[June 28] Samson Young & Mivos Quartet: Anatomy of a String Quartet

The Anatomy of a String Quartet is a study of the potentials of media technology as tools for augmenting, extending and reconfiguring the musician’s body. It also questions how the process of mediation, and the perception of such processes, could alter the definition of “liveness” in electronic music. The Anatomy of a String Quartet, at its core, is an audio-visual performance with/through a “prosthetically amplified” string quartet. Each member of the quartet is monitored by a multitude of sensing apparatus, from eye tracking glasses to brainwave sensors. The bio-sensory data generated by the quartet in-performance become materials for the laptop musician’s audio-visual improvisation. The piece unfolds in five “situations.” Each situation is a reconfiguration of the relationship between the quartet on the one hand, and the laptop musician on the other.

Opening June 28 2015 @ Museum of the Moving Image

The last decade has witnessed an interest in the use of media technology in the classical concert space: from broadcast of operatic events, to large scale video projection accompanying live music performance, to the implementation of multi-channel sound systems – the integration of these new media tools is now a common place, especially in the arena of contemporary music. Despite this bloom in interest, when applied in the concert hall media technology often serve a less-than-central role, and its expressive potentials are often under exploited. Often, media technologies are merely functional instruments for the mediation and amplification of sound; when media operates as one of the elements in a musical synesthesia, the relationship and interaction between the live event and the media technologies that meditates it are sometimes taken for granted.

The Anatomy of a String Quartet is a study of the potentials of media technology as tools for augmenting, extending and reconfiguring the musician’s body. It also questions how the process of mediation, and the perception of such processes, could alter the definition of “liveness” in electronic music. The Anatomy of a String Quartet, at its core, is an audio-visual performance with/through a “prosthetically amplified” string quartet. Each member of the quartet is monitored by a multitude of sensing apparatus, from eye tracking glasses to brainwave sensors. The bio-sensory data generated by the quartet in-performance become materials for the laptop musician’s audio-visual improvisation. The piece unfolds in five “situations.” Each situation is a reconfiguration of the relationship between the quartet on the one hand, and the laptop musician on the other.

BIO

  1. Samsung Young: http://www.thismusicisfalse.com/CV
  2. Mivos Quartet: http://www.mivosquartet.com/#!about/sitepage_1

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