BYTE GALLERY

INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION: FALL 2012

BYTE GALLERY INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS feature works that are judged and selected by Transylvania University faculty for inclusion in the BYTE Gallery. Professional artists, composers, and dramatists from around the world enter this competition. These exhibits give Transylvania students an exclusive front row seat at the leading edge of international digital art and music scenes.

This exhibition, as part of the STUDIO 300 Festival presents thirty-four works submitted by professional composers and artists from across the globe, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Italy, Argentina, Korea, Poland, Ireland, India, and Germany. These 34 works were selected from a pool of over 200 entries.

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MUSIC SELECTIONS:

Reconstruction by Andrew Babcock, USA

Reconstruction began as the recording of a significant number of extended techniques played on the cello. As the source materials were continuously fragmented and recombined through basic signal processing methods, such as pitch shifting, delay, filtering, and amplitude modulation, aural images reminiscent of Fraggle Rock and Lego emerged, helping guide the composition’s narrative.

Andrew Babcock is a PhD composition student at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Prior to earning his Masters in composition at the University at Buffalo, Andrew worked in New York City as a composer, sound designer, and recording engineer for television and film. He was awarded first prize in the 2011 Sound in Space competition co-sponsored by Harvard University, Northeastern University, and the Goethe-Institut. His works have been featured internationally at festivals such as Sonorities, ICMC, NYCEMF, and SEAMUS.

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frostbYte - cHatTer by Daniel Blinkhorn, Australia

frostbYte - cHatTer is a work from the suite frostbYte, a collection of pieces central to which are location-based field recordings I made whilst on expedition throughout the Arctic region of Svalbard (Spitsbergen). The title refers to the beautifully crisp and articulate sounds emitted by icebergs, where I was struck by how much they ‘chatter’ (seemingly) with both one another, as well as with the surrounding water and coastline.

Daniel Blinkhorn is an Australian composer and digital media artist currently residing in Sydney. His works are increasingly performed, exhibited and presented internationally at festivals, concert halls, conferences, galleries and other loci and he has received over 20 international and national citations for his compositions. More information about Daniel can be found at www.bookofsand.com.au

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And Death by Jason Bolte, USA

And Death is a short work inspired by the poem, “And Death Shall Have No Dominion,” by Dylan Thomas. And Death is an elaboration of the poem, taking the ideas presented and inferred and infusing them into the sonic realm. Many of the sounds that are used in the composition are specifically mentioned in the poem and create a direct connection between the two works. These sounds are also used to capture my interpretation of the poem through concrete usage as well as constructing textures and gestures that are related to the emotional contour of the poem.

Jason Bolte is an Assistant Professor of Music at Montana State University where he teaches courses in composition and music technology. Jason is a member of the organizational board of the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, and a founding board member and past President of the Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance. He holds a D.M.A. in Music Composition from the University of Missouri -‐ Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance where he was a Chancellor’s Doctoral Research Fellow and a School of Graduate Studies Dean’s Doctoral Fellow. Jason’s music is available on the Vox Novus and Miso Records.

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Groundhog by Ethan Cambell, USA

Groundhog was created from a set of field recordings for an assignment for Dr. Polashek's Intro to Music Technology class. The 25 sound files were produced with plastic spoons, pencil sharpeners, flushing toilets, and numerous office supplies. These artificial, sanitized, metallic noises have been warped to sound organic, lurching, subterranean, and at times violent. The work was created on Groundhog Day last year, and reminds Ethan of the groundhogs who lived under the shed in his backyard and screamed at the neighborhood cats.

Ethan Campbell is a junior at Transylvania University. He is Political Science major and Music minor, and has had many classes under Dr. Polashek. Ethan plays trombone in the Transylvania University Concert Band, sings Tenor 2 in the Transylvania University Mixed Choir, and works in the Fine Arts Technology Lab.

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Aerial Vapours by Lee Fraser, United Kingdom

Aerial Vapours explores notions of lightness and transcendence within spectral space. Many of its defining morphologies suggest skyward trajectories, which, at certain points, may give the impression or being fulfilled or attained. The title is taken from a line in Milton's Paradise Lost, in which the author describes the flight of lost souls destined for a place in the "Limbo of Vanity" within "the bare convex of this World's outermost orb". It reflects a situation that is both fixed and transitory, and provides a neat analogy for a particular atmospheric quality sought in this work.

Lee Fraser (UK, 1981) is a composer specializing in electroacoustic music. He has studied with Frank Denyer, David Prior and Denis Smalley, and is currently pursuing a PhD in electroacoustic composition under the supervision of David Berezan at the University of Manchester. His research, funded by the AHRC, is concerned with the aesthetics of acousmatic music. In recent years, he has been involved in a number of collaborative and performance-related projects, including the reworking of material for sound artist and composer Mikhail Karikis, released on the Sub Rosa imprint in 2009. His music has been performed and broadcast internationally.

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Emergence (Timbre Study No. 8) by Hubert Howe, USA

Emergence is based upon the fascinating thing that happens when a group of tones are played together and tuned in a harmonic relationship: another note jumps out – the fundamental – and we hear only that second note, the others being perceived as the timbre. The notes are presented in three ways: as independently attacking tones, as continuously fading tones, and as a complex envelope. They are played with overtone patterns that state the “harmony” of the context in which the note occurs. The work concentrates on the interplay between the overtones and the fundamentals they are a part of.

Hubert Howe was educated at Princeton University, where he studied with J. K. Randall, Godfrey Winham and Milton Babbitt. He was one of the first researchers in computer music, and was Professor of Music at Queens College of the City University of New York. He also taught at the Juilliard School for 20 years. From 1989 to 1998, 2001 to 2002, and Fall 2007, he was Director of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. He has been a member of the American Composers Alliance since 1974 and served as President from 2002 to 2011.

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Bastet by Elsa Justel, France/Argentina

Bastet, inspired by the Egyptian cat-goddess, was commissioned by Aprem (Nevers, France). The piece starts in the interior regions of the piano. Bewildered by these unfamiliar surroundings, she tries to escape whilst scratching the strings. The work explores the meaning of ambiguity, instability and chance.

French-Argentine composer and vidéo artist born in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Doctor in Aesthetics, Sciences and Technologies of Arts (University of Paris). Teacher of different musical disciplines in Argentina, France and Spain. Received composition awards: Prix Ton Bruynèl, Netherlands (by "Bastet" - 2005), 5th. Competition of radio art, France-Germany (2003), Phonurgia, France (2001), Prix Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria (1992), Stipendienpreis of Darmstadt, Germany (1990), International electro acoustic competition of Bourges, France (1989), Tribuna de Música electroacústica de Argentina (1996) and Tribuna Nacional de compositores of Argentina (1987). Her works have been recorded by Empreintes Digitales-Canada and in several compilations.

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The Secret World of Bookends by Mikel Kuehn, USA

The Secret World of Bookends (2005) is an electroacoustic fantasy based entirely on recorded sounds made by two generic metal bookends. I found the inexpensive bookends in the basement of my new house and was intrigued by the sound that they made when I accidentally dropped one. The resulting piece not only explores their sonic attributes but also the boundless imaginary world that exists in the myriad of thoughts and information between a functioning set of bookends. The sounds that the bookends make are gradually exposed and transformed over the course of the work.

American composer Mikel Kuehn (b. 1967) holds degrees in composition from the Eastman School of Music and the University of North Texas. His music has received awards and honorable recognition fromASCAP and BMI, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Composers, Inc. (Lee Ettelson Award), the Copland House (Aaron Copland Award), the League of Composers/ISCM Composers' Competition, the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Contest, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Luigi Russolo Competition. Kuehn is associate professor of composition at Bowling Green State University where he served as director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music and the Bowling Green New Music Festival from2007-2010.

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Rehydrating Fossils by Erik Lund, USA

"rehydrating fossils" explores found objects – in this case primarily isolated, acoustic musical fragments from my own past – and reassigns and refits them into a new discourse, quite different from where they were found.

Erik Lund is an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Illinois School of Music.

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KYMBOS by Edgardo Martinez, Argentina

The work is drawn from a cymbal sound, transformed in three successive stages with
digital samplers and granular synthesis. The Greek word Kymbos (also Kumbos), is
the root which originates the name of this instrument.

Actually, teaching Theory courses and Electroacoustic Music Composition at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral and Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos. Electroacustic and instrumental music compositions performed in the last 19 years in Argentina, USA, Canada (presented by GEMS, Group of the Electronic Music, McGill University), France (Bourges 2000 at 2004), Italy, Chekoeslovaquia. Menzione de honore in the 4th International Competition of Computer Music "Pierre Schaeffer", Italia.

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Introby Thomas McConville, Ireland

This piece is a part of a larger series that is, partially, a reaction against the more strict circles of electroacoustic and modern classical music. It features dominant percussion and tries to convey a strong sense of color. It is based largely around a rising and falling pattern that has been cut up and put back together in different orders, at different tempos and developed throughout the piece. Texture of sound plays a big part in this composition and is used in the phrasing of patterns, as static and changes in sound quality are used throughout to accent certain parts.

Thomas McConville is an Irish composer, working in both acoustic and electro-acoustic composition. His works have been performed throughout his country as well as across Europe and America with a recent piece being premiered at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. His work is also published in the world’s largest selling computer music magazine and has released an EP containing a selection of his compositions. He is currently finishing work on a new release (under the pseudonym Alice) that will contain a collection of his works and will be released on an American experimental electronic label later in the year.

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Adagio by Richard Power, USA

Adagio is for electronically modified saxophone quartet on pre-recorded tape. Thanks to Andrew Mitroff, Elizabeth Shirk, John Vana, and Jeff Wickell for their performances. Itʼs my hope that adagio can be listened to in a number of ways, including, among others, as the reexamination of a traditional form, as a study in microtonal deviations from the equal-tempered scale, and as an exploration of granular processing techniques.

Composer and saxophonist Richard Powerʼs musical interests include exploring the dialogue between tradition and innovation, the continuum between composition and improvisation, and new types of formal and temporal expression through sound. He writes for both acoustic instruments and electronically generated sounds, and while much of his music is precisely notated, other scores encourage interactive collaboration through structured improvisations. He currently lives in Danville, Kentucky.

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Spline by William Price, USA

Spline explores the concept of constant media interruption and the change of focus it produces. Several layers of background and foreground activity are used to create a dialogue throughout the work. Various sources of sound media were incorporated into the musical fabric including folk, popular, and art music.

William Price’s music has been performed in Europe, South America, Asia, and throughout the United States. His works have been featured prominently at such venues and events as the International Trumpet Guild Conference, the International Clarinet Association Conference, the World Saxophone Congress, the National SEAMUS Conference, the Music Teachers National Association Conference, the Bowling Green State University New Music and Art Festival, the Florida State University Festival of New Music, and the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival. Dr. Price is currently Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and past- president of the Birmingham Art Music Alliance.

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Melting by Steven Snethkamp, USA

Many of us consider having some sort of ‘path to life,’ a route that we follow to achieve goals and ultimately fulfillment. However, due to varying personal interests and obligations these paths often become highly complex and fragmented, sometimes leaving us overwhelmed or disoriented. By partaking in the melting ceremony, the participant attempts to deconstruct, analyze, and ultimately reconcile these seemingly conflicting trajectories. When listening however, it can be dangerous to take this concept too literally. Rather, the listener may attempt to lose themselves in the spacious ambience, meditations, and mantras, and unpack their own universe.

Composer Steven Snethkamp holds degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder (BM) and Indiana University (MM), where he is also pursuing his doctorate. His electronic music has been presented at events such as SEAMUS, ICMC, and EMM. He has received honors and awards from the Luigi Russolo Competition, Third Angle Ensemble, Rapido Competition, Fifth Floor Collective, and Indiana University, among others. His instructors have included Sven-David Sandström, David Dzubay, Claude Baker, Don Freund, Per Mårtensson, P.Q. Phan, Daniel Kellogg, and Andrew May. In addition, he has studied computer music with Jeffery Hass, John Gibson, and Alicyn Warren.

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Falling: Samsaaram by Asha Srinivasan, India/USA

Falling:Samsaaram is an exploration of the abstract Hindu concepts of attachment (samsaaram) and detachment (nirvaanam) to life’s pain and pleasures through the juxtaposition of volatile textures with calm ambient ones. The word “samsaaram” often has a negative connotation, as a hindrance to “nirvaanam” (inner peace). In my view, we travel through cycles of lesser and greater attachment, however we define that for ourselves. The piece moves between these sonic and conceptual ideas, and after the crescendo to a frenzied finish, there is a brief return to the opening as the cycle of falling in and out of “samsaaram” begins again.

As an Indian-American composer, Asha Srinivasan draws from her Western training and Indian heritage to create her compositional language. Her music has been presented at various festivals including SEAMUS, ICMC, and the National Flute Convention. Recently, she won the 2011 Thailand International Composition Festival. Other honors include Mizzou New Music Festival commission, BMI Foundation's Women's Music Commission Competition, Flute/Cello Commissioning Circle selection, and ASCAPlus Awards. Graduate studies include: D.M.A. in Composition at University of Maryland and M.Mus. in Computer Music Composition and Music Theory Pedagogy at the Peabody Conservatory. Ms. Srinivasan is an Assistant Professor of Music at Lawrence University.

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Pathfinder by Daniel Swilley, Germany/USA

Pathfinder (2009), electroacoustic music designed for 5.1 surround, draws inspiration from all the relatively small sounds that are made as we move through this world. The grating of rocks under foot, the crush of leaves, and the sounds of tree limbs snapping are among the sound sources used. The work is primarily concerned with motion, pace, obstacles, and points of arrival. Pathfinder was composed with Grace (an algorithmic composition environment by Taube), Csound, Protools, and Max/MSP. This work was realized in the Experimental Music Studios at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Daniel Swilley is a German-American composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. He holds a BM from Valdosta State University, a MM from Georgia State University, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate (ABD) in Music Composition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Swilley’s primary composition teachers have included Tayloe Harding, Sever Tipei, Robert Scott Thompson, and Scott Wyatt. He has served as the Operations Assistant for the Experimental Music Studios at UIUC from 2007-2011, and is currently an Adjunct Instructor of Music at Illinois Wesleyan University where he has taught courses in electroacoustic music and music theory.

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Balance Of Power by Hans Tammen,Germany/USA

The LEMUR GuitarBot (www.lemurbots.org), a collection of four MIDI-controlled monochords built by Eric Singer, is a beautiful soundsource. Primarily I set the computer to algorithmically generate two kinds of sounds from the robots. First, scraping sounds of the slowly crawling frets, and, second, those from crashing the frets vigorously against the bridge. The third sound - a high pitch you hear throughout the piece - is picked up by the microphones. These sounds feed in turn the computer processing unit (basically a modified version of my Endangered Guitar software), which again converts them into MIDI information to play the robots.

Hans Tammen creates sounds that have been described as an alien world of bizarre textures and a journey through the land of unending sonic operations. He produces rapid-fire juxtapositions of radically contrastive and fascinating noises, with micropolyphonic timbres and textures, aggressive sonic eruptions, but also quiet pulses and barely audible sounds. His numerous projects include site-specific performances and collaborative efforts with dance, light, video, and theatre, utilizing technology from planetarium projectors to guitar robots and disklavier pianos. http:// www.tammen.org

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A Sound Until by James Worlton, USA

A Sound Until slowly evolves on a single chord built using a full diatonic set in just-intonation. The evolution never rests, but at times may seem nearly imperceptible. Various surface details punctuate the texture, closely tied in to the harmonic structure of the drone. The many layers of undulating timbre combine to form a meditation on change and stasis.
To create the piece, I wrote a Perl script that generated a Csound file, which I then rendered as a rough draft. For the final draft I rendered each layer separately and mixed them more exactly in Logic.

James T. Worlton (b. 1971) received a DMA in composition from the University of North Texas, studying with Joseph Klein, Jon Nelson, and Cindy McTee. He earned a Bachelor of Music (cum laude) and a Master of Music from Brigham Young University, where his principal teachers were David Sargent and Murray Boren. He has written chamber and orchestral works as well as electroacoustic compositions. He has received commissions from various performers and from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University. He has taught at Brigham Young University, Collin County Community College and the University of North Texas.

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Sarang by Hye Jung Yoon,Korea/USA

Understanding love might be like a baby’s understanding of language. A baby is always surrounded by many different sounds that could be noise, music, or his parents’ voices. He begins to recognize words from other sounds and learn the meanings. How do we learn about love? We are usually not aware of love, especially when we are always enveloped by it. After realizing we have always been loved even when we are struggling through painful circumstances, we can gradually learn the depth and breadth of love more and more. ”Sarang”, which was composed by using RTcmix, means ”Love” in Korean.

Hye Jung Yoon was born in Seoul, South Korea. She received her BM and MM in composition from Ewha Woman’s University and took courses in doctoral program in computer music at Dongguk University, Seoul. Her special interests include acoustic chamber and orchestral music, interactive computer music, and fixed media. She is currently pursuing a DMA in composition at the University of Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, United States.

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Just Too Many Words by Lidia Zielinska, Poland

Just Too Many Words was born from the excess of words in the TV news and comments. How and to such extent it is worth anaesthetising yourself to keep away from the streams of words and at the same time not to miss anything important from the current moment? In this piece there is no place for a silence – from the ‘ideological’ (subject of the piece) but also technical reasons. The only moments of silence show that silence is also dirty, seems to be a second-hand product, which discloses an information noise pollution of each piece of environment.

Lidia Zielińska – a Polish composer, professor of composition and director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio at the Academy of Music in Poznan, and at the Visual Arts Academy in Poznan; 70 compositions published, numerous awards for orchestral music, multimedia, electroacoustic works; books, articles, papers, guest lectures (topics: sound and music, acoustic ecology, experimental music in Poland, traditional Japan music), summer courses, workshops in Europe, both Americas, Japan, New Zealand; electroacoustic compositions realized at the EMS Stockholm, SE PR Warsaw, IPEM/BRT Gent, ZKM Karlsruhe, Cracow, Malmoe, Stuttgart; vice-president of the Polish Composers’ Union, vice-president of the Polish Society for Electroacoustic Music.

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VIDEOMUSIC/ANIMATION SELECTIONS:

Populating Spaces by Frank Döring, Germany/USA

Architectural spaces are designed to confine, enable, and shape human activity. The spaces are relatively stable, enduring conditions that can be captured in an instant. The activities, by contrast, are mutable processes that can only be grasped over periods of time. I attempt to make spaces and activities visible together in their different temporal natures with composite images and stop-motion sequences. The composite images share the spaces' immutability, while the stop-motion sequences reflect the dynamism of the activity taking place there. But the two techniques are not entirely opposed: frames in the stop-motion sequences are ingredients of the composite images.

Frank Döring was educated in Germany (Freiburg and Berlin, M.A.) and in the U.S. (Princeton University, Ph.D.). He worked as a cognitive science researcher at the École Polytechnique in Paris, France, and as a philosophy professor at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Cincinnati. He found that his research interest in probabilistic epistemology didn't sit well with his obligations in the classroom and decided to forsake academic fame and fortune for the vagaries of a freelance career in photography. His main subjects are landscape (urban as well as rural), architecture, and people.

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Wave I: Blue by Melody Eötvös, Australia/United States

This work began with three film clips I took of the water of the eastern most cliff in Byron Bay. There were three distinguishable patches of water within the one camera view: a silvery, calm but choppy swell; a deep black-blue rising every few seconds with an occasional foam-kissed wave; and one which fell in between these two. The sound echoes the natural patience and breathing of the ocean swell captured that day on the Byron Cliffs.

Melody Eötvös is an Australian composer currently completing a Doctorate of Music at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University Bloomington, USA. She has had works performed internationally, including the London Sinfonietta & BBC Singers, and been the recipient of several awards both in Australia and overseas. Past composition professors include Stephen Leek (AUS), Gerardo Dirié (AUS), Simon Bainbridge (UK), P.Q. Phan (USA), Aaron Travers (USA), and David Dzubay (USA).

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Manic Disorient by Rebecca Flanery, USA

The world casually bounces within a balance between order and chaos. Harsh in the moment, times of chaos leave impressionable paradigms. The test of time fades chaos into the background for order to prevail. The cycle continues on in an eternal battle of the cosmic scale of balance that is felt like a wave of emotion.

Rebecca Flanery is a studio artist studying at the University of Kentucky. She works mainly in New Media and Ceramics but also works in a wide-range of mediums such as photography, printmaking and painting. Her video work is known for its experimental nature enhanced by sound. Her work is said to have a painterly quality to the imagery. As your eye fades through the scenery your mind is taken on a digital journey. Rebecca Flanery is a local evolving talent with many new projects to be anticipated from her career as a young emerging artist.

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Liquid Amber by Maggi Payne, USA

Liquid Amber's images and sounds are about texture—images that compel me to physically reach out and touch them in real life and on-screen. The sounds are physical, tactile, visceral as well, produced by my touching various objects (skin, fabric, wood, metal, water, etc.). This is not an attempt to add sound effects to the visuals although certainly many sounds relate directly to the image. But the perspective is intentionally skewed as these images have great depth with layers that change in texture, so certain sounds detail the surfaces, others reflect the image's deep interior.

Maggi Payne is Co-director of the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College. She also freelances as a recording engineer/editor. Her electroacoustic works often incorporate visuals she creates using images ranging from nature to the abstract. Her works have been presented in the Americas, Europe, Japan, and Australasia. She received Composers and Interdisciplinary Arts Grants from the NEA, and received six honorary mentions from Bourges and one from Prix Ars Electronica. Her works are available on Innova, Starkland, Lovely Music, Music and Arts, Centaur, Ubuibi, MMC, CRI, Digital Narcis, Frog Peak, Asphodel, and/OAR, Capstone, and Mills College labels. www.maggipayne.com

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CloudPoint by Krystal Grant and David Weiner, USA

This work immerses the audience in David Irving Weiner's aquatic environment for making sculpture in real time. This alternative workspace reduces the confines of both gravity and friction and makes alien the sounds of water, breath, and heat. Submerging himself completely in a vessel of cold water, David injects hot liquid wax from below. The interaction reconfigures the lattice structure of the molten wax, and David gently restrains the influx of material, allowing the crystalline structure to coagulate and grow. Through the medium of video, the raw process becomes an otherworldly landscape of womb-like intimacy and fluctuating natural light.

Visual artist David Irving Weiner takes an interdisciplinary approach to create sculptural and video installations that challenge perceptions of time, space, and energy exchange. Composer and pianist Krystal J. Grant's chamber music and electroacoustic works are influenced by the melodic contours of jazz drummers, the polyrhythms of Cuban music, and the motivic moderation of 20th-century Russian composers. While both pursued graduate study at Stony Brook University, they combined their improvisatory techniques, transparent processes, and natural resources to produce works for on-campus concerts and art galleries. Their collaborative New York City debut was at the Westchester Square Arts Festival in 2012.

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There Are Ghosts by Brian Hernandez, USA

There Are Ghosts reflects the visions of a wandering soul as it awaits re-entry into the corporeal. The abstract images hold meaningful significance to this ghost, its past, present, and future. The penultimate occurrence is a fleeting state of awareness and of focus. His soul is one among many that will soon forget what it was.

Brian Hernandez is an artist who enjoys working with video-music, collaborative live performance, and writing for large and small ensembles. His works have been selected for performance across the USA and Canada. He holds a B.A. in philosophy and political science from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, TX and an M.A. in music composition, from the University of North Texas, Denton, TX. At the University of North Texas, he studied with David Bithell, Joseph Klein, David Stout, and Cindy McTee. Currently, he is a doctoral student working on his D.M.A. at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

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La fille et son piano by Jennifer Lancaster, USA

This is a story about a piano adored by a little girl named Sophie. Each frame was hand drawn onto sheets of paper, each colorful fish hand painted with water colors. The music was never written down but played and recorded impromptu on a dingy piano. The original narration was scribbled in a notebook and later translated to French. The resulting combination of narration, music, and pictures evokes a sense of childlike wonder towards instruments and the possibilities one can achieve to create imaginative worlds.

Jennifer Lancaster is a senior at Transylvania University studying French and English literature.

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"Semiotics of a Garage" - Homage to Martha Rosler by Nate Morrow, USA

It's an ode to Martha Rosler's "Semiotics of the Kitchen" circa 1975.

Nate Morrow is an artist living in Lexington, Kentucky, and a former of student of the University of Kentucky.

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The Rite of Judgment by Nicola Monopoli, Italy

What happens to someone who is judged or who is judging?

This work tries to give a deep reply which is impossible to ‘transcribe’ using words. The attention to the sonic details and the presence of a musical deep structure help the listener to understand the meaning of the work: sometimes a natural thing, almost primitive, may require some complexity to be expressed in the better way. The title ‘The Rite of Judgment’ comes from Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’. The duration of this work, 4'33'', is inspired by John Cage's work.

Born in 1991. In 2011 he graduated summa cum laude from ‘N. Piccinni’ Conservatory with a Bachelor’s degree in Music and New Technologies. His music has been performed in Italy, France, Germany, England, Greece, Russia, Spain, Norway, Netherlands, USA, Canada, China, Taiwan and South Korea. His compositions have been selected and performed in many festivals such as De Montfort University SSSP, SICMF, Stanford LAC, ACL Festival, Emufest, Fullerton New Music Festival, FIMU, Shanghai EMW, etc… He won the third prize in Musicworks Magazine Competition 2011.

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Solo Faces by Aaron Nemec, USA

Solo Faces is an extended video montage of facial expressions made during guitar solos. Though silent, audio and sound can be interpreted through the contortions and rhythms of the heads and faces. Euphoric expressions switch seamlessly through gratification, pain, and confusion. All source material is edited from amateur performances found on the video sharing website YouTube.

Aaron Nemec received his BFA from the University of Michigan in 2001 and his MFA from Purdue University in 2011. The primary focus of his work is recombinant aesthetics in music and the listener- performer relationship. He is also a founding member of the rock band Drum Kit and conceptual art band The Meatballz.

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People As Verbs by Timothy Nohe, USA

People as Verbs" is a music and HD video made with actor Gina Braden. The work was on view at the in/flux gallery, 307 West Baltimore Street, November 5-26, 2011. It debuted in Europe at the 8th Berlin International Directors Lounge, a festival for contemporary media and film, February 9-19, 2012. The piece was scored for business machines, waterphone, synthesis. "People As Verbs" was made for those climbing the ladder of anti-success, and is dedicated to all of those who have been “right-sized,” are searching for work, or are bent over by the promises of the middle class dream.

Timothy Nohe is an artist and university educator engaging traditional and electronic media in civic life and public places. His recent work has been realized in intermedia works; site-specific installations; media for museums; concert, dance and vocal music, and improvisatory performances. He was the recipient of a 2006 Fulbright Senior Scholar Award from the Australian - American Fulbright Commission, and was awarded the Commission’s 2011 Fulbright Alumni Initiative Grant. Nohe has been the recipient of five Maryland State Arts Council Awards. A 2011 National Endowment for the Arts and William G. Baker Fund grant supported his My Station North project.

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[in]_Pieces|Slivers by Michael James Olson, USA

This work explores the inner life of sounds. Larger sounds are fragmented into thousands of microscopic bits, which are subsequently combined to form gestures. The video acts as a structural representation of these newly formed gestures; with individual components in constant flux. Throughout this fast-paced piece, the audio and the visual components move in counterpoint with each other, which produces separation between the movement of the sound and the image. The separation between two synchronized elements ebbs and flows, gradually gaining momentum towards the middle of the piece, and then building to a strictly literal representation in the end.

Michael James Olson is a composer and media artist currently residing in Indiana. His works have been performed at festivals such as NYCEMF (New York), IIT Technology Festival (Mumbai), SEAMUS (Miami), Noisefloor Festival (UK), EMM(Illinois), and the ICMC(New York). Michael holds a M.M. from Georgia Southern University where he studied composition with John Thompson, and is presently a doctoral student at Ball State University where he studies composition with Michael Pounds and Keith Kothman.

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Domestic Tranquility by Maurice Wright, USA

Complications upset the tranquil life of a man who has everything: satellite TV, an electric bed, and a beautiful place to live. A trope on the beauty of the ordinary and the enslavement of the consumer, Domestic Tranquility employs ray-tracing graphics, rule-based sound synthesis, and twelve-tone music to weave an almost plotless tale in which the protagonist is driven, literally, to the ground.

Maurice Wright (www.mauricewright.org) was born in 1949 in Front Royal, Virginia. He attended Duke University and Columbia University, receiving a doctoral degree in 1988.
Outstanding ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Emerson String Quartet, and the American Brass Quintet have commissioned works from Wright. The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts have recognized his work with awards. Recordings on New World, Innova and CRI include his compositions. Wright is Carnell Professor of Music at Temple University, where he curates the music and video series CYBERSOUNDS.

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STILL IMAGE/ART WORKS SELECTIONS:

Images from "Graffiti Montréal” by Frank Döring, Germany/USA

Urban surfaces exert an irresistible pull on the errant can of spray paint, much as street trees and fire hydrants attract the strolling dog. The spraying, both human and canine, broadcasts a territorial claim to the other sprayers on the block. Occasionally, a piece of graffiti transcends this game of claim and counter-claim and touches the outsider who has no stake in the game. The best of these pieces are works of art. They inhabit, transform, and enliven their settings. Their faces become focal points of the landscape, familiar strangers that one day will be missed.