The mystery of the music in the brain is far from being understood. Through his career and while exploring brain music interfaces, quantum computing, cognition and biocomputers, Eduardo Reck Miranda take us into a field of possibilities for the future (of) music. Unlocking new opportunities and crossing boundaries of medical science and arts, we here discuss why music technology offers (again) new perspectives for music composition.
Eduardo Reck Miranda / Interview by Luca Forcucci – January 2023 / Berlin
Eduardo Reck Miranda’s distinctive music is informed by his unique background as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) scientist and classically trained composer. He is internationally known for his research in neurotechnology for music and is championing investigation into quantum computing for musical creativity. Eduardo was a research scientist in the evolution of language group at Sony CSL Paris. He is a professor at the University of Plymouth, UK, where he leads the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR). Currently, he is working with Quantinuum to develop applications of quantum computing in music. His opera ‘Lampedusa’, composed with sonification of subatomic particle collisions and live-electronics was premiered by BBC Singers.
New paper, just out of the oven: In 2015, after having successfully passed my PhD, I was invited for an art & science residency named Scientific Delirium, Madness (!!!) in the Silicon Valley, by the Djerassi Foundation and Leonardo / ISATS. I spent one month in a beautiful landscape with the Pacific ocean on the horizon, and with very talented artists and scientists (13). During that time, I worked on a composition involving the body of a dancer as the sonic source, a sculpture inside a tree with a sculptor, and I developed the initial ideas for my very own lab, www.ubqtlab.org. Since then, the project, LASER NOMAD, has traveled over four continents. I finished a paper about the story of this project that can be find here, and it will be published later on print.
In collaboration with nexCafé event, Swissnex in Japan
When
November 16th, 2022 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (Kyoto)
Location
1F, 1 Chome-13-22 Sonezakishinchi, Kita Ward WeWork Midosuji Frontier Osaka, 27 530-0002 Japan
What
The first Japanese edition of LASER NOMAD continues its investigation and critic of the implicit biases found in academic publishing, or the disconnect between work within a university and that going on outside, by decompartmentalizing knowledge, namely by creating bridges, and here asking what is the role of science and technology in art and humanities. The quest relates to interdisciplinarity, and indisciplinarity generated by art and science collaborations. Such pervasive fields are now mostly approached from a techno-scientific and Western perspective, and looking outside well established Western academic methodologies, focusing on the rituals involved within such collaboration through a nomad lab as mobile and multi-sited ethnography might lead to new questions and answers.
We investigate the role of science and technology in art and humanities. We invite Ryuta Aoki, a Tokyo-based artistic director and social sculptor, and Adrian Altenburger, professor for building technology in Lucerne, Switzerland, for an exclusive discussion.
18:00-18:10 Welcome and Intro 18:10-19:00 Presentation 19:00-19:20 Discussion 19:20-21:00 Networking Reception with music performance by Luca Forcucci / The Room Above
Tokyo-based artistic director and social sculptor. I have been creating invisible structures that maximize people’s creativity to explore the form of “society as it could be” that terraforms cultural deserts into cultural forests. I currently plans, designs, directs and implements research projects, exhibitions, and artworks in the interdisciplinary art and science technology field.
Professor and Head of Institute / Course Building Technology and Energy at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts since 2015. Former partner, board member and co-owner Amstein+Walthert AG from 1999-2015. Lecturer and adjunct professor in the field of energy and building services engineering in Switzerland and abroad (ETH Zurich, HTW Chur, Harvard University – Graduate School of Design and Harvard University – Extension School, University of Zurich, Kyoto Institute of Technology).
France Jobin has a long career in experimental music. She introduces her works as related to the sonic and architecture, and how she developed works inspired and informed by quantum physics, including the challenges induced by art and science collaborations
France Jobin / Interview by Luca Forcucci – November 2021 / Berlin – MontréalPicture : Bruno Destombes Photographe
Biography
“This album seems to mark a shifting in Jobin’s sound, one that departs from the strictly ultra-minimal ethos she’s known for, and I for one am excited to hear where this goes.
Darren McClure Intrication, No. Toneshift (December 2018)
“We detect imperceptible subsurface discolourations, brief dissipations of energy across the harmonic flawlessness, a few dynamic weaknesses and slight distortions in an otherwise rather narcotic flux. It’s sorrow-inducing, brain-quietening, and profoundly individual.
Massimo Ricci Death is perfection, everything else is relative EMEGO 276 Touching Extremes (July 2020)
France Jobin is a sound / installation / artist, composer and curator residing in Montreal, Canada. Her audio art can be qualified as “sound-sculpture”, revealing a minimalist approach to complex sound environments where analog and digital intersect. Her installations express a parallel path, incorporating both musical and visual elements inspired by the architecture of physical spaces. Her works can be “experienced” in a variety of unconventional spaces and new technology festivals across Canada, the United States, South America, South Africa, Europe, Australia, Japan and South Corea. Since 2009, her focus has been related to Quantum mechanics. Many of her projects are inspired by theories related to topics such as vacuum decay, string theory and more recently, what she feels to be the most perplexing phenomenon in the world of the quantum , entanglement resulting in a first presentation, Entanglement A/V, with visual artist Markus Heckmann, which delves into the realms of quantum physics premiered at Mutek Mtl 2021.
In November 2019, she presented her first modular concert (Buchla 100) at the Ernst Krenek Institute in Austria. Jobin has created solo recordings for Editions Mego(AT), No-ware (CL-DE), Silent Records (USA), popmuzik records (JP), bake/ staalplaat (NL), ROOM40 (AU), nvo (AT), DER (US), ATAK (JP), murmur records (JP), Baskaru (FR) and the prestigious LINE label (US). Jobin’s sound art is also part of countless compilation albums, notably on the ATAK (JP), bremsstrahlung (US), Mutek (CA), murmur records (JP), and/oar (US), tsuku boshi (FR), everest records (CH), and Contour Editions (US) labels. She is also featured in the influential book and recording, Extract, Portraits of Soundartists (book + 2 cd), released on the nonvisualobjects label (AT). The collaborative album ligne, created with sound artist Tomas Phillips, was released on the ATAK label (JP) and her recent collaboration with acclaimed artist Richard Chartier, DUO, is released on the mAtter label in Japan.
DUO A/V premiered at Mutek Mtl 2019 with sound artist Richard Chartier and visual artist Markus Heckmann and was presented at the Precxte festival in South Corea. Her installations and screenings have been shown internationally at museums and festivals. Her work P Orbital released on LINE (Valence, LINE054) was presented in the context of ESCUCHAS, a first sound art exhibit for the Museum of Modern Art in Medellin, Colombia. P Orbital was also presented at CONTEXT-ing / Listening as CONTEXT at the Miami Art Fair in Florida, Call &Response, London Uk as well as at the Haunted formalism exhibit in LA curated by Volume. An invitation to the AIR Artist-In-Residence program in Krems, Austria enabled her to create und transit, a sound installation set in the MinoritenKirche cloister in Stein (AT) and und transit.03 has been presented in the sound art exhibit “Dock” at the Ancien Palais de Justice in Lièges, Belgium.
Her two ongoing collaborations with visual artist Cédrick Eymenier (FR) have resulted in EVENT HORIZON, an audio/video piece, and The Answer, a movie, with the soundtrack by France Jobin and Stephan Mathieu. EVENT HORIZON was screened in Paris (2010), at the Venezuela Biennale in Merida state (2010) and was performed live at the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles (2010) and ISEA RUHR 2010 (DE). The Answer was screened at IAC, Villeurbanne, France in March – May 2016. In 2011, Jobin was one of five international artists selected to present her sound installation, Entre-Deux, in the new media exhibit Data/Fields, curated by Richard Chartier at Artisphere in the Washington, DC area, along with Ryoji Ikeda, Mark Fell, Caleb Coppock, and Andy Graydon. Her proposition received critical acclaim from the national press. Entre-Deux was presented at N38E13 in Palermo, Sicily (2017). She premiered the audio visual performance of “intrication” at Mutek AR 2018 with the Argentinian visual duo prifma. Her audio visual collaboration: “Mirror Neurons” with sound artist Fabio Perletta (IT) and xx+xy visuals (IT) was screened as a world premiere at A x S / ak-sis / FESTIVAL 2014 | CURIOSITY as part of the Synergetica Screening in Los Angeles in September 2014. In October 2015, France was invited to take part in an artist residency at EMPAC (Troy,NY) which resulted in the creation of a new light sound work entitled 4.35 – R0 – 413, a collaboration with Alena Samoray, lighting designer.
Her latest installations, ‘Inter/sperse’ and ‘Entre/temps’ both premiered in Italy. ‘Inter/sperse’ is a site specific installation created in the context of an international residency organized by Museolaboratorio, LUX and farmacia901. It opened May 27 2017 at Museolaboratorio, Città Sant’Angelo Italy. ‘Entre/temps’ is a site specific installation commissioned by Enzo De Leonibus, artistic director of the EaRrEtMeI festival which opened in Palena, Itally, June 4 2017.
She has also participated in numerous music and new technology festivals such as Mutek (Montreal, 2001, 2004 – 2009, 2014, 2017, 2019 AR 2018), Festival Novas Frequencies (Rio, Brazil, 2019) Prectxe (South Korea, 2019), Interference (Austin, 2019), Suoni Per Il Popolo (Montreal 2019), EM15 (Montreal 2014), EMPAC (US 2011, 2015), roBOT 8 (Italy 2015) Angelica Festival (Italy 2016), Portobeseno (Italy 2014), Interferenze – Liminaria (Italy 2014), Flussi Media Arts Festival (Italy 2014), FIMAV, SEND + RECEIVE (Winnipeg, 2003, 2005), Club Transmediale (Berlin, 2004), Shut up and Listen (Vienna, 2009), ISEA RUHR 2010 (Germany), the surface tension tour (Japan, 2012) and the Symétrie tour (Japan 2016).
“immersound” is a concert event/philosophy concept initiated by Jobin, which proposes the creation of a dedicated listening environment by focusing on the physical comfort of the audience within a specifically designed space. The premise of “immersound” is to seek out/explore new perceptions in and experiences of the listening process by pushing the notion of “immersion” to its possible limits. She created and produced “immersound” from 2011 to 2015 at Oboro in Montreal.
She was a finalist at the Sonic Arts Awards 2014 (IT) in the Sonic Research category. In January 2013, the Conseil québécois de la musique (CQM) awarded the prestigious Opus Prize for Concert of the year to France Jobin for her concert at AKOUSMA 8.
Jobin’s work continues to evolve as technologies enable her to create new environments. France Jobin is published by Touch Music/Fairwood Music UK Ltd
Maria Mannone describes the links between her professional backgrounds as physicist, musician, composer, conductor, and how it inspired her to define links between proportions found in nature, and mathematics toward music and the visual arts. This includes projects exploring sonification, a method to render data audible, in the medical domain.
Maria Mannone / Interview by Luca Forcucci – November 2021 / Berlin – Palermo
Maria Mannone is a theoretical physicist and composer. She gained her MSc in Theoretical Physics and three masters in Piano, Composition and Orchestral Conducting in Italy, her Master 2 ATIAM at IRCAM-UPMC Paris VI Sorbonne, and her Ph.D. in Composition in the US, at the University of Minnesota. Her interdisciplinary research deals with music, mathematics, and forms of nature. She invented the “CubeHarmonic”, a new musical instrument based on the Rubik’s cube. She is currently postdoctoral researcher at the University of Palermo and “subject expert” at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her most recent books are “Mathematics, Nature, Art” and “Simmetrie fra Matematica e Musica” (Palermo University Press).
The power of the voice (s) allied with poetry and (deep) listening are perhaps ways to deal with urgent terrestrial and human problems caused to the biosphere, which have been urgent for a long time now.
The work is a sonic collage, like a surrealist poem based on podcasts conducted since 2018 and available at www.ubqtlab.org. The platform engages with interdisciplinary and transnational collaborations in an attempt to decolonize knowledge. It proposes a unique combination of fields, such as ritual studies, anthropology, phenomenology, cognitive science, technology, poetry and the sonic arts, and allows for the mechanisms of listening and questions about phenomenal consciousness to be addressed from a sonic perspective by fusing theoretical writing with sonic artworks as research-creation. It also counterbalances a dominant visual and Western, techno-scientific perspective.
Luca Forcucci (CH/IT): Distinguished artist and scholar. His research observes the perceptive properties and the field of possibilities of the first-person experience, which is explored as an artwork. Forcucci is interested in perception, subjectivity and consciousness. His installations, performances, electroacoustic compositions, photography and texts have been exhibited worldwide on a regular basis. Since 2009, he has collaborated with scientists in the field of cognitive science. He is particularly fascinated by visual mental imagery and the sonic imagination to explore the conceptual idea of the sonic architecture. www.lucaforcucci.com
Credits
With the voices of Jocy de Oliveira (BR), JIll Scott (AU), Pamela Z (US), Jorge Antunes (BR), Stanley Moss (US), Phill Niblock (US), Matt Black (UK), Paulo Bruscky (BR), Eduardo Kac (BR)
Machines, algorithms and data are increasingly entering the landscape. They are already present in our intimate spaces. During the current pandemic situation, algorithms and data are omnipresent due to our online presence. Further, our landscape is indeed becoming monasterial, because the pandemic forces populations to self-isolate. The utopian landscape is perhaps within oneself then ?
Ticino is the Italian speaking and southern part of Switzerland. In term of transit (cultural and economic), it plays a role as a geographical articulation between North and South of Europe. Inside, deep inside, in the entrails of the landscape of Ticino, the new world longest 57 km long railway San Gottardo tunnel was recently achieved. A utopian invisible landscape made by men and machines. On the surface, the Ticino architecture school is widely acclaimed worldwide since the 1960’s, an architecture, which has been described also as an architecture of resistance. In addition, since the early 1900’s the artistic avant-garde was indeed present in Ticino with the Dadaists for example, and Bauhaus architecture emerged there too between the two world wars. What to expect from an architecture when insights from augmented intelligence, cognition, data and machines are applied to it ? What kind of utopian landscape shall emerge in a not so distant future ?
Davide Macullo (b. Giornico, CH, 1965) is a Swiss architect. His international design studio, Davide Macullo Architects, based in Lugano, Switzerland, was founded in 2000.
The ethos of the studio is one that promotes an open and cultural exchange with architects, artists and collaborators coming from different backgrounds. The diverse contributions promote a dialogue between the specificity of the project, the universality of the contexts and the psychology of space. This ‘drawing from context’ encourages and helps sustain a local-meets-global, embracing approach to architecture, spanning from the theoretical to the practical and detail level, to territorial analysis, pedagogy and sustainability in construction.
The work of the studio includes graphic design, branding consulting and custom designed furniture, and spans to the creation of contemporary art collections for clients. They have also recently produced a customized collection of rugs for the new Chenot Palace Weggis, and a large series of Davide’s drawings (ca. 400nr.) is included in its art collection.
In Rossa, Canton Grisons, he is a founding member of the Rossarte foundation which promotes public and private interventions in situ by international artists to influence daily life through contemporary art.
The first building is the Swisshouse XXXII (Sinusoïde) created in collaboration with Daniel Buren and Mario Cristiani of Galleria Continua.
Prior to the foundation of his own studio, he was project architect in the atelier of Mario Botta with responsibility for over 200 international projects worldwide (1990-2010).
abstract
We are living in an historical moment of epochal change, where the attitude to inhabit the earth, built over millennia, does not reflect the current and future conditions. With the advent of new technologies, unimaginable scientific discoveries and the doubling of the world population, man faces, (with no way back), a completely new universe, in which he must affront from all points of view, taking care of all ecologies. Our generation has the urgent duty to prepare this new territory to allow new generations build on solid foundations and above all for our psychological health, manage an environment that has become extremely complex and potentially hostile.
The development of think tanks and laboratories focused on social sensitivity, inclusive of historical and scientific knowledge, are the terrain on which we move to respond to the call as citizens. The Rossa project in Valle Calanca seeks solutions that go beyond the economic revival of a region, bowing to the principle expressed by Bruno Munari, that a civilized people lives in the midst of their art.
Carole Haensler, born in Lausanne in 1974, was appointed curator of the Museo Civico Villa dei Cedri in Bellinzona in 2013, with the task of conserving and enhancing the artistic heritage of the Museum, redefining and strengthening the identity of the institution, developing the offer of cultural mediation as well as synergies with other city and regional cultural institutions. She also accompanied the creation of the Ente autonomo di diritto pubblico Bellinzona Musei – the new administrative structure created in 2017 that manages the Museo Villa dei Cedri – of which she is director since 1.01.2018.
Holder of a master’s degree in art history and archaeology from the University of Neuchâtel (1999), she has worked for various private and public collections in Switzerland, as well as the Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation in Lugano and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary – TBA21 -, Vienna, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern and the Centre for Contemporary Art in Geneva. She is mainly specialized in modern and contemporary art, in particular in French art and literature of the second half of the 19th century and in French and German art of the period 1900-1950, and focussed her programme at Museo Villa dei Cedri on the renewal of art language and expression after Second World War. She has introduced thematic exhibitions of contemporary art in Bellinzona seeking to reflect the concerns of art and contemporary society: “Dimensione Disegno. Posizioni contemporanee” (2016), “In(de)finiti luoghi. Utopie architettoniche e realtà artistiche” (2017), “Memoria del Sublime. Il paesaggio nel secolo XXI” (2019) e “Icone vegetali. Arte e botanica nel secolo XXI” (to come in 2022).
abstract
The Museo Villa dei Cedri is an interesting starting point to understand how to connect artistic, architectural and natural heritage. Starting from the considerations that led to the thematic exhibitions “Memoria del Sublime. Il paesaggio nel secolo XXI” (2019) and “Icone vegetali. Arte e Botanica nel secolo XXI” (to come in spring 2022), the presentation will also explore the role of the museum in its own ecosystem, which is that of art, and its ability to position itself as a place of critical reflection on contemporary society. Does the Museum have a role to play in building the future of society? And can it be an active role?
The sixth edition of Laser Nomad at the Fine Arts School of the University of Porto explores contemporary issues of migration. The focus is about the sense of place from a cognitive perspective. Neuroscientists have already proposed the existence of a grey zone around us named peripersonal space, which is an extended boundary of our body. From a technological perspective, mobile devices and gps helped war migrants, for example, to stay in touch with their families and share migration routes. What is the relation between embodiment and borders?
CHAIRED BY: Luca Forcucci
Rosemary Lee (ITU Copenhagen) Rosemary Lee will speak about themes from her PhD research on the influence of algorithms on notions of the image. Several consequences arise from the formalisation of the image as sets of instructions to be executed, including variability, a turn toward non-opticality, and increased automation by machines. In this way, machine learning not only affects the image on an ontological level, affecting what an image may be considered to be, but also its aesthetics and its symbolic relation to the real. Rosemary Lee is an artist and PhD fellow at the IT-University of Copenhagen, where she is researching how notions of the image are impacted by algorithmic media. Her PhD project analyses and contextualises artistic and technical examples in terms of their earlier precursors and considers what this means for what an image is today. Lee’s research and artistic work have been shown in international contexts including SCREENSHOTS: Desire and Automated Image, machines will watch us die, a new we, and her book, Molten Media, which was published in the context of the transmediale Vilém Flusser Archive Residency for Artistic Research.
Rui Penha (ESMAE)
Existence and Extension / Lenses and Lentils
Rui Penha was trained to see the world through the
lenses of musical composition and media art. He is a father of two, a
professor of a few more, a thinker and a tinkerer. He is currently
employed as an assistant professor at ESMAE and as a senior researcher
at INESC TEC. More info at http://ruipenha.pt
Miguel Carvalhais (FBAUP)
Host
Miguel Carvalhais teaches design and computational media at FBAUP.
When asked for a short bio he normally presents himself as a designer
and a musician, two activities that he finds closely connected and
central to his practice. In this talk Miguel will explore how his work
hinges on space: on using it as canvas, on manipulating or transforming
it, on creating entirely new spaces. http://carvalhais.org
In this interview, Jill Scott and I are sitting in a Ethiopian restaurant in Berlin. We learn about her large body of work spanning from performance, video to sonic arts, media arts and neuroscience. How all this could possibly connect ? A series of travels, experiments and encounters informed this important and very inspiring artist, which are embedded into a unique research in art and science.
Jill Scott / Interview by Luca Forcucci – September 1st 2019 / Berlin
Professor Dr. Jill Scott is an artist, teacher and context provider with 40 years experience in the unique transdisciplinary field of art, science and technology interactions. Her research spans neuroscience, electronics, ecology, sociology, sculpture, performative installation and media art. Her artwork is focused on the human body, the social and physical impact of technology on our bodies and the health of our environment. She asks: How does technological and biotechnical “progress” affect way we “see” our body? How can artists raise awareness about the human body and the scientific structure of sensory perception? How can artists shed light on the health affects of our physical environment? To address these questions, she builds interactive media installations that immerse viewers inside designed environments. She explores how visual metaphors and poetic analogies might create an alternative forms of art and science communication to help others learn more about sensory perception and reflect on their own ideological, biological, ecological, gendered and ethical futures.
u(bqt)lab 