The Berlioz Project has been created for Ars Electronica‘s Big Concert Night, Sep. 2018, in collaboration with Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Markus Poschner, Norbert Trawöger, Silke Grabinger, Martin Honzik, Karl Schmiedinger, Joshi Viteka, Hannes Franks, Johannes Braumann, Peter Freudling.
A central role of the special stage setting was the heavy duty industrial robot KUKA-KR600 which weighs more than 2,5 tons and is 3,3 m high when fully stretched.
The robot was placed in the middle, surrounded by the orchestra and the motors of its 6 axis were directly controlled by the music of the orchestra – the same data which were used for the digital realtime visualisation.
The realtime visuals were presented on 6 large screens, surrounding the orchestra and the robot.
For the 3rd movement of Symphonie Fantastique we developed a special system where the music was controlling the movements of the robot and the robot sent his position-data to move and synchronize 4 moving head lights and also to control the position of the realtime-visuals on the screens.
Realtime Visualisation for the 3rd Movement. The position of this orange square was directly controlled by the position-data coming from the robot. All other modifications were controlled by the music-signal from the orchestra.
Dancers: SILK Fluegge with Silke Grabinger, Gergely Dudás, Elias Choi Buttinger
Tour en l´air (spinning dresses) by Ursula Neugebauer,
Roboter choreography and programming: Johannes Braumann, Peter Freudling, Silke Grabinger, Cori O‘lan
Visualization and Robotchoreography for 3rd movement by Cori O’lan
Robot: KUKA KR600 industrial robot / KUKA GmbH
Here are some excerpts from the live concert in the Postcity/Gleishalle of Ars Electronica 2018.
Realtime visualisations were shown on 6 large screens.
In the part with the dancers the robot was pre-programmed according to the choreographie of Silke Grabinger (Robot-programming was done bei Johannes Braumann and Peter Freudling)
In the 3rd movement and in the special percussion intermezzo the robot was directly controlled by the music of the orchestra. The robot was continuously sending data about his position back to the computer to control the movements of the moving-head-lights and also to the graphic-computer to control and synchronize the position of the visuals on the screen. —> here is more about this Robo-Solo.
Realtime visualisation for the 1st movement of Symphonie Fantastique:
Realtime visualisation for the 2nd movement of Symphonie Fantastique:
Music: Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Maurice Ravel
Pianos: Maki Namekawa & Dennis Russell Davies
Visualisation: Cori Olan
24th March, 2018 – Emirates Palace Auditorium.
A concert project for Ars Electronica 2017 developed in collaboration with Markus Poschner, Norbert Trawöger, Martin Honzik, Karl Schmiedinger, …
Performed by Bruckner Orchestra (AT)/ Markus Poschner (DE)
Soloists: Nguyên Lê (FR/VN), Hugo Siegmeth (DE), Harald Scharf (DE),
Bastian Jütte (DE), Markus Poschner (DE), Rupert Huber (AT),
Roberto Paci Dalò (IT), Stefano Spada (IT)
Visualization by Cori Ol’an (AT)
Here are some excerpts from the live recording of the concert-performance on 10.9.2017 at Postcity/Trainhall.
the realtime visuals where shown on a 5-screen-wide panorama projection. so please try to look at the video in hd and with a big screen…
At the center of the Big Concert Night in POSTCITY are the two middle movements of Anton Bruckner’s 8th Symphony, the crux on which the entire performance hinges. This is right and wrong at the same time! Bruckner’s music forms the foundation, the walls and perhaps the heavens too, in which audience members, situated in the middle of the Gleishalle, are free to move about.
The listeners are in the center, in the arena, anked on one side by Bruckner Orchestra Linz and on the other by a band of musicians including world-class guitarist Nguyên Lê, Hugo Siegmeth (reeds), Harald Scharf (bass) and Bastian Jütte (drums). A symphonic space is to be con gured about the audience, who will be able to shift locations, stay put and be receptive to sound arriving from all directions.
The interior of Bruckner’s symphony will be opened up, commented on, re ected upon and thus made immediately accessible by those present. In this concert event, form and content are being renegoti- ated. This is the very nature of the Ars Electronica Festival, which, perennially on the leading edge, showcases the progress of visionary technologies, hosts a discussion, and considers them in a social context—the 2017 festival theme is Artificial Intelligence—The Other I. This is likewise the nature of this unique situation for auditory and visual experience in the Gleishalle, a railroad loading dock in a former postal service logistics facility, and, above all, of the setting and the dramaturgy that Markus Poschner and his musicians have come up with.
Poschner will lead his orchestra, but also segue to the band and have recourse to his piano’s keys to improvise beyond, on and with Bruckner’s sounds. But this is far more than commuting back and forth; these tonal strands are willingly drawn out of the symphony and keyed up in multiple perspectives. This is ultimately an endeavor at sensory experience in a space that differs from a conventional concert hall. Another space for another experiencing ego to thereby play an interesting variation on the festival theme.
Realtime Visualisation of “Interludium A” from Isang Yun
Piano: Maki Namekawa
Realtime computer graphics develeoped and performed by Cori O’Lan
presented during Ars Electronica 2017 in the Deep Space 8k of the Ars Electronica Center
Interludium A was composed in 1982, two years after the democracy movement in Gwangju was crushed. This was a matter of profound concern to Isang Yun, who in the late 1960s, had himself been victimized by the political despotism of the military regime in power at the time.
“A composer cannot view the world in which he lives with indifference. Human suffering, oppression, injustice . . . all that comes to me in my thoughts. Where there is pain, where there is injustice, I want to have my say through my music.” – Isang Yun, 1983
The realtime visualization of this piece starts out from visual associations with the sheet music and piles up a complex geometrical structure, the individual elements of which are subsequently dynamized by parameters directly derived from the live sound of the piano.
Like a huge skyscraper complex or construction plans of a futuristic urban machine that plunges into a dark night mood with the quieter passages – deserted, technocratic.
But again and again, with certain frequency and dynamic ranges of the music, distinct light and colour moods appear within the structures.
With the motivic progression of the music, two fragile dancing figurines emerge from the geometric structures. Shaped from dense, organically flowing lines, deep red colored, reminiscent of animated Asian calligraphy.
The special features of Deep Space 8k with its high-resolution projection screens on the wall and floor are used to create two different perspectives of the structures and dynamics derived from the music.
Realtime Visualisation of “20 Etudes for Piano” from Philip Glass Piano: Maki Namekawa Realtime computergraphics develeoped and performed by Cori O’Lan
Maki Namekawa was the first to record the 20 piano etudes by Philip Glass on CD and to perform all of them in one concert. A year after the CD was released Maki Namekawa began working with Cori O’Lan on a special form of performance, in which the sounds of the piano are used directly to generate and design digital visualizations using a special computer system. On a large projection screen behind the piano, visual worlds are created that develop directly from the music or react to it immediately. Not the computer, but the music itself creates the visualization in real time, i.e. live and at every performance anew.
Nov. 2018 … selected Etudes for the opening ceremony of the Art Science Building of Osaka Art University (J)
Nov. 2018 … all 20 Etudes at Bozar, Brussels (B) Sep. 2017 … all 20 Etudes at Ars Electronica, Linz (A) – APA press article – AE-Blog, Aug. 2017 … all 20 Etudes at Alto Adige Festival, Dobiacco (I) Feb. 2017 … all 20 Etudes at National Sawdust, Brooklyn (US) Sep. 2015 … first presentation of selected etudes at Ars Electronica, Linz (A)
The visuals are prepared for a panoramic multiscreen setup with three projections, thus the videos presented here are barely reflecting the live impression of the performance… try to watch them in 1080p resolution and imagine them really big. The videos of Maki Namekawa which are used in this demos have been recorded separately by Landsmann + Landsmann. The Music is available at: http://www.itunes.com/PhilipGlass
The first video presents small excerpts of all 20 etudes
