TJ#3 curated by the Splinter Orchestra
Transmission: Impossible.
For 12 years in Sydney, Splinter Orchestra has provided a forum where large groups of musicians improvise and experiment. As identified by Ben Byrne in the liner notes to our 2007 CD release (splitrec 17), ‘playing’ is the fundamental activity, and the group meets regularly to do just that. Sometimes structures and generative scores are used but largely we’ve been happy to play without predetermination and pre-sequencing, although we’ve found that the context and time/space of an event controls much, and in many of our most successful events we’ve ‘composed’ space more than ‘music’. But we’ve always tried to replace the almost military-like regimentation of most Orchestral tropes, (be they Western European, Japanese {Gagaku} or Balinese Gamelan), with an attempt at freedom. Individual autonomy within communalism is a balancing act. Creating an environment where players can create, despite differing layers of experience, is a complex socio/political exercise — some say a utopian and unattainable ideal. Our public events are rare. On March 22 at Tempe Jets we’ll perform for only the second time this year. And we’ll try and work in ways we’ve never done before, remixing prerecorded minutes of individual Splinters, and using active microphony to transmit versions of the group to another space.
Kusum Normoyle, an artist and musician working with voice, feedback and noise for both performance and installation. She is currently a PhD candidate at UNSW Art and Design, Sydney, Australia, under the supervision of Douglas Kahn. She is an active member of the Sound and Materials Research Group at UNSW Art and Design. Intervention and feedback resound across her performance and installation practice in explorations of voice, materials, and media. Her performances are brief, extreme and physical and the female scream takes a much heavier tone; more like metal than hysteria, dragging the audience into a harder, faster display of screaming, amplification and feedback.
Electronic Resonance Korps (ERK). Established in 2010, The Electronic Resonance Korps (or ERK) performed its maiden voyage at Open Fields in Serial Space, 2010. The ensemble borrows ideas from traditional surround sound installation forms, and in doing so, re-evaluates the premise that computer music performance is a solo enterprise. By using this as a method to generate multi-speaker, multi-player surround sound performance, the relationship between listener and performer also changes. Audience experiences are most effective on the inside of the surrounding players, receiving sound from a perspective unique to a given piece depending on their position to particular speakers. Structured into the performances are composed pieces, reliant on performer’s facility with software, improvisations, and sonic palette.
The Splinter Orchestra are residents of the Tempe Jets music hub.
www.thenownow.net/splinter-orchestra
www.facebook.com/thesplinterorchestra
