Watch Video of the Live Zoom Discussion from Saturday 16th May at 5pm UK Time

Roundabout Midday (Click here to view and post comments)

Asher Arnon (De Montfort University)

A twelve minutes shot of traffic flow fragmented and arranged as a polyphony of accelerating and decelerating sonic and visual gestures. The composition leans on two organising systems – the roundabout that restricts directions and speeds and the grid of juxtaposed fragments that reveals boundless possibilities of flows within these constraints. 

Modular Synthesis – 3 Movements (Click here to view and post comments)

Nino Auricchio (University of West London)

A modular synthesiser offers flexibility to create electronic music in a tactile manner but always within a limited framework, dependent on the functionality presented by the limited number of modules present. This video explores different categories of affordances presented by modules within a synthesiser when used in a specific restrictive manner. Applying the limitation of using only one or two categories of affordances in differing combinations in a ‘patch’ helps to expose the causality of these interactions between modules and musician, and the developing musical output. Modular synthesisers provide many choices for forging a path to a musical output, with the practitioner choosing a route based upon technical and musical knowledge, intuition and reasoning but contrary to software, within an inherently restrictive system.

“Now it’s my turn” – Affordances and Restrictions of Editing Recorded Reverb (Click here to view and post comments)

James Bell (University of West London)

After recording a modular synthesiser performance as a multitrack, the editing process was expected to be restricted by a recorded reverb which had to ‘match’ with the musical parts effected by it. However, this was ultimately realised as a creative affordance, which leant the piece part of it’s character.

Modular Synth as Lab – Complexity and the Single Oscillator (Click here to view and post comments)

Hussein Boon (University of Westminster)

An exploration within modular synthesis through a series of short, interconnected video studies, with commentary, highlighting techniques and approaches constrained by the use of a single oscillator and what complexity could mean within a ‘limited’ system. These restrictions are aimed at ‘freeing’ the performer by illustrating three types of application.

Bad Habits (Click here to view and post comments)

Christian Ferlaino (Saxophonist and Composer)

This work explores modular micro-variation, a process I studied in dance music for bagpipes in Calabria (southern Italy). Music is generated through the continuous iteration and variation in real time of small musical modules. Creativity springs from acting upon a minimal musical material through a limited set of techniques. In Bad Habits, each piece offers the performer an originating cell and a few variation techniques. The performer is invited to create, through a stream of micro-variations, a greater musical discourse that builds on the limitations the score offers.

Speculations on Objects as Agents in Artistic Practice (Click here to view and post comments)

Colin Frank (University of Huddersfield)

By speculating on the agency of objects, this video questions why we use the objects we do and how they inform our choices. It presents practical examples of percussion instruments and found objects, all from my improvisation toolkit, to consider actions they afford and limitations they possess.

Void (Click here to view and post comments)

Andrew Knight-Hill (University of Greenwich)

“The non-place never exists in pure form; places reconstitute themselves in it; relations are restored and resumed in it”. Marc Augé – Non-Places

Inspired by Marc Augé’s notion of non-place, this audio visual composition explores how impressions of space and place (both positive and negative) can be constructed from the materials and textures of a neglected space.

Tones and textures intersect sonically and visually to alternately expand and contract our impressions of space, drawing us into an experience of this non-place.

The concept of the non-place is dynamic, in symbiotic opposition to that of place. In the same way, noises & tones, light & shadow and textures & forms, sit in audiovisual opposition. Such materials (all captured in one physical space) have been edited, extended and expanded in order to extrude impressions of an enveloping space; thus seeking to construct the dynamic contrast between place and non-place.

But, the piece is not conceptual. It should be experienced. A journey in spaces through lost, neglected and forgotten forms and material…

Restrictions and Affordances (Click here to view and post comments)

Richie Price (Dundalk Institute of Technology – Ireland)

Being restricted to home during the lockdown has afforded me the time to gather and contemplate memories. Research inspired by Henri Bergson. Using virtual reality / volumetric video / spatial audio / analog video processing / tape recordings / compositions in Ableton Live. Content created since COVID lockdown.

Dance Curves (Click here to view and post comments)

James Redelinghuys (University of York)

Dance Curves was originally intended to highlight the immediate, physical interactions between live musicians and dancer. Because the venue had no piano, and an idiosyncratic layout, we decided to transform it into a video and dance piece. Consequently, new meanings, relationships, and a unique choreography emerged out of the space’s restrictions.

“The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self” (Click here to view and post comments)

Tim Sayer (University of West London)

This call inspired me to compose a piece using a quote from the email notification as a restriction on the compositional process. I created an hour-long film of the process, which has been sped up and narrated. I used the coding environment Sonic Pi but used metaphors from standard music practice, to make it more accessible to musicians from a non-coding background.

Broken Starling (Click here to view and post comments)

Simon Waite / National Trevor (Falmouth University)

Beginning with a recording of a washing machine, additional percussive elements came from found sound recordings from a launderette and other domestic scenarios. From this emerged the lyrical theme. To perform the piece, a virtual washing machine was created as a Max for Live device to recreate the original sample.
The initial composition of the piece, and ultimately the final performance of the piece was restricted by the use of the washing machine recording. During the composition process, this recording became the stimulus for gathering related audio materials from the launderette and around the home, and established the washing machine as metaphor for daily family life – leading to themes of repetitive, mundane activity contrasting with personal transformation that is explored in both the lyrics and the music.
For the performance of the piece, the metaphor determined the central system component and the visual design (restriction). As a vocalist/guitarist, this system afforded a novel approach to creating a guitar part for the live version (there is no guitar in the original version) – where the guitar was used as a system controller (via signal analysis), to replace a synth part and as raw material for loopers controlled by the system.