Khyam Allami currently focus in the decentralization of western music theory in DAW’s. For this, Allami has collaborated with Counterpoint to create Apotome and Leimma, two softwares that allow the exploration of uncommon tuning systems and the use of microtonality, such as it is used in a wide range of world music. Allami is deeply influenced by his Iranian heritage and middle eastern music. His performances are complex combinations of electronic sounds with middle eastern instruments, he plays the oud and use it for many compositions. Additionally the both programs mention above are also generative music based, giving an extra experimental capability. Below is a video of Allami using said program for a short composition, for the specific video he focuses in Western African tuning systems.
Tonality is such an interesting concept for me, I have never experimented with it and I always relay in the default grid and keyboard of Ableton. Allami made me question why I use this systems and normally focus western. I’m going to try both Apotome and Leimma to try seeing music through another perspective.
DeForrest Brown Jr is an American journalist, artist and sound curator that is deeply involve with the Make Techno Black Again. This campaigns seeks to recognize and reattribute that techno music is Afro-american by origin and to white wash the modern electronic club scene. A few weeks ago, we had DeForrest as one of the visiting practitioners. He talked about his support to the movement and how his comments caused him to loose his job in Mixmag. Now DeForrest is writing a book about the origin of techno and it’s relationship with Afro-futurism, a term that I hadn’t encountered before the lecture. He explained us how techo was born from dystopian thoughts of the future and the general suffering and history of Detroit. He argued that techno was being appropriated by white culture and that it was destroyed the original concept of techno.
I found his lecture very compelling and I thought he was right in a lot of his arguments. It made me think how appropriation works in different matters and why, until an extent, should be stopped. I also want to read his book because I felt curious of some of the ideas he mentioned but did not explain in depth.
Below is a video of DeForrest performing a sound piece exploiting the concept of black sonic warfare, where he collage samples and sounds that evidence racial injustice and then combining them with music to do a very powerful performance.
Manuel Rocha Iturbide is a Mexican sound artist and curator that has become notorious for its academic work on the sound art practice in Mexico. Rocha Iturbide has published three relevant essays with UNAM (Mexico’s autonomous university), that outline the history and practice in of sound art in Mexico. The most important of the three essays is titled Sound Art in Mexico where he analyzes the first sonic practices of international a national artist in the country, dating back from the 1960. I discovered very interesting pieces and art works from artist that I did not know that they did sound art. For example the chilean film maker and play play-writer Alejandro Jodorowsky, that scored sound actions in his scripts when living in Mexico. Rocha Iturbide is currently a teacher of digital arts in the Metropolitan university of Mexico.
Researching Rocha Iturbide was the first time I investigated a Mexican sound academic. This gave me a general intake in the academic mediums of sound art in Mexico and inspired me to in some near future, contact Rocha Iturbide or or other sound academic and interview them, to get a deeper insight of their jobs.
A [For 100 Cars], is a project of the artist Ryoji Ikeda, collaborating with the synth designer Tatsuya Takahashi, for Red Bull Music Academy. This project was undertaken in central Los Angeles, gathering a hundred cars with powerful sound systems to become part of an unusual orchestra. Each car was give a synth (created by Takahashi) that played a single sine wave, tuned in different “A” frequencies. Every car had a different tuning from each other, creating an evolving microtonal drone. Apart from the synth, performers (car owners) were given a graphic score contains different instructions, like honk the horn once or turn on your lights and so on. The combination of everything created a very memorable art work and subjected the performers into a unique sonic experience; none of the performers had indulge in sound art before.
What I found more interesting of this project, was the combination of the technology created by Takahashi and the concept and idea of Ikeda. This piece is a great example of how now of days, the line between technology and arts is blurring. I would like to learn basic technological building skills to further develop the technicality of my pieces.
