12 Dog Cycle + Rosalind Hall

Nigel Brown (Australia)

Nigel Brown’s ongoing investigation into acoustic-electronic interactions currently centers on the piano accordion. As an extension of the human body, the bellows of the accordion mimic the human lungs. In order to sound, the instrument is pushed and pulled in a simple act of physical exertion. The resulting sound production suggests the travel of energy from a live but stationary body, simply breathing in and out. Nigel works in ongoing collaborations, chance encounters and solo, the most frequent being 12 dog cycle, a duo with Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, ongoing since 2006.

Alice Hui-Sheng Chang (Taiwan)

Extended vocal technique has been Alice Hui-Sheng Chang's main focus since the end of 2003. Her work explores vocal interaction with the soundscape and acoustic properties of the environment with attention to visual and spatial associations. Through sounding, subtle movement and listening experiments, she explores condensing and extracting of inner energy, in-site and spatialisation between collaborators, as well as the harmony and dissonance between them.

Rosalind Hall (Australia)

Rosalind Hall is a saxophonist and instrument builder based in Melbourne, Australia. She is interested in making modifications to the saxophone that radically changes the sound of and approach to the instrument. Rosalind crafts individual reeds from many materials, transforming the reed into a sensitive and volatile sound source whose properties are ever changing. She uses objects in the bell so that with each preparation and reed the vibrations and playing techniques are altered, creating a unique dialogue between the player and the instrument.

Yuri Spitsyn (Russia)

Yuri Spitsyn is an electronic and instrumental music composer/performer who is currently pursuing doctoral degree in composition and computer technologies at the University of Virginia, USA. Of his prime interests are a real-time and mobile performative systems, concurrent temporalities, volatile perceptual regions and tangibility of electro-acoustic music performance. Recently he began to explore compositional potentials of emergent models seeing in them computationally irreducible means to unfold music structures in time. Compositionally his approach to sonic ecology might be characterized by an effort to seek for collaborative patterns established between human agency and all other elements comprising resulting totality of a music environment.

Originating from Russia Yuri is a co-founder of the Theremin Center for electro-acoustic Music at the Moscow Conservatory. Among the venues he performed at are Ars Electronica Center (Linz, Austria), Melkweg/STEIM (Amsterdam, Netherlands), CUNY Graduate Center (New York, USA), Princeton University (Princeton, USA), DOM (Moscow, Russia), Ural Conservatory (Yekaterinburg, Russia), Kiev Conservatory (Ukraine), Central Conservatory of Music (Bejing, China) and many others.

Yuri Spitsyn

Emergence Collective (USA) / IMRG (Interactive Media Research Group)
MICE Orchestra: 250-person laptop orchestra

When massive groups of humans and computers gather, the Emergence Collective may be nearby.

The MICE Orchestra, a 250-person laptop orchestra, is the world's first and largest orchestral-scale laptop ensemble. Created and directed by Matthew Burtner with recent Associate Directors Steven Kemper, Scott Barton, Troy Rogers, Erik De Luca and Megan England.

The IMRG develops new technologies for MICE including the flagship technology NOMADS employed in this performance. The Group is run by senior developers Matthew Burtner, Steven Kemper and David Topper.

David Dinnell (USA)

David Dinnell is a filmmaker and film programmer currently based in Milwaukee. He has been the Film Programmer for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Union Theatre for five seasons, from May 2007 through December 2009. He has curated film programs for the Museum of Contemporary Art
Detroit, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Detroit Film Center and was the Program Director of the Media City Film Festival (Windsor, Canada) from 2004-2006. His own work has been exhibited at numerous international venues and
festivals including the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, Images Festival (Toronto) and the EXiS Film Festival (Seoul).

Christopher Burns and David Dinnell

Pinko Communoids (USA)

Pinko Communoids is an improvisational trio based in Charlottesville, Virginia. The trio consists of Carey Sargent, Kevin Parks, and Wendy Hsu. We create both free and structured improvisations using conventional instruments including guitars, accordions and percussion, found objects, circuits, microphones, and other electronics. We enjoy the quiet interplay of small sounds and often employ a restrained sonic palette of diverse timbres. Though we like occasional loud cathartic noisy workouts, we play at appropriate volumes and always invite our audience to savor our sounds without ear plugs. Our recent explorations have led us to investigate aspects of tuning and timbre and the relationship between the two.

Since forming in 2006, Pinko Communoids have given over 30 performances both locally and abroad, including a tour of Taiwan's major cities in Summer 2007. We have been on 804noise showcases, Red Room, COMA @ ABC No Rio), Sonic Circuits, Noise in the System, Technosonics, and other concert series. We helped curate a series entitled Audio January and Audio February at The Bridge PAI in Charlottesville VA. Our music has been featured on radio shows such as Noise Solution and Ghost Don't Walk, and at Harold Golen Gallery in Miami, FL.

Pinko Communoids have collaborated with artists including Jonathan Zorn, Kenneth Yates (Caustic Castle), Alice Hui-Sheng Chang (of 12 Dog Cycle), Aurie Hsu, Lee Alter (watercolorist), and Chia Chi Charlie Chang (photographer/videographer).
We aim to bring together community improvisers and noise musicians through organizing performances, workshops, and events with organizations and venues such as WeArts , and The Bridge PAI and we also promote translocal and international exchange through 804noise and HzCollective, organizing shows for touring artists such as Arturas Bumsteinas (Warsaw, Poland), Antanas Jasenka (Lithuania), Cheapmachines (UK), Iris Garrelfs (UK), Jeff Surak/Violet (Washington D.C.), Rachel Thompson (San Diego, CA), Andy Hayleck (Baltimore, MD), Kioku (NewYork, NY), Vslykon (Oakland/Tokyo), aka Dang (Baltimore), Sadjeljko (New York, NY), Harmstryker (Richmond, VA), and others.

Ted Coffey (USA)

Ted Coffey makes acoustic and electronic chamber music, multimedia pieces, interactive installations and songs. His work has been presented in concerts and festivals across the US and Canada, Europe and Asia. Coffey’s writing on the aesthetics and social politics of transmissive networks in art have been honored with significant awards from the Josephine De Kármán and Andrew C. Mellon Foundations. He studied composition with Jon Appleton, Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros, Paul Lansky and others, earning degrees at Dartmouth [AB], Mills College [MFA] and Princeton [MFA, PhD]. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia, where he teaches courses in composition, music technologies, critical theory and pop. For more information regarding his work, please visit www.tedcoffey.com.

Ted Coffey

Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI) (USA)
Founded by Troy Rogers, Scott Barton, and Steven Kemper in 2007, EMMI designs, builds and composes music for robotic instruments. EMMI created and composes for Poly-tangent Automatic (multi-)Monochord (PAM) and Multi-mallet Automatic Drumming Instrument (MADI).

Computer controlled mechanical instruments allow for the marriage
of extreme precision and the richness of acoustically generated sound. Robotic instruments take computer music out of its traditional black box and reunite sound generation with visible physical gestures. Thus EMMI's instruments exhibit a stage presence and theatricality absent from music produced by speakers alone.

EMMI's work emphasizes:
• Creative vs. scientific research
• New compositions vs. reinterpretation of existing works
• Music that realizes machine potential vs. simulating human capabilities
We are located in Charlottesville, VA. We are all currently Ph.D. students at the University of Virginia in the McIntire Department of Music's Composition and Computer Technologies Program.

Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble (MICE) (USA)

The word "mouse" derives from "muse". The mouse is the friend of writers, artists and musicians, the little voice serving as a source of inspiration. The MICE (Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble) turn musing into a collective interaction by composing, programming and performing mobile multi-performer human-computer music.

MICE (Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble) began experimenting with artificial intelligence and multi-performer systems in 2001. Director, Matthew Burtner created the group to explore a genre of multi-performer interactive music systems with a precedent in the work of Stockhausen (Germany, 1960s), The Hub (California, 1980s), and Sensorband (Netherlands, 1990s). MICE extends this genre of human-computer ensemble interaction by developing network technologies and artificial intelligence systems for performance with innovative gestural controllers. Since 2001 MICE has performed at venues such as the University of Washington, Charlottesville Fringe Festival, The IX Building, Digitalis Under the Stars, Symphony Space, The DCCA, University of Delaware, MUSE, Old Cabell Hall, and the Most Significant Bytes Festival. Papers for the NIME and ICMC conferences describe the MICE approach of the early 2000s. In 2008, with support of T+TI Grant and Fellowship, the group expanded into an orchestral scale. Modeled on LAN-party gaming infrastructure, MICEtro makes emergent music out of massive data generation employing up to 500 performers. In 2009 MICE returned to a small ensemble format in order to travel around the world on the MICE World Tour, performing 14 concerts in a global circumnavigation.

Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble (MICE)

Matthew Burtner (USA)

Matthew Burtner's ( http://www.burtner.net) experience growing up in Alaska deeply informs his work as a composer and sound artist. Through projects such as EcoSono he attempts to unite his activism on behalf of the environment and free imagination. Composed for a wide range of instruments and technologies, his music combines ecoacoustic systems with expressive live performance and immersive ritual sound art. He performs widely with his original Metasax technology (http://www.metasax.com).
Burtner’s music was described by The Wire as “some of the most eerily effective electroacoustic music I’ve heard,” and 21st Century Music wrote "There is a horror and beauty in this music that is most impressive." First prize winner of the Musica Nova International Electroacoustic Music Competition he received honors and awards from Bourges, Gaudeamus, Darmstadt, Prix d’Ete, Meet the Composer, Luigi Russolo, and Hultgren Biennial competitions. Originally from Alaska, he studied philosophy, composition, saxophone and computer music at St. Johns College, Tulane University, Iannis Xenakis's UPIC-Studios, the Peabody Institute/Johns Hopkins, and Stanford University/CCRMA. In 2005 and 2006 he was an Invited Researcher at IRCAM/Centre-George-Pompidou, Paris, and composer-in-residence at Musikene, in San Sebastian, Spain. In 2007/2008 he was a Teaching+Technolgy Fellow at the University of Virginia. In 2008/2009 he was a Howard Foundation Fellow of Brown University. In 2009/2010 he is a W. Buckner Clay Foundation Grant Recipient at the University of Virginia. In 2010/2011 he is a Fellow at the Center for 21st Century Studies in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin.