe I was the strangest of all because I didn't even look like a human - for some reason, the avatar that I had chosen looks like a fox.

Since my first login to Second Life a couple of years ago, I had not spent much time there - I always thought it was a nice thing in theory, but disappointingly clunky in reality. I had originally come here with ideas of cyberspace (as William Gibson coined it) or the metaverse (as Neal Stephenson called his version), some other kind of immersive reality full of wonder (as if our regular reality wasn't full of wonder).

Second Life was obviously inspired by these ideas, and even though we still can't directly plug in using some kind of firewire plug in our heads, and instead have to type on keyboards and look on screens, and even though the graphics are far less perfect than I had expected, it has evolved (since its launch in 2003) into an amazing huge parallel universe full of people that interact in many ways (I read that about 60,000 people are logged in at any given moment) , and more places than one can ever visit.

Usually while my fox avatar had explored SL, he was more or less alone - I seem to be drawn more towards the lonely island than towards a busy bar full of strangers. It was nice yesterday though to be in the audience with at least one person that I knew (Jeff Duke, a fellow loop musician from Florida, who also took two photos during the performance - see below).

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse is a collective of musicians from all over the world, one of them being Pauline Oliveros, to my surprise, a key figure of avantgarde music, livelooping, and deep listening. The orchestra has weekly rehearsals and performs in Second Life, but sometimes also in "First Life". For their Second Life performances, special technology has been developed such as virtual instruments and interactive animations.

The concert yesterday lasted for about one hour. The orchestra consisted of about a dozen musicians this time (with funny Second Life names such as Flivelwitz Alsop, Bingo Onomatopoeia, Humming Pera, Gumnosophistai Nurmi, BlaiseDeLaFrance Voom), playing four compositions by four composers who also did the conducting. The performances were a mixture of very different kinds of electronic sounds, movements, and animations, and I found that I was quickly drawn into their special virtual reality kind of magic and the astonishing dynamics of the pieces.

Something interesting, but hard to describe, happens when one suddenly forgets about the virtuality of this, and gets drawn into this world, which is, after all, populated by avatars of real people. Amazing how quickly the brain gets adjusted to something that is so different to our usual reality. It felt similar to sitting in a really fascinating movie and forgetting about sitting in a movie theatre.

Getting out of this, and back into ordinary reality: the brain switches back, but it takes some minutes. Until then, I wonder about the amazingly high resolution of the trees on the hill and how smoothly I can move across the terrace."

Thanks, Michael!

Orchestra to Perform in Electrosmog Festival March 20

Tireless AOM member Gumnosophistai Nurmi (aka Leif Inge) has arranged with his friend Ze Moo for the Orchestra to perform a live concert March 20, 2010 in the Electrosmog International Festival for Sustainable Immobility in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The ElectroSmog festival is a critique of the worldwide explosion of mobility, and an exploration of the new forms of connectedness with others offered to us by network and communication technologies.

What a perfect fit for the globally connected virtual bio mass that the orchestra has become.

PROGRAM

PwRHm Beats
by Humming Pera (aka Tina Pearson, BC, Canada)
In Whirled (Trance) Formations
by North Zipper (aka Norman Lowrey, New Jersey, USA)
Aleatricity
by Bingo Onomatopoeia (aka Andreas Mueller, Bavaria, Germany)

PERFORMERS

Flivelwitz Alsop (Tim Risher, North Carolina)
Carolyn Wijaya (Carolyn Oakley, Colorado)
Bingo Onomatopoeia (Andreas Mueller, Bavaria)
Humming Pera (Tina Pearson, British Columbia)
Maxxo Klaar (Max D Well, Bavaria)
Zonzo Spyker (Vivian Corringham, Minnesota)
North Zipper (Norman Lowrey, New Jersey)
Gumnosophistai Nurmi (Leif Inge, Oslo)
BlaiseDeLaFrance Voom (Biagio Francia, Agropoli)
Paco Mariani (Chris Wittkowsky, Bavaria)
Free Noyse (Pauline Oliveros, New York)
Lizsolo Mathilde (Liz Solo, Newfoundland)

Avatar Orchestra to Collaborate with Stelarc

AOM has been invited to collaborate on a performance work with the Australian performance artist Stelarc for a presentation at the Digital Resources for the Humanities and Arts) Conference to be held in London from September 5 - 8, 2010. The invitation comes via Franziska Schroeder, the Program Chair for this year's DRHA conference, and professor at the School for Music and Sonic Arts at Queen's University in Belfast. 

The Orchestra will create an interactive audiovisual landscape which they will perform in Second Life and streamed to the Conference performance site, while Stelarc and Franziska will appear both as avatars in Second Life and as live, computer controlled bodies at the Conference site. Pauline Oliveros will also be appearing in Second Life with AOM. Stay tuned for more news about this exciting project.

gg hootenany January 26, 2010

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse will make a special appearance at ghandi's release party and global gaming singalong Tuesday, January 26 at 12 noon SLT.

Event information is here
The url for Second Life location is here

About Gandhi in Second Life...

"In the Spring of 2008, Joseph DeLappe/MGandhi Chakrabarti reenacted Gandhi’s famous 1930 Salt March using a treadmill converted for use in cyberspace to walk 240 miles guiding his Gandhi avatar throughout the online community of Second Life. For the past 9 months, DeLappe has continued the reenactment by imprisoning MGandhi in a virtual recreation of Mahatma Gandhi’s 1930, post-Salt March jail cell where he was held by the British from May 5, 1930 to January 26, 1931. MGandhi has sat in his virtual cell at Yeravda Prison, 24 hours a day on Odyssey Contemporary Art and Performance island in Second Life, greeting visitors and engaging in daily “readings” from the infamous Bush era “torture memos”. These performative readings, entitled “Twitter Torture” have been fed, live, from the local text chat in Second Life to DeLappe’s Twitter and Facebook updates."

The Orchestra will create a musical accompaniment, using its inworld instruments, to "Give Peace a Chance" by Yoko Ono and John Lennon, and invites the audience to sing along with virtual sound. Following the singalong, the Orchestra will dedicate to Ghandi and Peace a meditative improvisation using virtual instruments from its compositions Fadheit, Fragula, Birth, PwRHm, In Whirled(Trance)Formations, Ritual, Rue Blanche and Aleatricity.

Busy Little Orchestra - Update December 2009

AOM core, December 2009. Photo by Max D. Well
Left to Right: Flivelwitz Alsop, aka Tim Risher; Carolhyn Wijaya, aka Carolyn Oakley; Bingo Onomatopoeia, aka Andreas Müller; Humming Pera, aka Tina M. Pearson; Maxxo Klaar, aka Max D. Well; Zonzo Spyker, aka Viv Corringham; North Zipper, aka Norman Lowrey; Gumnosophistai Nurmi, aka Leif Inge; BlaiseDeLaFrance Voom, aka Biagio Francia; Paco Mariani, aka Chris Wittkowsky. Missing from photo: Free Noyes, aka Pauline Oliveros; Lizsolo Mathilde, aka Liz Solo

It has been a busy Autumn for AOM. We have been working on a Machinima of Pauline Oliveros' Heart of Tones with Evo Szuyuan (aka Brigit Lichtenegger), performing regularly, and evolving our range of instruments, compositions and telematic practices. Here is a list of recent performances. It seems unlikely there are many other orchestras that play in such a wildly diverse selection of events and situations.

On December 12, 2009, the Avatar Orchestra performed at Media Playground, De Hoeksteen Live!, Salto 1 TV, Amsterdam - our first live television concert, also streamed to the internet. Gumnosophistai Nurmi (aka Leif Inge), conducted a truly superior version of Bjorn Eriksson's AOM signature work, Fragula. Following a break for interviews, AOM entranced each other and the viewing audience with In Whirled (Trance)Formations, the composition by North Zipper (aka Norman Lowrey) and its growing set of masks and sounds. A video of the orchestra playing with the virtual singing masks can be found here

On December 5, 2009, AOM gave an extended performance of In Whirled (Trance)Formations at ISIM—International Society for Improvised Music Fourth Annual Conference, Media Theater, University of California, Santa Cruz. This was the second ISIM performance by AOM, and was attended in person by composer Norman Lowrey and composer - vocalist Vivian Corringham, otherwise known as AOM member Zonzo Spyker in Second Life.
http://isim.edsarath.com/

Hallowe'en 2009 brought a full length AOM performance at the beautiful Second Life art build "Orfeo's Oratorio" by Second Life artist Alizarin Goldflake. The Orchestra performed Fragula by Miulew Takahe (aka Bjorn Eriksson), Ritual by Flivelwitz Alsop (aka Tim Risher), PwRHm by Humming Pera (aka Tina Pearson), and Wee No Kresh by Bingo Onomatopoeia (aka Andreas Mueller). Alazarin's blog and photos of this event can be found here
http://alizaringoldflake.blogspot.com/

AOM performed In Whirled (Trance)Formations October 11, 2009 in a mixed reality duo with North Zipper (aka Norman Lowrey), who created the real life and virtual sounding masks that form the heart of this piece. The occasion was Marathon of Dreamers, Ione's 14th Annual Dream Festival, at Deep Listening Space, Kingston, New York.
http://www.deeplistening.org/site/dreamfestival

On September 26, 2009 AOM participated in the 3rd Annual Earthdance, Mystical Mastery in Second Life. The concert was a fundraiser for the Earthdance initiative and part of a larger series of performances by other Second Life Artists. AOM featured Fragula by Miulew Takahe (aka Bjorn Eriksson), Ritual by Flivelwitz Alsop (aka Tim Risher), PwRHm by Humming Pera (aka Tina Pearson), and Wee No Kresh by Bingo Onomatopoeia (aka Andreas Mueller).
http://www.earthdance.org/

On September 11, 2009, AOM suitably performed Aleatricity and Wee No Kresh by Bingo Onomatopoeia (aka Andreas Mueller) at the Gogbot Festival, Enschede, Amsterdam http://2009.gogbot.nl/

Orchestral Investigation #9 (Fragula) to be screened at Atopic Festival

Orchestral Investigation #9, the wonderful video made by Evo Szuyuan (aka Brigit Lichtenegger) with a performance of AOM's Fragula, will be screened at the Atopic festival in France in the "Creative" section. Atopic Festival is the first French machinima festival and will take place at "La Cite des sciences" in Paris from 27 October till 4 november. The audience will select 3 video's that will be screened later at La Geode, a huge hemispherical IMAX.

Fragula has become one of AOM's signature pieces and continues to be a delight to play and to witness. It was composed by Milieu Takahe (aka Bjorn Eriksson) in 2007, with instruments, visuals and animations designed by Bingo Onomatopoeia (aka Andreas Mueller). The video was conceived and directed by Gumnosophistai Nurmi (Leif Inge) and Evo Szuyuan (Brigit Lichtenegger)

Click here to watch the Orchestral Investigation #9 video.

AOM performs at ISEA2009 Kritical Works Exhibition

The orchestra had the pleasure of working with Angrybeth Robinson (aka UK artist Annabeth Robinson) for the presentation of her interactive Second Life installation I Am Note, We are Music. The piece is constructed as a circular arena, where avatars can enter to trigger gentle piano tones, the pitch of which is determined by the avatar height. The prominence each tone is determined by the distance of the avatar from a central column in the arena.

On Friday, August 7, 2009, AOM took part in Angrybeth's presentation at the International Symposium on Electronic Art at the University of Ulster in Belfast.

AOM performed within I Am Note, first simply illuminating its ways, then adding AOM instruments and sound samples for an extended AOMprovisation with I Am Note's piano tones. The I Am Note Aomprovisation was followed by a performance of Bingo Onomatopoeia's Aleatricity.

Angrybeth's blogs about I Am Note, the Symposium and the performance are here and here

To watch a Quicktime video of the I Am Note AOMprovisation and Aleatricity performance, click here

AOM performers for this event were
Bingo Onomatopoeia (Andreas Mueller), Regensburg, Germany
BlaiseDeLaFrance Voom (Biagio Francia), Agropoli, Italy
Carolhyn Wijaya (Carolyn Oakley), Boulder, Colorado, USA
Gumnosophistai Nurmi (Leif Inge), Oslo, Norway
Humming Pera (Tina Pearson), Victoria, BC, Canada
Paco Mariani (Chris Wittkowsky), Regensburg, Germany

AOM performs at SARC, Belfast May 15 2009

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse
SARC, Belfast May 15, 2009

As part of the Pauline Oliveros (Free Noyse) residency at Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen's University in Belfast, Ireland, AOM will perform 3 of its repertoire pieces:

In Whirled (Trance)formations by North Zipper (Norman Lowrey), USA
PwRHm by Humming Pera (Tina Pearson), Canada
Fragula by Miulew Takahe (Bjorn Eriksson), Sweden

Friday, May 15
12:20 PM SLT / 3:20 PM EDT / 8:20 PM UK / 2120 CET

AOM on location at U21 Global in Second Life
Send an Instant Message to an AOM member to attend.

World's Biggest Smile Charity Performance

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse performs a benefit concert

World's Greatest Smile Peace Project
Saturday April 25th, 2009 4 PM SLT
(0100 CET April 26th)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vanaheim/176/31/2234

The World's Greatest Smile aims to enhance peaceful international communication and friendship. It is supported by 19 Nobel Laureates, including the Dalai Lama, politicians and many celebrities.
http://www.worlds-greatest-smile.com

The concert is made in cooperation with project leaders for the World's Greatest Smile Peace Project and avatar makers; Yeti Bing and Yoa Ogee.

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse will play live “Fragula” by Börn Eriksson aka Miulew Takahe and “Aleacitry” by Andreas Mueller aka Bingo Onomatopoeia

The concert is #11 in a series of Orchestral Investigations by Avatar Orchestra Metaverse.