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Keynote 1: The Many Histories
No full textDefinitions of genre generate an attendant canon – we need examples and we call these ‘paradigmatic’. There’s a simple reason – words are not adequate to describe musical experience. To demonstrate what we mean we can after all use the original – play the music. Concrète, Electroacoustic, Acousmatic, Computer, Tape, Live, Algorithmic, Free Improv, Glitch, Noise etc. - and their many off-shoots and hybrids … Each can (and does) generate its own canon.
There follow questions of quality: is the canon necessarily ‘good music’ – it may be ‘good example of the genre’, showing clearly the characteristics to be demonstrated. But that’s not the same thing. Time is limited – especially in our ‘everything is available universe’ we need ‘help’ to find what we do not yet know. We delegate to somebody (or something?) we trust.
Historically we have willingly and sometimes unwillingly delegated this to others who have an authority taken for granted: from defined curricular in schools, class and peer networks (and their agglomerations into ‘tribes’, ‘clubs’ etc.). We assume these ‘given’ histories have been progressively undermined. But be careful – have others emerged to replace them?
We might think that histories thus become ‘objects’ for our choice. But how do we choose? Or can we create our own? Are we reliable? Do we leave the new searches to ‘chance’? Who are the gatekeepers? Of course these are questions for all aspects of knowledge in this new information world. There is much inaccurate history out there.
If hierarchies of history have become more open to debate then we need some framework to discuss relative rather than absolute value. ‘Importance’ becomes a local negotiation. The many and various contributions to the development of synthesis might equally invoke the ‘mash up’ of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar amp or the experimental turntablism of Grandmaster Flash.
Reliability is tenuous and a potential minefield:
- There is the obvious point that there has been a strong set of normative cultural views – these seem to ask what is the ‘right’ history?
- Then we have legitimation – a complex issue where one group (perhaps even an individual) validates or legitimates their practice through citing the high cultural capital of another – however distorted that history becomes.
How has music made with technology fared so far in the creation of its multiple histories? This paper will try to address some of these questions with examples from the literature (or remark upon their absence) and from my own observations of the changing views and perspectives over the last 40 years
Fello demo
No full textThe making of new musical instruments can be seen as a central strategy of musical innovation in the 20th century. One institution where ideas of novel electronic instruments have been especially fostered is STEIM in Amsterdam. Countless projects and artistic residencies have been commissioned at the 'Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music' for the past 40 years, with a main focus on the performing player and the dialogues of the body with electronic or digital setups. A significant difference to the research conducted at the major institutions for electronic music after 1970 is STEIM's leaning towards improvisation, both musical and structural. The studio has been run by Michel Waisvisz as artistic director for 25 years who can be seen as one of the often neglected origins of musical cultures such as glitch and circuit bending. However, he had the support of technicians at his hands, but the necessity to open and bend the black boxes provided by the instrument industry was a STEIM dogma which has even been tagged on the workshop wall in the 70s: „If you can't open it, you don't own it.“ Instruments like Waisvisz' cracklebox or his sensor-interface "The Hands" are unique configurations of technology to improvise with electronic sound, and they inspired a whole scene of international artists to work on their individual instruments at STEIM. Many excellent projects yielding from the residencies (e.g. Laetitia Sonami, Nicolas Collins, Jon Rose), as well as countless other instruments which do not float on the surface of an archiving process but are still tremendously significant for the writing of STEIM's story. The role of STEIM in the histories of electronic music has not yet been discussed in apt detail. Since 2009 the author of this abstract has dedicated his hours to building up the STEIM archive, especially the archive of the former director Michel Waisvisz in collaboration with Kristina Andersen. The big picture of a STEIM history which shall be presented at the AHEM conference reveals an aesthetic attitude where big ideas for the new often don't demand big budgets (sometimes yes) but definitely no high-tech.
To capture the standpoint from which STEIM has worked its influence on electronic music of the 20th century, we have to look back to the origins in the 60s. The founding story of STEIM shows strong links to the Dutch Jazz scene, to the serialism of the school of Kees van Baaren, and to political activism and the notion that renewal in music and society are unseparable.
In the autumn of 1967 a few of the Netherlands' most prominent and progressive composers Peter Schat, Jan van Vlijmen, Misha Mengelberg, Louis Andriessen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Dick Raaymakers and Konrad Boehmer established a workgroup to create a research laboratory and development workplace for live electronic music. Two years later in 1969 the foundation STEIM was initiated as an 'instrument pool' following the completion of their opera 'Reconstructie'. How the work group managed to receive government fundings from the system they opposed is a wondrous story in its own from today's perspective. Dutch music theatre (often with a peculiar humour), improvised jazz and political discussions were the common ground for the diverse group of composers who set up STEIM. Whereas 'electro-instrumental' later on means to play a particular individual electronic instrument (as we mainly understand it today), the term at first pointed at the mere extension of 'traditional' live practice in jazz with electronic means. This contribution aims at telling a selection of stories sampled in the STEIM archive which share an understanding of the interface between body and electronic sound as a vital key to new music
Data associated with 'Design and Development of a Semtex Simulant Suitable for Measurements at THz Frequencies Using a Genetic Algorithm'
No full textThe development and use of terahertz-frequency (THz) spectroscopy systems for security screening has shown an increased growth over the past 15 years. In order to test these systems in real world situations, safe simulants of illicit materials are required, particularly of explosives. Ideally simulants should mimic key features of the material of interest, such that it at least resembles or even appears indistinguishable from the material of interest to the interrogating technique(s), whilst not having hazardous or illicit properties. Ideally, simulants should: have similar physical properties such as malleability, density, surface energy, volatility etc; be non-toxic; be easy to clean and decontaminate from surfaces; be recyclable or disposable; and, be useable in a public environment. A THz explosive simulant would require spectral features at similar frequencies to those in a common explosive, in this instance Semtex-H, but would be safe to handle and be non-explosive. Here, we present a method for developing such a simulant based on a database of THz spectra of common organic molecules, and the use of a genetic algorithm to select a mixture of compounds automatically to form such a simulant. We propose four mixtures that could then be used to test the response of any instrument, working at terahertz frequencies, without the need for an explosive substance
Dataset associated with Rapid Preparation of Highly Reliable PDMS Double Emulsion Microfluidic Devices
Get PDFThis dataset is associated with one article which presents a simple and highly reliable method for preparing PDMS microfluidic double emulsion devices that employs a single-step oxidative plasma treatment to both pattern the wettability of microchannels and to bond the chips. As a key component of our strategy we use epoxy glue to define the required hydrophobic zones and then remove this after plasma treatment, but prior to bonding. This novel approach achieves surface modification and device sealing in a single process, which reduces chip preparation times to minutes and eliminates the need for unreliable coating processes. The second key element of our procedure is the maintenance of the patterned surfaces, where we demonstrate that immediate filling of the prepared device with water or the use of solvent-extracted PDMS vastly extends the operational lifetimes of the chips. This is a very useful technique to prepare microfluidic device with alternative surface wettabilities
Ovine annulus fibrosus damage material model calibration data set
No full textExperimental data: microscopy images and geometrical and mechanical data of radially loaded samples of ovine lumbar annulus fibrosus tissue; Computational data: 1D damage model calibration using experimental data; Results data: stress and strains values associated with the experimental dat
Data associated with “PEEK-OPTIMA (Trademark) as an Alternative to Cobalt Chrome in the Femoral Component of Total Knee Replacement: A Preliminary Study”
No full textThe dataset contains material to supplement the paper “PEEK-OPTIMA (Trademark) as an Alternative to Cobalt Chrome in the Femoral Component of Total Knee Replacement: A Preliminary Study” including: wear rates of UHMWPE tibial components articulating against PEEK-OPTIMA (Trademark) and cobalt chrome femoral components under two kinematic conditions, surface roughness analysis of PEEK-OPTIMA® and cobalt chrome femoral components following wear simulation using a contacting Form Talysurf and measurements of the bulk lubricant temperature using a thermocouple
Decellularisation and characterisation of porcine superflexor tendon: a potential anterior cruciate ligament replacement
Get PDFData on the biological and biomechanical properties of porcine superflexor tendon grafts before and after decellularisation: biomechanical testing data (ultimate tensile strength, failure strain, Young's modulus); DNA, collagen and GAG content; semi-quantitative alpha Gal analysis; in vitro and in vivo biocompatibility
Dataset associated with 'Magnetohydrodynamic simulations of mechanical stellar feedback in a sheet-like molecular cloud'
Get PDFPaper abstract: We have used the AMR hydrodynamic code, MG, to perform 3D
magnetohydrodynamic simulations with self-gravity of stellar feedback in a sheet-like
molecular cloud formed through the action of the thermal
instability. We simulate the interaction of the mechanical energy
input from a 15 solar mass star and a 40 solar mass star into a
100 parsec-diameter 17000 solar mass cloud with a corrugated
sheet morphology that in projection appears filamentary. The
stellar winds are introduced using appropriate Geneva
stellar evolution models. In the 15 solar mass star case, the wind
forms a narrow bipolar cavity with minimal effect on the parent
cloud. In the 40 solar mass star case, the more powerful stellar wind
creates a large cylindrical cavity through the centre of the cloud.
After 12.5 million years and 4.97 million years respectively, the massive stars
explode as supernovae (SNe). In the 15 solar mass star case, the SN
material and energy is primarily deposited into the molecular cloud
surroundings over 100,000 years before the SN remnant escapes
the cloud. In the 40 solar mass star case, a significant fraction of the SN
material and energy rapidly escapes the molecular cloud along the
wind cavity in a few tens of kiloyears. Both SN events compress the
molecular cloud material around them to higher densities (so may
trigger further star formation), and strengthen the magnetic field,
typically by factors of 2-3 but up to a factor of 10. Our simulations
are relevant to observations of bubbles in flattened ring-like
molecular clouds and bipolar HII regions. Data repository: This repository contains the raw data accompanying each figure in this publication
XY model steady state phase diagram.
No full textData set identifying the type of steady state (uniform, shear banding, solid-fluid coexistence, or slip planes) obtained for each of the simulations of the 1D classical XY model with conserved angular momentum, for all investigated values of the three parameters (temperature, coefficient of friction, shear rate). For details, see "Classical XY model with conserved angular momentum is an archetypal non-Newtonian fluid", R M L Evans, Craig A Hall, R Aditi Simha and Tom S Welsh, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 138301 (2015) and subsequent publications
Tape Leaders - Excavating early British electronic music
No full textExposure and acknowledgement for early British electronic and tape music has always been scant, with only a small number of celebrated composers coming to represent an area in which so many others participated. During more than six years of research for the book Tape Leaders, a different, rich and varied picture has emerged, revealing over 100 electronic music makers active in Britain before 1970. How have a handful of composers been given recognition, while dozens of others have been eclipsed and languish in obscurity? Why have historians and academics failed to properly investigate this forgotten period, and left so much of its rediscovery to small record labels and maverick, independent researchers?
A significant body of experimental amateur work remains almost totally lost in the mists of time. A great deal of this output will inevitably have been less than world class, but should it therefore be ignored and literally consigned to the dustbin? It is sad to say that many tapes have been thrown away, equipment sold off and analogue studios dismantled, and efforts to properly document and salvage this British electronic music heritage have been woefully inadequate. Unlike British folk music, where the importance of documentation and preservation was recognised decades ago, the same cannot be said for its electronic music counterpart. It could be argued that the British amateur tape club movement and its intersection with electronic sound and musique concrete, in fact represents the real ‘folk’ music of the second half of the 20th century, and it is the failure of this to be identified which has partly led to it being so undervalued, its existence ignored and the danger it will be lost forever.
There are perhaps a number of other reasons for the lack of acknowledgement for early British electronic music as a whole. These include hostile critical receptions; professional composers’ instrumental and vocal music overshadowing their electronic output; private and home studio work not being taken as seriously as that created at broadcasting stations or university studios; an ambivalence about tape music amongst the composers themselves; the tendency of critics and commentators to promote and write about only the ‘key players’ while ignoring everyone else; a perception in the public mind that electronics equalled harsh or weird sci-fi noise, and was thus not to be taken seriously as music; and a gradual shift as time went on, away from the new experimental sounds, towards something much safer and more palatable for general audiences.
A further explanation also presents itself - with a whole area of musical history unexplored for decades, and many of the participants now dead, tapes having been lost or discarded and memories long faded away - the job of ‘electronic archaeology’ becomes a monumental task, and apparently not one that professional researchers appear willing to take on. The conventional wisdom - that a handful of composers along with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, represents more or less the whole story of early British electronic music - has been allowed to continue unchallenged for decades. The establishment consensus and focus on just a small number of names, is surely long overdue for reappraisal