In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

© 1999 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 9, pp. 127–133, 1999 127 THE MILLENNIUM BUG OR THE BALD AND THE BEAUTIFUL Anne Wellmer, Stille Veerkade 16, 2512 BG Den Haag, The Netherlands. E-mail: . GVB: Anne wrote her own introduction: “Anne Wellmer is a singing sonological singer sonologist, born to be angry in Germany, raised to be wild in Canada, the U.S. and Germany, educated to make noise in Holland, and currently living and drinking lemonade in Holland. She has worked a lot with singer Stephie Büttrich, sound engineer Matthijs Ruijter, director Nicolai Caiazza, video artist Boris Gerrets, dancer Thomas Kàrtvelyessy, and sound artist Justin Bennett. With sonologist Florentijn Boddendijk and sonologist Edwin van der Heide, she forms a trio, which is infamous for tally luna atlanticipated, a monomedia performance based on fictive flights to the moon with a balloon (1995).” GVB: When asking for a description of a possible proposal, Anne mailed back: “1. Fragment of recordings and pieces of breaking glas, made with max controlling an Akai 1000 sampler, 1994 (first 44"). 2. Same fragment played with supercollider, 1999 (second 44"). 3. Reprise of what happened before 1. and 2. (last 14"). TOTAL 1’42", een minuut en tweeenviertig seconden. Title: after (+ reprise von bevor).” GVB: She even provided an explanation: AW: All the sound material was recorded in 1994. We very much enjoyed risking 7 years of our lives by breaking many mirrors. I learned to say “mirror mirror on the wall” in 11 languages . The material was originally recorded for le donne immobile , a performance for two singers and electronics, which we performed at Sonic Acts 1994 in the Paradiso in Amsterdam. With The Millennium Bug or The Bald and The Beautiful, I sing my good-bye song to the second millennium. The message is a millennium bug is a bug is a bug is a love song. BIG BEVELLED BUTTON Audiorom Ltd., Winchester Wharf, Clink Street, London SE19DG, U.K. E-mail: . GVB: Audiorom makes interactive software for VJs and MIDImusicians . I included a QuickTime movie showing how the audience plays with one of their installations. The software of VSEQ and ShiftControl is not included on this CD-ROM, but a demo can be downloaded from . THE WELL Barbara Held, Centra de Esplugas 59, 08034 Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: . BH: I had the opportunity to make an experimental recording in the WWII—vintage wind tunnel at MIT in Boston. The walk-in tunnel, usually used to test airplane wings, produces wind speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. I let the mechanical breath of the tunnel play my flute, and these disembodied sounds form the basis of this piece. I was interested in making music out of what was given to me by chance and making use of the often surprising accidents produced by the experiment . For example, the pitches of the “melody” played on the flute by the wind tunnel coincide with a very old piece for shakuhachi, “Mukajii-Reibo,” composed by a disciple of the Fuke sect of Zen monks, who dreamed in a temple that he was on a boat on the open sea, in the mist, and that he had heard wonderful flute melodies without knowing whence they came. The Well was made in the form of a diary, interpreting and reinterpreting a series of images using a computer process that translated them into sound. It is lovingly dedicated to a Japanese musician, Chiyo Asaka-Tuge, whose dissected brain achieved a broader public life than her compositions. When she died in 1969 of a degenerative disease, her scientist-husband had her brain dissected—perhaps searching for her creativity or for some other elusive quality—and published a book called An Atlas of a Brain, containing photographs of the brain sections and the inconclusive results of his study. Although my first compositions, originally intended as part of an installation piece, were derived from magnified pictures of her brain segments, I found myself increasingly drawn to images of hands as a source of sound material. Where in the body does a musician’s spirit reside? The dissecting of a brain seems an extreme example of the need of the...

pdf

Share