A recording of looping workshop attendees performing at Fascinate Conference, Falmouth University, August 2014.

Performance is entirely improvised and utilises several looping stations across a wide range of hardware and software, including Boss RC20, Ableton Live looping both audio & MIDI, iPhone/pedalboard/LoopyHD, laptop plus control surface for mixing MIDI loop fed into multiple sample banks, etc...  Huge thanks to Peter Edwards and Dan Gibson for bringing their own self-created instruments and electronics to the mix!

Performers were: Elizabeth Cackett, Chris Cole, Dan Gibson, Peter Edwards and Emma Smith.

Workshop and technical setup: Marcus Dyer and Chris Cole.

Fascinate 2014 Looping Workshop Improv

A commission by performance artist Carolyn Savage to compose an original piece of music for her exhibition Embrace DNR.

Recorded, edited and composed over a three year period, Embrace DNR: Composition juxtaposes voice recordings made of Carolyn’s writings describing the experience of her husband’s decline and passing, alongside recordings of her departed looking back on his life and forward to an unknown future.  In the process, a heart-wrenching narrative dissonance forms.

Composed using generative and procedural techniques, the accompanying soundtrack is merely an emergent property of a complex data-flow system.  By changing the random data fed into the system countless facsimiles can be created effortlessly.  Perhaps it moves you, perhaps it leaves you empty or perhaps you don't need a musical score to tell you what to feel.

Regardless, as consciousness emerges and memories are encoded in an inconceivably complex network of neurones and synapses throughout our lives, the thing which really hurts when we find ourselves confronting death is the realisation that, in spite of individual beliefs, this may very well be all we are.

theskyisthinaspaperhere

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