"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.

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.

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

"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.

I'm currently working on the sound for a theaterpiece, called Game Jan. I'm constructing the music while scenes are being made, which is a challenge. But in the end it's a good thing, as it will ensure that sound, image (there's 2D and 3D projections) and play will fit together. The premiere is December 11, in De Toneelschuur in Haarlem. Below the trailer.

Released on Evil Rabbit Records.

Audrey Chen - voice & cello
Robert van Heumen - laptop & controllers

1. Bloodknot 13:12
2. Hone 11:27
3. Endless summer 6:29
4. Ear to ear 8:28
5. Game 8:17
6. Feasting 12:50

All music by Audrey Chen & Robert van Heumen
Selected, mixed and mastered by Robert van Heumen

Tracks 1 & 2 recorded live at STEIM's Local Stop concert on May 22 2008
Tracks 3, 4 & 5 recorded at STEIM on May 17 & 20 2008
Track 6 recorded live at STEIM's Local Stop concert on March 12 2009

Here is the program.

Also some new reviews of my work appeared: on Stranger, Whistle Pig Saloon, Fury and OfficeR's latest album Recording the Grain.

Out for now, changing dipers.

The CD is for sale at Creative Sources and Fridgesound.

Track listing:

1 Stranger

No Man's Land soundtrack
2 Boise City, No Man's Land
3 A hard place to love
4 The first black duster
5 The skies that brought no rain, only dirt
6 Killing animals
7 Ruth Nell
8 Black sunday
9 Hope

10 Stranger (ambient)

No Man's Land deals with the Dust Bowl period in the USA, particularly with the people who lived and stayed in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The film portrays the story of Hazel Lucas, who migrated to Boise City in Cimarron County as a child and lived through the worst hard times during this ecological and economical disaster. The story is adapted from the book 'The worst hard time' by Timothy Egan. Most of the sounds on the soundtrack are produced in the CEM studio at WORM Rotterdam with the ARP 2500 and Korg MS-20 synthesizers and a Synton stereo EQ.

Stranger is inspired by Albert Camus' L’Étranger, Philip K. Dick's Do androids dream of electric sheep, the film Bladerunner and as always by L.E.J. Brouwer. Utilizing a formalized process, the sounds were taken from one single source, processed at EMS Stockholm and put together at STEIM Amsterdam and Culture Lab Newcastle.

Reading 'A wild sheep chase' by Murakami again, now in English (which feels like its original language, which it is not of course). Noticing different things from last time (which must have been more than 5 years ago): the girl with the beautiful ears is the reincarnation of the girl the story starts with. And: the main character tells the story and tries to make you believe it's about other people (the deceased girl, the girl with the beautiful ears, The Rat) but it is actually about himself. Might it be one big metafor? About his incapability to make decisions, to have an opinion about anything? Reminds me of the main character in Camus' L'Étranger.

The SKIF++ performances are improvised, but guided by pre-conceived structures, and with interaction between the 'soundguys' Jeff and myself, and the 'videoguy' Bas. We decided to present the people at NYCEMF with an experiment: Bas made an interactive standalone patch in Jitter, that responds to incoming audio (much like the way he works when playing with SKIF++, except that when he's actually participating in the performance, he'll tweak the way the patch responds to our audio) and Jeff and myself choose a track from our forthcoming album and extracted only my part from it. At the concert, Jeff performed solo along this track whilst interacting with the Jitter patch. From what I heard, the audience was thrilled by the result.