With media bicycle project Volle Band we are currently doing a residency at STEIM. During this residency we are focusing on two things:

- developing a method to measure the proximity from one bicycle to another. We are investigating a combination of Xbee modules – tiny radio frequency modules – and ultrasonic sound – high frequency sound generators which one normally uses to drive mice, insects and other animals insane.

- we are working on our scooter radioplay expedition ‘dus niet brommen’, which we will present at the Urban Explorers Festival in collaboration with art initiative Noordkaap. During this scooter expedition the audience is riding along with 10 brave, young scooter guides. Sitting at the back of these scooters they listen to a radioplay which is being broadcasted live from the central radio scooter (recognizable by its huge antenna). In this radioplay the sounds and movements of the scooters influence the various sounds of the radioplay. Using piezo’s, FM transmitters and computers with wifi connections on the scooters the scooter sounds are transferred to the central radio scooter. Sitting at the back of this central scooter I mix and adapt the sounds to the various locations and send them into the ether.

First week

We did some experiments with Xbee modules which were quite succesful. We walked around outside and inside with Xbee modules connected to our laptops. Inside the Xbee modules do not work that well because the radio waves bounce back from the walls. But outside they work quite nicely within a range of about 50 metres. Actually these are the first sensors we use that work better outside then inside…

For the scooter expedition we found a very nice Stentor FM transmitter. We made an antenna and now we can broadcast our scooter radio programme in a range of a kilometre. Furthermore we worked on the power supplies for the electronic devices on the scooters.

Second week

We are running into quite some problems with the power supplies. The situation is a bit stressful since we have only 1,5 week to make it work. The PandaBoards we are using for the project are now – fortunately – way more stable and performance wise efficient thanks to the brand new linux distribution which Didier put on them. Sjoerd has been working on sound design for the radio play.

Down here you can listen to a sound preview – all sounds except the male voice are being triggered and influenced by scooters.

You can check out a tv item about ‘dus niet brommen’ down here:

february 7th-10th 2013

After a few months of planning our crew of 14 manages to gather for 4 days in Amsterdam to talk, play and enjoy the wonderful hospitality of STEIM.

 Jeroen Uyttendaele and Dewi de Vree, Ground. Photo: Justin Bennet

iii is a platform that has been taking form during the past year out of the desire to share processes revolving around the development and presentation of self-made, performative media.

 Dieter Vandoren, Drift

We meet to search for the outlines and to discuss the common specificities of our practices, as well as to try out new ideas for collaborative works and to plan future activities.

Wen Chin Fu, OHHO

We rapidly take over the studios and guesthouse (thanks Nico!) – experiencing STEIM  and its facilities as a quasi self-sufficient organism, embedded but also autonomous from the city around it.

Erfan Abdi, Notesaaz .  Photo: Justin Bennet

With the exception of a few short expeditions to gather supplies, we remain within the building, shuffling up and down the steep stairwell from the dark rooms on the ground floor to the luminous apartments above, where we find magazines portraying human female breasts placed besides journals dedicated to highly abstract topics.

The residency culminates on sunday by opening up to the public with No Patent Pending #2. Kristina Andersen, Justin Bennet and Joel Ryan join us during the afternoon to take part in an open discussion. We talk about strategies for maintaining, as non-experts, autonomous research trajectories that invade (and then quickly escape) academic and artistic confines.

In  the evening we present a program of performances including existing works and several new pieces developed on site.

A big thanks to STEIM for hosting us and to Stroom Den Haag for supporting our initiative.

Inspired by the sonic analysis of distant stars by astrophysicists, the performance combines an interactive outdoor laser system with compositional elements of classical harp and recordings made of the sonic signatures of heavenly bodies. Featuring narratives by Hungarian astrophysicist Zoltán Kolláth. The evening took place on the roof of the Q-Park garage at the Cultura Nova festival in Heerlen. August 2012.

Workshop laser interferometer setup.

Blowtorch, framed glass, goggles, onstopper, salvia officinalis…

A short residency (from 30th November to 7th December 2012) culminating in one performance, and an intense two day workshop; all of these events and situations at STEIM exploring and refining the notion of (audible) detection, of sonic archaeology – sound as a revealing of the material world. Throughout this work, first phase, excitation, an action within the world, is paired with subsequent detection or revealing, decoding the history of substance and attempting an animistic relation to the world.

First days, shopping for glass and safety gear, becoming acquainted with the local suppliers of ontstopper, hunting for zwaelzuur to be used primarily in performance and during the workshop, in the light; simple sonification of (electro-)chemical reactions using a discount laser and failing solar panel.

Six hour train window gazing suggested a strong link to glass to be explored during the residency (forgetting that some similar experiments were conducted on the floor of a certain record shop in Berlin many years ago): stacked or hanging glass radio transmitters communicating vibration, arrayed lines of delicate glass scattering the beam – divided by hung mirror galvanometers, dribbles of acid, melted glass channels, tongues of copper and aluminium plugged in to the transformer. Ready for scraping, and heat shattering.

With framed glass and some chemistry in the bag (graphite spray withstanding), the first glass transmitter (an auto-destructive instrument) was quickly prototyped, proved surprisingly effective after careful (literal) trimming of the legged capacitance. Brushed and scalpel scraped at the optimum angle to the receiver (above).

Glass electrolyte dribble.

Closely followed over the next days by glass electrolytic cells (alternating metal tape strips), and a glass white noise generator (dipping into the cookbook).

Plant leaf pierced.

As an adjunct the potential detection possibilities of living plants were returned to during the residency, attempting to create and document one of the most simple electronic setups to monitor micro-voltage potentials within plant leaves/cells and thus to able to compare these with monitored changes within the human psyche.

Future work in glass/detection suggested: conductivity of silver nitrate/gelatine solutions, glass membranes (pH), electroplating (after coating), melted glass channels in the earth, rochelle salt in the earth, copper taped skin ground glove pulse,

Aside from seismometer repair, preparations for Friday’s performance (recording perhaps soon on soundcloud) focused on integrating some kind of pulse excitation (555) with the salvaged HD coil electrolysis and dumped earth, and some not so positive tests with glass/foil charge accumulators.

Tuning the interferometer.

With 15 eager attendees the two day Detection workshop defies  easy and concise description. Some impressions: metaphase divination, flickering retroactivities, rain-drenched transmission-excavation (on a bridge), excited interferometer tuning in the darkened room, doors slammed, air movements transformed into humming, drone feedback, hand wound pencil coils wrapping and hiding one end of the circuit.

And for reference:

The workshop document pdf

Enrique Mendoza / Composer
Sandra Real aka Chana / Live Video Performer

For this new Live Cinema project call Unicellular Time, we had the opportunity to do a production residency at Studio 2 in STEIM, from august 6th to august 18th 2012.

For this project we are working with bacterial observation of unicellular organisms that started after thinking about “What´s real time when physical dimension of the body changes?”. Sandra is using a digital microscope to observe and videotape different live unicellular organisms like miracidiums and nematodes. This organisms are taken from liquid humus, that is used to fertilize earth. We are going to combine videotaped footage and live observations with the microscope to do the live video performance.

Through several observations in our previous work we start dealing with the notion of an unknown world, that without a reference, the perception of time is very, very relative. And one of the results is that a person can experience void.

Having all this in mind, I (Enrique) start to ask myself how can I express this?. I focus on using resonances of several metal surfaces like foils, pipes, etc. The method was to take out the attack to modulate only the sound in expansion; I start to create the music that will express this void using LiSa software, a live sampler that I have been using in the past years under the guidance of Jos Zwaanenburg in STEIM.

Now we are in the process of constructing the audiovisual unicellular time experience. The show will be performed in the Live Performers Meeting 2013 in Mexico City and Rome. So, wait for more info about it…

Some material of the process:

We want to thank the advice of Dra. María Teresa Quintero, Parasitologist at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, that helped us a lot with the science side of the project.

Links:

https://flxer.net/ChaNa/performances/protozoario-time/

NOTE:
This project is the continuity of our first Live Cinema show called “DEREGRESO”, an audiovisual representation detonated by a medical procedure to use fluoroscopy for visualize internal fluids by low doses of radiation. The Project it has been built by the original file using “OsiriX” a medical visualizer for artistic purposes, resulting in an introspective trip in dialogue with original music composed in LiSa by Enrique Mendoza.

In “DEREGRESO” we experience a unique procedure. I was working in a piece called Kráneo (composed and performed in STEIM), at the same time Sandra was experiencing the medical treatment. When I made a trip from Amsterdam to Mexico City I met Sandra that was also making a come back to life. We got together with our current artistic moments that result in our first Audiovisual Live Performance.
DEREGRESO link:

Finally we want to thank STEIM Studios for the invaluable space, time and guidance provided to the project.

www.enriquemendoza.net

http://www.flxer.net/ChaNa