#230121: early access to algoforte05live
It's not over till it's over.
I really hope so.
What I'm talking about is the project that I have titled »algoforte«. Its roots go way back when I first saw an online video ’A Study in Keith’ by Andrew Sorensen where he live-codes a beautiful little thing that resembles Keith Jarrett playing a piano – there was just code on the screen. A year or two later I discovered another video by Mr. Sorensen where he live-codes a self-playing piano. Instead of controlling some plugin or virtual synthesizer emulating piano, there was an actual grand piano that played by itself, well, controlled by some live-written code projected on the screen behind. The phrases were beautiful, very musical and likable. I was very much in love with this way of creating music and secretly wished I could one day do something similar.
This must have been sometime in the first half of 2010s.
In the early January 2022 I was unexpectedly faced with an opportunity to do exactly that when I received a “general technical questionnaire” for a livecoding performance in ZKM Karlsruhe where among other options there was one to use a “midi-controlled grand piano”. This totally caught my attention and despite the fact I have not had a project using such instrument at the time – I asked for it.
– And got it.
Algoforte was first called “Brief Introduction to Piano is Forte Memory” and this started an algoforte series of explorations what I can do with this concept of algorithmically controlling the piano, live-recording that sound and further processing it. After above mentioned adventure (which was at ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany) I then played three more “algoforte” performances in 2022 and 2023 (all in Ljubljana), with the last two being the most “elaborated” (for the lack of a better term): one at MENT festival (Cukrarna gallery) and finally at the Ljubljana New Music Forum (Klub CD, Cankarjev dom). I have almost all drafts and code for all performances saved, including preparation sketch, and some of the latter also recorded in video form and online..., and my goal is to somehow finalize this project this year with a really well-maintained and modern instrument. These so-called “player-pianos” come in very different shapes and versions, some of the latest ones have state-of-the-art technology that makes them very precise and responsive. To be honest, what I have used here in Ljubljana was not very good – the reason for such state of things is that this is what is available to rent around here.
I have recorded this last performance on 26.11.2023 and few weeks ago ‘mastered’ this recording into something I feel is listenable as a live document. I intend to release this live album on the last day of this month (January) with the kind and generous support of members of my Patreon club. Today it is available exclusively to the supporters as an “early access” bonus album in a video form. There are also exclusive links to download the album right now in FLAC and MP3 formats.
When I was asked to write a note on composition for this ‘Algoforte 5’ manifestation, I wrote the following about the project:
“Sound reflections of images of a time that is here, and at the same time a wormhole to someplace else, to a time of naivety and complex innocence. Looking into the intertwining of emotions blurred with the patina and veils of the past, the repressed, the marginalised. Imprints indelibly linked to sound, listening, state of mind, feelings of security and adventure, soft cotton wrappings and at the same time openness to a new wonderful world. The vibrations of the strings in the heavy, huge black frame with their weight and irresistible power to embrace, take over, lift and take away. Memory is intense, yet hidden beneath the surface, energy swirling and gathering to enter a dark space of vague contours and still overgrown paths. A luminous being, partly absorbed in the play, under a boat of sounds, disconnected chords, dissonances, sympathetic tones, believes in the coming embrace and at the same time knows the philosophical transience of the moment, securing it with the fluidity of perspective, the cubist multitude. This specific impression is intimate and personal to such an extent that every letter of the record of it is a violent exposure. Again, a leap into the oily liquid and encounters with the wormhole prints. The return to the surface is a revelation about the persistence of this distant moment and the indelible marking that both dictates the attractions and hints at a direction towards spaces of peace, connectedness, groundedness, pacification.
To think of the piano and its appearance in the present can mean looking at the echoes of the many roles the instrument has played in the perturbations and consolidations of the Western musical tradition and colonialism. Immersing oneself in reflections on both the social and the techno-practical resonance of the piano's presence and the phenomenon of even-tempered tuning through testimonies and interpretations of history implies questions of the environment, in a socio-political sense. Everything seems to be connected in one way or another, and it is impossible to see art as alienated from the forces that surround us, now, before, and later - in the future. The algorithms, the programming code that drives the disclavier live, that controls it, that captures the sound and processes it right there, right then, that monitors the acoustic presence of the vibrations of the strings and the body of the piano by amplification through the membranes of the sound system, is a naked, visible performativity. Instead of fingers on the piano keys—a machine, a computer, a processor. Performer's fingers in the integrated circuit of electronics. A manifestation of the cyborg that is nature. Or from the other side: the subject is machinic.”
If the video attached to this post does not work you can watch the video of the performance at vid.pretok.tv: https://vid.pretok.tv/w/wykttoGVwBHzapGimcB2Di
private download links to the release that is coming out on 31/JAN/2024:
