Archaeology in electronic music: Re-discovering Turenas by John Chowning

Commercial Music research seminar series, seminar 4
CCA Cinema, CCA Glasgow
Tuesday 26th February 2013
5.30pm

Dr Laurent Pottier (University of Saint-Etienne)

Electronic music uses tools that are evolving at an incredible speed. Many pieces of music that were written during the last fifty years can no longer be played again because they used electronic instruments that no longer work today. With the development of computer technologies, the situation is even worse. For this reason it is important to develop a new language for creating digital tools that will last over time. In parallel, we apply these tools to preserve some important pieces of the digital music repertoire.

In this seminar, we will show how the language can be used for creating DSP (Digital Signal Processing) applications. We will also present the piece Turenas by the American composer John Chowning (inventor of the FM sound synthesis technique and of sound spatialization theory). This piece was initially only available for a 4-track tape but we have rewritten it, for four performers, electronic percussions and a computer.

Laurent Pottier has been teaching Computer Music at the University of Saint-Etienne (France) since 2005. He was Musical Assistant for Computer Music at IRCAM-Centre George Pompidou in Paris from 1992 to 1996,  and then  became the Scientific Director of GMEM (National Center for Musical Creation) in Marseille from 1997 to 2004. He has both a PhD in Science (1986) and in Musicology (2001).

Art as unlearning: finding a place

UWS MEd Artist Teacher Programme

School of Education presents

Professor John Baldecchino (Falmouth University)

Art as unlearning: finding a place

Gallery of Modern Art

Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow

Saturday 2nd February 2013

10.30 - 12.30

Somewhere to start with ...
As I have argued in my recent paper Willed Forgetfulness, to make a case for unlearning is to reject the assumption that somehow, unlearning will become a new model for education. Unlearning is neither a new pedagogy, nor a new way of doing art. There is nothing new in unlearning. Unlearning is implied in what we are by dint of what we do ... and vice-versa. The focus of unlearning is found in the paradox that seems to happen between being and doing which we always find much much later. So where does art come into this? Art is, amongst other, unlearning per se. It is such a space, such a place, such a moment ... such an afterthought that we realize much much later. Though as I say this ... I begin to doubt!

Speaker:
John Baldacchino is Associate Dean and Professor of Arts Pedagogy in the Graduate School, Falmouth University. He was full time faculty at Teachers College Columbia University, New York, Gray’s School of Art, Scotland, and Warwick University, England. He is the author of six books, including Education Beyond Education (Peter Lang, 2009); Makings of the Sea (Gorgias, 2010); and Art’s Way Out (Sense, 2012). Amongst other, he is currently completing two books, including John Dewey: Liberty and the pedagogy of disposition (Springer 2013)

Website: www.johnbaldecchino.com   

Sans Papiers? Video screening and Tanja Ostojić in conversation with Katarzyna Kosmala on the other side of migration and politics of representation

Saturday 16 March 2013

5:30pm - 7:00pm: FREE (ticketed)

Venue: CCA 4 (cinema)

Ages: all

Call the CCA Box Office on 0141 352 4900

Sans Papiers (2004), a 14 min video by Serbian artist Tanja Ostojić (collaboration with David Rych), addresses the questions of the restrictive asylum laws and comments on detention spaces in a deportation center in Berlin-Kopenick, Germany, through the conversations with ethnic African, Middle Eastern, former Yugoslavian and Turkish men. ‘Otherness’ refers to a migration status, an access to citizen rights across the border of ‘no origin’.

Prof Katarzyna Kosmala critically engages with Ostojić’ practice in her new book Imagining Masculinities (Routledge, 2013), addressing politics of representation, migration and gender. By marking the parallels between national borders and the boundaries of gendered bodies, Ostojić’s work opens up spaces for rethinking of the ‘other’ through mobility and resistance. After the video screening, Prof Kosmala will discuss with Ostojić her approaches to art activism, drawing on the video Sans Papiers and her most recent work Misplaced Women? The event is presented by the University of the West of Scotland.

Tanja Ostojić is a Serbian-born, Berlin-based artist working predominantly from a migrant woman’s perspective, combining political engagement and art activism with performance and humour. She holds an interdisciplinary fellowship at the Graduate School of UDK, Berlin University of Arts. Ostojić presented her work internationally, including the Venice Biennale 2001 and 2011, Škuc Gallery Ljubljana, 2012, KUMU Art Museum Tallinn, 2011, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest  2011, ASAB, Bogotá, Colombia, 2010, MUMOK, Vienna, and Zacheta gallery Warsaw, 2010,Kusrpavillon Innsbruck 2008, ICA London 1999, Manifesta 2 Luxembourg 1998. Her videos have been screened at a number of festivals such as IFFF Dortmund /Kölon  2010, Globale Berlin 2008, Oberhausen Kurzfilm und Video Festival 2000. Ostojić participates in the Economy show at CCA  http://www.van.at/see/tanja/

Katarzyna Kosmala, PhD is Professor of Culture, Media and Visual Practice at the University of the West of Scotland, and freelance curator and art writer.

To book tickets, visit the CCA website. 

Irish Women of our Past @ Film City Glasgow

Rachael Flynn writes: 

An event/gathering on Tuesday 4th of December at 6:30pm at Film City (Old Govan Town Hall), Glasgow - http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Film+City+Glasgow,+Govan+Road,+Glasgow&hl=en&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=9.676196,28.103027&oq=film+city+g&hq=Film+City+Glasgow,+Govan+Road,+Glasgow&t=m&z=15

As you are aware I have been advertising and asking people around the world to submit names of women in their past who have made the trip from Ireland. These names have been growing as word has spread and are continuing to build a collection of names and memories (see www.irishwomenofourpast.co.uk ).

I have recently returned from a trip around Ireland visiting the ports which they would have departed from and lit candles at each site in their memory. The aim of this trip was to allow both herself and the relatives of these women to commemorate the migrant women’s departures from these sites.

On Tuesday 'a sea' of candles will be lit in memory of those Irish women who journeyed to other lands. As mentioned above this will take place at Film City (Old Govan Town Hall), Glasgow, close to the Broomielaw where some of the boats arriving from Ireland would moor, with Govan itself a site of considerable Irish migration. The collection of names of Irish women of our past has continued to grow with more women remembered and represented by their descendants across the Diaspora, and more and more of their stories being remembered, recognized and shared. Each of the women’s names sent to me will be represented by a small candle which will be lit within this temporary devotional space while the names of the women and the places they left are commemorated in a subtle video work close-by.

I will be filming the sea of candles and streaming online for those who have submitted the names to access with a password being able to see the event from any location, allowing them to witness the event on behalf of their relation. The original candle which I lit for my own grandmother in Donegal, and then lit at the various ports on my recent visit will sit amongst these other candles, adding to the “sea” of light - a simple but effective act of remembrance.

I will be continuing to collect names up to and post event so please continue to tell those who you feel may be intetrested.

Names can be submitted via my email address – Rachael.flynn@uws.ac.uk

through the website - irishwomenofourpast.co.uk

The Eskdalemuir Harmonium

Tuesday 11 December 2012, CCA Cinema

5:30pm : FREE (ticketed)

Ages: all
Commercial Music Research Group: Seminar 3

Call the CCA Box Office on 0141 352 4900

The Eskdalemuir Harmonium is a site-specific album orientated around a dying American harmonium - currently disintegrating in a farmhouse near Lockerbie.

In this landscape, home to a vast Tibetan Buddhist temple and megalithic stone circles, artist and musician Chris Dooks has been making pilgrimages to the site, and collaborating virtually with Rotterdam based Machinefabriek(Rutger Zuyderveldt). The resulting album and supplementary digital package is a fusion of ‘folktronica-concrète’ replete with field recordings and a radio documentary. The package forms part of an ongoing investigation of how chronically ill individuals may benefit from working with equally collapsing instruments.

This is an essential presentation for vinyl enthusiasts. The album, made over a twelve-month period, includes an essay and photographs of the year-long process and each vinyl bought comes with an expanded sister EP entitledNon-Linear Responses of Self-Excited Harmoniums. The record itself is lovingly pressed on bright red vinyl and is released by Toronto’s Komino Records, and copies should be available on the night.

Much as one visits a sick relative in a care home, The Eskdalemuir Harmonium is a form of ‘sonic palliative care’ forming a third of Chris Dooks’ ongoing PhD. Hear him explain how this fits into his vision of ‘idioholism’ with excerpts from parts two and three of the trilogy. 

Tartan Noir

The second Commercial Music Research Group seminar this year will take place in the UWS space at CCA Glasgow on Tuesday 13th November, from 5.30 - 7.00pm.

Lecturer in Music/Programme Leader for MA Songwriting and Performance David Scott will present

Classic Scottish Albums: Tartan Noir

I’ve presented and researched BBC Radio Scotland’s Classic Scottish Albums for 6 years and 6 series. In that time the production team have made around 32 radio features each dedicated to one classic album. My Commercial Music Research Group seminar will focus on the critical and practical factors that can be said to influence the construction of canon and will try to identify some strands of Scottishness that feature repeatedly across the series. James Ellroy coined the phrase Tartan Noir to describe an emerging genre of Scottish crime fiction that seemed to take some of its cues from his own L.A. underworld, albeit with a more guttural, weather-beaten tone. My talk will offer some examples of the same relationships within popular music, from Tom Waits to Bill Wells & Aiden Moffat and beyond.

Please bring your Tartan Noir vinyl to the party.

World Alliance for Arts Education: cultural encounters and northern reflections

Dr Kathryn Burnett, Senior Lecturer/Subject Leader for Broadcast Production and Graham Jeffery, Reader in Music and Performance are travelling to Rovaniemi, Lapland, to participate in the World Alliance for Arts Education summit from 9th - 11th November. Both will present on aspects of pedagogy and practice in the School of Creative and Cultural Industries at UWS.

Kathryn Burnett and Tony Grace: Making a Creative Space: developing integrated approaches to creative practice teaching

Graham Jeffery: Education for cultural practice/education for cultural economy? Intersections, interdisciplinarity and issues

The full programme for the conference, and the following meeting of the University of the Arctic Sustainable Art and Design Network, of which UWS is a member, can be found here.