• A semi-improvised live interpretation of the Stranger composition (as download) performed at the SPARK festival in Minneapolis in February 2009
• Game/Jan, a coldcase: a theaterpiece for which I created the soundtrack
• Two remixes for the rockband Absence

I bumped into this video on Lost at E Minor lately. Interesting, as Bas van Koolwijk, one of my collaborators in SKIF++, is using this process in a digital way in the SKIF++ live performances. It seems there's more people out there making digital versions of the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor, developed by Steve Rutt and Bill Etra.

"Videomakers like Gary Hill and Steina and Woody Vasulka used the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor to expand the scope of their experiments with electronic imaging. Between 1972 and 1974, the Vasulkas explored the possibilities of the Rutt/Etra and created one of their best known video effects in which the lighter areas of the frame pull the lines of the raster vertically and give the illusion of three-dimensional shapes. When the input signal is an image captured by a camera feed, these lines seem to adopt the contours of objects."
(taken from http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=456 - also check the video on this page, with Bill Etra showing the Rutt/Etra)

On a related note: Bas just finished building the Synchronator (together with Gert Jan Prins), a device that maps audio to video. There is a Vimeo channel with video's made with the device.

In February 2009 I performed a semi-improvised version of the composition Stranger. Now there's an HD video of the whole set online.

From the program notes:

This is a live interpretation of the composition Stranger. The performance is semi-improvised, based upon a pre-conceived structure, exploring the no man's land between a traditional tape piece and free improvisation. The composition Stranger is conceived as an electronic composition as well as a research in the composition process. It started with basic questions of life: How do we control our lives? Does anything matter? What really is empathy? What can it mean to know another person, to understand another life? Is it possible to break free from the bonds of the familiar, from existing concepts and beliefs? Big questions, yes. But similar questions can be applied to the composition process in the choise of sounds and the structure of composition itself: How do we choose sounds and processes out of many? Can those processes be arbitrary, even random, or should every sound and every process be weighted again and again until we know it's right? What does that mean, 'it is right'? What is it to create a piece of music? Should the judgement of others be considered in making a composition? Is it even possible to create a unique piece of music? The obvious metaphor: a composition as a life.
Stranger is inspired by Albert Camus’ L’Étranger, Philip K. Dick’s Do androids dream of electric sheep and as always by L.E.J. Brouwer. A blog is kept about the composition process.

The last couple of weeks I've been working on the music for the theaterplay Game Jan, which will have its premiere coming Friday December 11. Yesterday we had our first full runthrough, and it looks great!

There is a trailer on Vimeo and you can find more information at the Lange Poten website.

Photo by Ben van Duin

Game Jan playlist

wo 9 & do 10 december (try-outs) Haarlem
Toneelschuur, 20.00 uur, 023-5173910
vr 11 december (première) Haarlem,
Toneelschuur, 20.00 uur, 023-5173910
za 12 december Haarlem
Toneelschuur, 20.00 uur, 023-5173910
do 17 december Den Haag
Theater a/h Spui, 20.30 uur, 070-3465272
di 12 januari Utrecht
Stadsschouwburg, 20.30 uur, 030-2302023
vr 15 januari Heemskerk,
CC De Cirkel, 20.30 uur, 0251-236942
za 30 januari Alkmaar,
Provadja, 20.15 uur, 072- 5202011
do 4 februari Leiden,
LAKtheater, 20.30 uur, 071-5124890
ma 8 t/m wo 10 februari Amsterdam
Theater Bellevue, 20.30 uur, 020-5305301
vr 12 & za 13 februari Rotterdam
Rotterdamse Schouwburg, 20.30 uur, 010-4118110

We've recently received two great reviews of the ABATTOIR album:

"Digital brutalism in free form, vehement expressions, heightened efforts, wailings and atonal lamentations are all performed with uninterrupted breathing techniques - the electronic manipulation is relentless, full of powerful distortions, melancholic melodies and experimental combinations. Authentic, intricate compositions [...]."
Aurelio Cianciotta for Neural.it

"Heavy duty improvised music [...]. From the very first to the very last second things erupt like volcano. Sometimes we are on top of that volcano, watching the eruption, then we see hot lava running down, slow but hot and powerful."
Frans de Waard for Vital Weekly

Read more here.