Stelarc & Vouris: Amplified Anthropomorphic Machine Performance (2023)
A visual and acoustical performance improvising to the movements and sounds of the Anthropomorphic Machine with Performance Artist, Stelarc and Sound Designer, Petros Vouris.
The amplified Anthropomorphic Machine’s cacophony of compressed air sounds, solenoid clicks and the collisions of the tensegrity struts are amplified, immersing the audience in its acoustical aura. With sensors on the tensegrity module, the artist was able to generate different sounds and spatialise those sounds by compressing, expanding, twisting and turning the module. The robotic installation is not figurative, but certainly anthropomorphic in that it has a deformable skeletal structure, rubber muscles, steel tendons, a pneumatic lung and a vision and computational system that monitors and detects the proximity, distribution and dynamics of visitors, with the system analysis generating the series of machine behaviours such as pulsing, swaying and glitchy movements.
The performance was streamed live to YouTube. The Anthropomorphic Machine was a collaboration with Paul Loh and David Leggett, originally for the SWARM Exhibition at the Science Gallery Melbourne.
CREDITS PERFORMANCE -
Stelarc INSTRUMENTAL DESIGN AND LIVE PROCESSING - Petros Vouris SOUND PROGRAMMING - Dr. Stuart James ELECTRONICS AND FIRMWARE - Alwyn Nixon-LLOYD ANTHROPOMORPHIC MACHINE PROGRAMMING AND ANIMATION DESIGN – LLDS, David Leggett / Psyche Hou ANTHROPOMORPHIC MACHINE PROJECT – Stelarc, in collaboration with Paul Loh & David Leggett EVENT ORGANISATION - Isabel Frias Corona SCIENCE GALLERY TECH TEAM - Jack Farley, Sam Karmel, Luce Nguyen SPECIAL THANKS - Science Gallery Melbourne and Director Ryan Jefferies VIDEO STREAMING - JT Productions VIDEO EDIT - Stelarc 2023
EARTHWORK (2023) By Petrohex (Petros Vouris)
Once extrapolated upon the cave as a simulacrum of the cosmos, a sacred voyage unmarred by the vulgarities of corporeal existence, Earthworx represents a visceral audial expedition into the abyssal caves of Hades—an antechamber of the divine realm, closer to celestial fire yet veiled in earthly shadow. Resplendent with raw elemental timbres, ‘Earthworx’ explores the subterranean-minds primal states: its alchemical process of purification through the division of matter and Mind. Within the labyrinthine folds of each caves geology, one may discern the Hermetic paradox: As Above, So Below; As Within, So Without.
released September 10, 2023
released September 10, 2023
TetraKosmon (2022) by Suzanne kosowitz & Petros Vouris
Tetrakosmon (2022)
Composed by Suzanne Kosowitz and Petros Vouris Music for 5 Spatialised percussionists, 14.2 speaker array, electronically processed sound (granulated skins, wood, and metals), and mixing desk.
Performed by Defying Gravity percussion ensemble and Petros Vouris
ARTIST NOTES:
“I felt I was born too late — I had missed two millennia,” Iannis Xenakis 1922 -2001
If he was never born “too late” Xenakis may have been considered a Greek philosopher foremost, and a Platonist by his school of thought, as Xenakis was inspired to explore architecture, mathematics, music, and cosmology, as the ancient Greek philosophers did. Foreseeing a utopia of musical/mathematical expression realized through technology, Xenakis was inspired by Plato’s vision of the demiurge/creator as the ultimate goal of the artist - One of pure expression, one that could create new worlds that are created through the mastery of the laws of nature, light, and sound being just the beginning.
“A complete musical system is like a small universe - it is multi-scale multi-dimensional, it integrates representation from the physics of sound, to high level formal and symbolic constructs.” Jean-Claude Risset, on Xenakis’ Demiurge. ICMC September 2014
Tetra (4) Kosmon (worlds) being inspired by Xenakis’ work, was generated using mathematical laws of nature derived from probabilities (Markov chains) to transform preconceived algorithmic patterns gained from the Tetractys. Additional inspiration was derived from both Greek and Jewish texts; namely the Ancient Greek theories from the Tetractys (a four-tiered formula), and the four stages of creation found in the Kabbalah text Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation) and Platonism's Monad.
The first four numbers of the Tetractys symbolize the Cosmos: (1) Unity (Monad) (2) Dyad – Power – Limit/Unlimited (peras/apeiron) (3) Harmony (Triad) (4) Kosmos (Tetrad) These two traditions serve as guides to initiate an algorithmic process to activate the genesis of four new sonic worlds. The percussionists do not perform as individual voices. Instead, their individual timbres are shared across each performer’s set of instruments. These timbres are distributed spatially in the score and act collectively as entities that swarm around the audience in clouds of percussive activity. The electronic sounds are granulised and distributed as atmospheric and orbiting entities around each of the four sections, or “worlds,” in the piece.
TAPE SOUNDS & PERFORMANCE: The electronic sounds of Tetrakosmon originate from the sampling of 4 elements, these elements are Skin (drum) Wood, metal, and Electricity (synthesis) These sounds are sampled from percussion instruments and processed using granular and wave terrain synthesis. The sounds are binaurally spatialized using Dolby Atoms creating a universe that orbits the listeners. The performance of these sounds are performed on a multi-channel mixer with each channel assigned to an audio monitor. The performer maintains presence and movement by maintaining a dynamic balancing of volume and EQ with the percussion ensemble and the acoustics of the space.
https://petrosvouris.bandcamp.com/
Composed by Suzanne Kosowitz and Petros Vouris Music for 5 Spatialised percussionists, 14.2 speaker array, electronically processed sound (granulated skins, wood, and metals), and mixing desk.
Performed by Defying Gravity percussion ensemble and Petros Vouris
ARTIST NOTES:
“I felt I was born too late — I had missed two millennia,” Iannis Xenakis 1922 -2001
If he was never born “too late” Xenakis may have been considered a Greek philosopher foremost, and a Platonist by his school of thought, as Xenakis was inspired to explore architecture, mathematics, music, and cosmology, as the ancient Greek philosophers did. Foreseeing a utopia of musical/mathematical expression realized through technology, Xenakis was inspired by Plato’s vision of the demiurge/creator as the ultimate goal of the artist - One of pure expression, one that could create new worlds that are created through the mastery of the laws of nature, light, and sound being just the beginning.
“A complete musical system is like a small universe - it is multi-scale multi-dimensional, it integrates representation from the physics of sound, to high level formal and symbolic constructs.” Jean-Claude Risset, on Xenakis’ Demiurge. ICMC September 2014
Tetra (4) Kosmon (worlds) being inspired by Xenakis’ work, was generated using mathematical laws of nature derived from probabilities (Markov chains) to transform preconceived algorithmic patterns gained from the Tetractys. Additional inspiration was derived from both Greek and Jewish texts; namely the Ancient Greek theories from the Tetractys (a four-tiered formula), and the four stages of creation found in the Kabbalah text Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation) and Platonism's Monad.
The first four numbers of the Tetractys symbolize the Cosmos: (1) Unity (Monad) (2) Dyad – Power – Limit/Unlimited (peras/apeiron) (3) Harmony (Triad) (4) Kosmos (Tetrad) These two traditions serve as guides to initiate an algorithmic process to activate the genesis of four new sonic worlds. The percussionists do not perform as individual voices. Instead, their individual timbres are shared across each performer’s set of instruments. These timbres are distributed spatially in the score and act collectively as entities that swarm around the audience in clouds of percussive activity. The electronic sounds are granulised and distributed as atmospheric and orbiting entities around each of the four sections, or “worlds,” in the piece.
TAPE SOUNDS & PERFORMANCE: The electronic sounds of Tetrakosmon originate from the sampling of 4 elements, these elements are Skin (drum) Wood, metal, and Electricity (synthesis) These sounds are sampled from percussion instruments and processed using granular and wave terrain synthesis. The sounds are binaurally spatialized using Dolby Atoms creating a universe that orbits the listeners. The performance of these sounds are performed on a multi-channel mixer with each channel assigned to an audio monitor. The performer maintains presence and movement by maintaining a dynamic balancing of volume and EQ with the percussion ensemble and the acoustics of the space.
https://petrosvouris.bandcamp.com/
Stelarc & Vouris (2018) StickMan / miniStickMan
StickMan / miniStickMan
STELARC
SOUND DESIGN : PETROS VOURIS
StickMan / miniStickMan is an interactive installation that algorithmically actuates a minimal but full-body exoskeleton. Gallery visitors can insert their own looping choreography by moving the limbs of the miniStickMan physical interface and pressing the play button. A kind of Virtual Voodoo.
The physicality of the performance is flattened by its shadow and modulated by its video feedback on the opposite wall. Mechanical and pneumatic sounds are augmented by sounds generated by sensors on StickMan. Sounds are mapped to eight speakers and circulates
and immerses people in the space.
The body was attached to StickMan for a five hour performance on Saturday 20th October at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) as part of the HyperPrometheus: The Legacy of Frankenstein exhibition, curated by Curated by Oron Catts, Laetitia Wilson and Eugenio Viola – in partnership between SymbioticA, UWA and PICA.
ENGINEERING – TIM JEWELL
INTERFACE PROGRAMMING – STEVE BERRICK
AUDIO ENGINEER – ALWYN NIXON-LLOYD
PROJECT COORDINATION – STEVEN AARON HUGHES
VIDEO – YAEGAR STRAUKS
The installation and performance is made possible by funding from the
DLGSC Culture and the Arts, WA
StickMan / miniStickMan
STELARC
SOUND DESIGN : PETROS VOURIS
StickMan / miniStickMan is an interactive installation that algorithmically actuates a minimal but full-body exoskeleton. Gallery visitors can insert their own looping choreography by moving the limbs of the miniStickMan physical interface and pressing the play button. A kind of Virtual Voodoo.
The physicality of the performance is flattened by its shadow and modulated by its video feedback on the opposite wall. Mechanical and pneumatic sounds are augmented by sounds generated by sensors on StickMan. Sounds are mapped to eight speakers and circulates
and immerses people in the space.
The body was attached to StickMan for a five hour performance on Saturday 20th October at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) as part of the HyperPrometheus: The Legacy of Frankenstein exhibition, curated by Curated by Oron Catts, Laetitia Wilson and Eugenio Viola – in partnership between SymbioticA, UWA and PICA.
ENGINEERING – TIM JEWELL
INTERFACE PROGRAMMING – STEVE BERRICK
AUDIO ENGINEER – ALWYN NIXON-LLOYD
PROJECT COORDINATION – STEVEN AARON HUGHES
VIDEO – YAEGAR STRAUKS
The installation and performance is made possible by funding from the
DLGSC Culture and the Arts, WA
Stelarc & Vouris 'STICKMAN' 2017
StickMan is a minimal but full-body exoskeleton that algorithmically actuates the artist with 6 degrees-of-freedom. It is a gesture generating system
capable of 64 possible combinations. Sensors on StickMan generate sounds that augment the pneumatic noise and register the limb movements.
The sounds are directed and move across and around a ring of 6 speakers.
Stickman in 360 vision - https://youtu.be/2_tabm2TCA8
Sound artist Petros Vouris and Audio engineer/programmer Alwyn Nixon-Lloyd have integrated a series of small contact microphones situated on
the moving limbs of STICKMAN with the sounds generated, being treated with Max/MSP on an external computer. The addition of an I.S.U
(Inertia Spacialiser Unit) is strung down STICKMAN's spine like a monochord to generate fluctuating waves of sound as STICKMAN's body vibrates
with movement. Accelerometers and gyroscopes are attached to each moving limb on STICKMAN's body tracking and moving the sounds generated
across a multichannel speaker system, making the sounds themselves an extension of Stickman's body.
On the 'StickMan: Aural Body Autopsy Album' -
"Taking an ambisonic concept that was then first performed with 6 multi-channel speakers, and then trying to represent that enveloping sound somehow with the limitations of the stereo field of a CD, left us with two primary solutions - zooming out, and going in - from the macro to the micro, dissecting the many long aural fragments from Stickman and Stelarc’s performance into unique specimens rearranged together from their atomised parts and processed spectra.
To undertake this strategy, the table had to be laid out, the body audibly splayed and an integrated system of finely sharpened instruments for splicing, measuring and signal processing were used to take us into the many micro-worlds of Stickman’s aural body. These worlds were more like organisms when isolated, they evolved, mutated and squirmed with life under the watchful ear of the observer- the more we would delve in, the more new forms would emerge." Petros Vouris
"Taking an ambisonic concept that was then first performed with 6 multi-channel speakers, and then trying to represent that enveloping sound somehow with the limitations of the stereo field of a CD, left us with two primary solutions - zooming out, and going in - from the macro to the micro, dissecting the many long aural fragments from Stickman and Stelarc’s performance into unique specimens rearranged together from their atomised parts and processed spectra.
To undertake this strategy, the table had to be laid out, the body audibly splayed and an integrated system of finely sharpened instruments for splicing, measuring and signal processing were used to take us into the many micro-worlds of Stickman’s aural body. These worlds were more like organisms when isolated, they evolved, mutated and squirmed with life under the watchful ear of the observer- the more we would delve in, the more new forms would emerge." Petros Vouris
StickMan: Aural Body Autopsy Album was dissected/remixed live at the Defectors Bar in Mt Lawley, Perth Western Australia on the 7/11/2017. Next live remix of the album will be on 27/02/2018 at Noizemaschin!! #80 featuring Alwyn Nixon-Lloyd who was the audio engineer and fellow programer for the project.
TREMORIUM: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The Original Soundtrack to Tremorium is a sequence of "Horror Miniatures" influenced by the classic era of Italian Horror films and the work of Dario Argento, Goblin, Fabio Frizzi and Chu Ishikawa score for Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Drawn more to the "experimental" nature of each piece's textural and dynamic character to convey atmosphere, it is therefore advised that this album is played Loud and preferably not from laptop speakers. These "Horror Miniatures" are from a sequence of scenes and therefore should be played sequentially with no more than a second gap between tracks. credits released January 31, 2018
Pallas Athena Polias (Petros Vouris, 2014)
Pallas Athena Polias ~ From mind to matter ~
Clarinet performed by Lindsay Vickery
Composer - Petro Vouris
A map of Athens, Greece becomes a graphical score for the musician and the computer, as well as a journey for the audience, through the Historic streets of Athens. Performed via a network between 2 computers and an Ipad, the score takes us through the streets of Athens, passing by classic monuments of the ancients that become sonified by the computer and articulated by the performer- The body of Pallas Athena is awakened from the arterial streets - the spirit of the polis becomes alive.
Clarinet performed by Lindsay Vickery
Composer - Petro Vouris
A map of Athens, Greece becomes a graphical score for the musician and the computer, as well as a journey for the audience, through the Historic streets of Athens. Performed via a network between 2 computers and an Ipad, the score takes us through the streets of Athens, passing by classic monuments of the ancients that become sonified by the computer and articulated by the performer- The body of Pallas Athena is awakened from the arterial streets - the spirit of the polis becomes alive.
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