OPEN CALL – WORKSHOP:
INSTRUMENTS FOR A TACTILE FUTURE
Experimental music instruments that explore other ways of sensing and operating
Like to participate? SEND US A MAIL (see application procedure below) DEADLINE 03-03-2019
For interdisciplinary creative professionals, (post)graduate students in music, visual art and design, disability sector scientists and workers, and anyone highly motivated around disability and creativity, this free workshop is a collaboration between OtherAbilities, WAAG Technology & Society, STEIM studio for electro-instrumental music, and Contact Broedplaats.
As human beings we are regulated by our culture, not only in the ways we think but also in the ways we perceive our reality, how we connect to the world, or rather, how we disconnect. This central regulating function is directed at our senses; only when encountering people with sensing abilities different than our own is the illusion of sameness and uniformity challenged.
The environments and practical tools in our society were created as a way to help us deal with daily challenges. Nevertheless, they have been designed according to a concept of an ‘average’ human figure, as it turns out, mostly white, male, of particular bodily measurements and sensory abilities. This concept is often considered ‘ideal’, becoming a sign of normality, hence anyone who falls outside of the prescribed categories often has trouble participating and sharing in the same experiences of this ‘normal’ reality.
As an answer to this, we have created a workshop that will serve as a meeting point between artists, designers, engineers and anyone who would like to create and develop experimental music instruments that help explore other ways of sensing and operating, for both disabled and non-disabled people.
The workshop will include lectures by creative practitioners and academics who are distinguished experts on the subjects of disability, vibration, and sound engineering. Each session will include one guest from a different profession as an adviser to consult with the group and participants individually. Technical experts will be present during the prototype building sessions for assistance in working with sensors, tactile speakers, programming and fabrication.
The OtherAbilities Workshop is part of a larger project focused on different creative solutions to sensory challenges, examining larger issues around ‘disabilities’ in art and society, hopefully signaling the possibility of a paradigm shift from dis-ability to other-ability. The opening session of the workshop will take place during The OtherAbilities Festival at Broedplaats Lely, Amsterdam on March 3rd 2019, including discussions with international guest artists.
WORKSHOP REGISTRATION & PRACTICALITIES
Location: First meeting at Lely Broedplaats, Schipluidenlaan 12; all other meetings at Contact Broedplaats, Contactweg 47, 1014 AN Amsterdam (wheelchair accessible locations)
Dates and duration: Five working meetings and a closing evening. The first meeting takes place on Sunday 3/3 between 11:00-13:00 during the OtherAbilities Festival. All other working meetings take place on Saturdays 10:00-14:00 including lunch break.
March: Sunday 3/03 – Saturday 16/03 – Saturday 23/3 – Saturday 30/3
April: Saturday 6/4
Closing evening: Thursday 18/4 (public evening program, prototypes presentation)
Eligibility: creative professionals and postgraduate students in media arts, visual art, sound art, music, (sound) engineering, and disability studies as well as other highly motivated people interested in creating tools to increase or shift sensing abilities.
Requirements: Participants are expected to be present at all meetings, so that the teams have enough time to realize their instruments. Prior technical knowledge and skills are not required.
Organizers: Adi Hollander (MA, MIT) and Eva Fotiadi (PhD, University of Amsterdam) in collaboration with STEIM Studio for electro-instrumental music and Waag ‘Technology & Society’
Advisor: Michele Abolaffio (sound engineer, researcher at STEIM)
Language: English and Dutch
Max number of participants: 20
Fee: none
Materials and resources: a variety of materials for the construction of instrument prototypes will be provided by the organizers; online lectures and readings will be available on The OtherAbilities website; there is no budget available for production or other costs.
APPLICATION PROCEDURE AND DEADLINE
Please send a cv + portfolio (max 10MB) or website if applicable + short motivation note to workshop@otherabilities.org. The motivation note should be between 2-7 lines and briefly state your motivation for participating in the workshop, including any relevant previous experience (if you have none, do not worry, it’s not a selection criterion!).
DEADLINE: 03-03-2019
PROGRAM
Meeting 1 – March 3rd
Introduction to the workshop and The OtherAbilities project and of MakeHealth; presentation of concept, program, resources and team; discussion with OtherAbilities exhibition participants about their work, sharing of experiences; Mapping of workshop participants interest areas, and interest groups; pitching of challenges and formation of teams.
Meeting 2 – March 16th
Introduction and guest tutor’s presentation; recap of ideas presented in meeting 1; within each team: brainstorming on possibilities and existing examples; clustering of ideas and decision-making on following step.
Guest tutor: Frank Baldé, software designer STEIM.
Frank Baldé (*1956) joined STEIM Amsterdam in 1985 and started his Career there as a software designer. A major influence has been his close collaboration with STEIM’s artistic director Michel Waisvisz (1949–2008), which resulted in a number of music software applications for live performance. Frank Baldé’s programming work includes MidiDraw, the real-time MIDI manipulation program The Lick Machine (together with Michel Waisvisz), the software sampling package LiSa, and the application junXion, which can read sensor data and process/translate it into MIDI or OSC. At STEIM, Frank Baldé actively assists visiting artists to create new instruments using junXion. He has been teaching at the Institute of Sonology since 1994.
Meeting 3 – March 23rd
Introduction and guest tutor’s presentation and teams’ development since previous meeting; within each team: collective decision on project direction; first sketches of models, research in materials; plan of implementation process.
Guest tutor: Mark Ijzerman, media artist, designer, researcher.
Mark IJzerman (1988) is a Dutch media artist, designer, researcher and lecturer. His works explore human perception and the interconnectedness of the senses, often starting from sound. In his practice he often works with sound, creative coding and electronics. IJzerman is a lecturer and researcher at the Music & Technology faculty of the University of the Arts Utrecht where he teaches courses on creative coding, media art, installations, and perception. He is also a part of new media collective Zesbaans and sound art collective Soundlings and writes and runs sound art blog Everyday Listening. Because of his background in sound, his works often either relate to the acoustic environment, or are temporal in nature. In performances and installations, he explores interaction between sound, light and the physiological effect on the body and has paired sound with the sense of touch, taste and smell.
Meeting 4 – March 30th
Introduction and guest tutor’s presentation and teams’ development since previous meeting; within each team: realization of prototype, experimentation with materials and techniques.
Guest tutor: Martijn Tellinga, artist, composer, occasional performer.
Martijn Tellinga (1974, Netherlands) is an artist, composer and occasional performer. His practice enfolds elements of concert, installation and performance art. Drawn from a reduced formalist-seeming vocabulary, his work centers on the exploration of sound & listening to express ideas of space, place and process: their reciprocal production, contextual intertwining, and potential as a perceptual, performative and social medium. It includes a wide variety of conceptual actions and chance operations, probing the emergent field between intended and accidental occurrences. Engaged with the formative principles of music, his instrumental pieces commonly propose intuitive bending of (music) systems through open-ended and rule-based scores that provide performers a template for listening, acting and interacting. Recently he has been producing performance installations explorative of extreme duration, sound installation work investigating the practice of resonance tuning, and documentary pieces utilizing principles of acoustic measurement and intervention style negotiations of site. He performs and exhibits his work worldwide, lectures and works in residence.
about
Guest advisor: Maurizio Martinucci (aka TeZ). Interdisciplinary artist, producer. TeZ has been living in Amsterdam since 2002. In 1990 he attended a school for Computer Music Programmers with many of Italy’s best known specialists in electronic music. He participated in workshops at the “Centro di Sonologia Computazionale” of the University of Padova, and at the “Tempo Reale” institute in Florence directed by Luciano Berio. Since the late eighties TeZ has been composing electronic music. He released several records with various projects (M.S.B., DoseZero, Nukleus). In 1995 he established the multimedia research laboratory “SUb” in Rome involved in audio-visual experimentations with digital media for interactive applications and artworks. He has always been interested in exploring the synesthetic relationships between sound and image, light and space. In his work he’s always adopted custom developed software and original techniques of sound spatialization and visualization realized with various analogue and digital methods. In recent years his research has extended to the ideation and creation of specific architectural structures and unconventional sound and light propagation methods to enhance immersivity. Since 2003 he’s conducting the Protoquadro project for generative paintings in collaboration with Federico Bonelli and PHILIPS Research in Eindhoven. In 2006 TeZ has initiated the Optofonica – platform for Synesthetic Media and Sound Spatialization – which showcased at international festivals, museums and other venues. In 2009 Optofonica became also a “Laboratory for Synesthetic ArtScience” located in the center of Amsterdam. Tez’s most recent creations include collaborations with international artists Scanner, Kim Cascone, Taylor Deupree, Francisco Lopez, Sonia Cillari, Luca Spagnoletti, Domenico Sciajno, Honor Harger, Kaffe Matthews, Adi Newton. http://www.tez.it/info/CV-TeZ.pdf
Meeting 5 – April 6th
Introduction and guest tutor’s presentation and teams’ development since previous meeting; within each team: realization of prototype, finalizing and documenting prototypes.
Guest tutor: Dr. Yolanda van Ede, anthropologist.
Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam.
After years of experience in dance and theatre, Yolanda van Ede studied anthropology at the UvA and received her PhD in 1999 on her dissertation on a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in Nepal. She became assistant professor in 2001 at her alma mater. In 2006 she returned to her initial field of interest, dance and performance, combined with another research topic: sensuous anthropology. Current courses and fields of interests : qualitative methodology BA and MA, philosophy of science, dance and performance, gender and passion, sensuous ethnography and sensory analysis, ways of learning and transmission, cultural adaptation in global processes, skill and embodiment, and creative writing.
Meeting 6 – April 18th
Closing with guest speakers and presentation of all prototypes. Each group presents their prototype, their vision and process.
Questions ?
Do you have any question regarding the workshop, questions of content, practicalities or accessibility, contact us anytime at office@otherabilities.org , Adi Hollander and Eva Fotiadi.