Monad (from Greek μονάς monas, "unit" in turn from μόνος monos, "alone")

The monad, the word and the idea, belongs to the western philosophical tradition and has been used by various authors, most famously by Leibniz that designates the monad as metaphysical point (without extension) in which the entire universe is reflected.

Monads are manifest, they are everywhere, and there is no extension without monads. They are, then, the plenum, that is to say, the condition of an infinitely dense universe, but nevertheless they are unextended. However, this doesn’t mean that they lack of any function (as far as they project and reflect force), matter (since they come with it) or that they are extended (considering that they don’t interact with anything in the world).

The ‘intensive infinity’ within the monad is in excess of any concept.  Monadic fullness is dizzying, ‘confused.’  The infinity within the monad is infinitely analyzable, which means that it cannot be captured by a finite consciousness, but is lost for intentionality.  Nonetheless, this loss is not an abstract negation of knowledge, since the monad has all the complex determinacy of an intensive gathering of relations. 
The ‘pregnant’ fullness of the monad intends no mythic re-enchantment of nature.  On the contrary, it definitively secularizes temporality, and shows how the modern notion of progress reintroduces the Christian via recta into the representation of time. 

Walter Benjamin’s monad is simultaneously packed with all of its predicates – past, present, and future. Benjamin describes the intensive infinity within the monad as its absorption of all of its ‘virtual history’ (both becoming and passing away) in a pre-stabilized essence.  We become aware of the infinite complexity in our perceptions by intensifying our attention to what is already implicit in our representations.

monade (diskontinuierliche Endlichkeit) - Oscillation measures the failure of a limit to exist.

monade (diskontinuierliche Endlichkeit)

Composed by Timothy McCormack, 2011
for contrabass clarinet and cello
Madison Greenstone, contrabass clarinet; Tyler Borden, cello

performed April 7, 2016 in the Conrad Prebys Music Center

Mirror Stratum by Timothy McCormack - Madison Greenstone, contrabass clarinet; T.J. Borden, cello

Yann Robin "Fterà"
Performed by ensemble Fractales :
Viola - Marion Borgel
Piano - Gian Ponte
Bass Clarinet -Benjamin Maneyrol
Live recording @ 15th Afekt Festival (Tallinn, Estonia)

Yann Robin "Fterà" (2014)

for string quartet and electronics

Paris, Centre Pompidou June 7th 2017
Quatuor Diotima

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As a kid we had a television set with an antenna that rotated (you could rotate it from inside of your house). When the major channels would go off-air you could rotate it and pick up strange other channels from smaller cities around - from across the border, Buffalo and so on - and you would see strange things, that were kind of hard to see (there was a lot of static) and it was very intriguing to watch that kind of things. That was really the core, the crystal at the centre of this movie: my experience with that thinking “what if the images that you pulled up were really quite extreme, disturbing, possibly illegal, and what would you think then, would you keep seeking out those channels or would you call the police or what would you do, how would you respond to them?”

David Cronenberg on his movie Videodrome (commentary track of the Criterion Collection BlueRay)

The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion was a television signal hijacking (probably the most famous and certainly the longest signal hijacking ever) that occurred in Chicago, Illinois, United States on the evening of November 22, 1987. The signal pirates, whose identities were never found, succeeded in getting their broadcast intruded onto WTTW (a local Public Broadcasting Service television station).
The pirate broadcast, which lasted 90 endless seconds, featured an individual disguised as Max Headroom (a sci-fi computer-generated television character quite popular in the 80s, coming from dystopian near-future dominated by television and large corporations).
Around 11:15 p.m. an episode of the British TV-Series Doctor Who was suddenly interrupted by television static, after which an unidentified man wearing a Max Headroom mask and sunglasses appeared. The man started to moan, scream and laugh, uttering various random phrases (the audio was distorted and crackling), including New Coke's advertising slogan "Catch the Wave" while holding a Pepsi can (Max Headroom was a Coca-Cola spokesperson at the time). He then tossed the can out of sight, presented his middle finger wearing a rubber extension, sang an excerpt of “I’m losing you” (a 1966 Motown hit recorded by the Temptations), hummed the theme song of Clutch Cargo (a clumsily-animated television series of the 60s), moaned painfully complaining about his piles, farted, put on and off a giant glove (similar to the one worn by Michael Jackson at the time). He then partially exposed his buttocks, howling: "They're coming to get me!”, while an unidentified female accomplice wearing a French maid outfit started to spank him with a flyswatter. The transmission then blacked out for a few seconds before resuming the Doctor Who episode in progress.

“The 1987 Max Headroom Broadcast Incident” features a string quartet “enhanced” with transducers and preparations. 
The digital processing of the instruments is largely inspired by the same modulation techniques that were - and still are - commonly used for radio and television transmission. 
The piece, an hommage to obsolete or soon-to-be deprecated technologies and to the media-dominated, dark future that the “cyberpunk” sci-fi of 80s foretold, is dedicated to the memory of Fausto Romitelli.

Mauro Lanza - "The 1987 Max Headroom broadcast incident" (2017)

From a live performance on July 22, 2017 at the Künstlerhaus Lauenburg. (Premiered in 2014 at the CMC, Vancouver, Canada.)


In 2014 Thierry Tidrow wrote me a solo piece, which I premiered in Vancouver that year and subsequently avoided - it's by far the most difficult piece in my repertoire and I was terrified of it (yes those intervals I'm singing are all notated specifically, eek). But over the last few months of slow practice I've come to love the piece very much, and I'm really rather happy with the performance I gave of it 3 days ago in Lauenburg. Please do have a listen if you have 10 minutes to spare :)

Thierry Tidrow - Clarintabile

Live recording from performance at Kalvfestivalen in Sweden, August 2017.

One Man Band (2016) - excerpts (part 1, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 10). performed by Simone Beneventi.

Live recording from the Gothenburg Art Sounds festival, October 2016

"Tout d'un coup ils existaient et ensuite, tout d'un coup, ils n'existaient plus: l'existence est sans mémoire; des disparus, elle ne garde rien - pas même un souvenir. L'existence partout, à l'infini, de trop, toujours et partout; l'existence - qui n'est jamais bornée que par l'existence."

Jean-Paul Sartre

Lisa Streich: Existenser (2009) for prepared piano and electronics

Studio recording with Jonas Olsson. 

Umeå, Sweden, 03.12.2018

Score: http://johansvensson.nu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/STUDY-FOR-PIANO-2.pdf

study for piano #2 (2015). performed by Jonas Olsson.

Studio recording with Jonas Olsson.

Umeå, Sweden, 03.12.2018

Score: http://johansvensson.nu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/STUDY-FOR-PIANO-1.pdf

study for piano #1 (2015). performed by Jonas Olsson.

marsyas and apollo (2017), étude for piano harmonics.
Performed by Jonas Olsson.
Recorded at NorrlandsOperan in Umeå, on December 3, 2017 by Johan Svensson and Martin Rane Bauck. Mixed by Martin Rane Bauck.
Part of the project www.pianoharmonics.com.

marsyas and apollo (2017), étude for piano harmonics [Jonas Olsson]

The Swedish pianist Jonas Olsson has established himself as one of the most adventurous pianists on the Scandinavian new music scene today. Having initially studied with Hans Pålsson in Gothenburg, making his debut with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in 2007, he moved to Germany for a year at the International Ensemble Modern Academy in Frankfurt, followed by two years with Pierre-Laurent Aimard in Cologne, specialising in contemporary solo repertoire. Another important influence came from working intensely with Pierre Boulez as a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy between 2006 and 2009, where he took on several big solo parts, including “sur Incises” and “Répons” by Boulez and “Des canyons aux étoiles” by Messiaen.
Based alternately in Sweden and Germany, Jonas enjoys a busy concert schedule throughout much of northern Europe. Recent highlights include the complete Boulez sonatas at Copenhagen's Klang Festival in 2015 and a Rebecca Saunders portrait concert at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2016.
Jonas' repertoire comprises a large selection of works from the most important late 20th century composers such as Boulez, Stockhausen, Messiaen, Berio, Nono, Ligeti, Carter, Lachenmann (with whom he has worked closely on several occasions), Ferneyhough and Sciarrino. Equally important is his commitment to a younger generation of composers, often collaborating closely on exploring new playing techniques.
Jonas is a member of the Gothenburg-based contemporary music ensembles Mimitabu and Gageego!, and is regularly invited to play with other ensembles throughout Europe.

Lisa Streich: Existenser (2009) for prepared piano and electronics

Jonas Olsson

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