andrew garton

It’s been well over three months now since KunstRadio first invited me to propose a new piece for production and broadcast. The idea being that I would produce and perform the work during my stay in Austria. After much musing, reading and eyes to the sky, it was a walk through Graz’s Schlossbergplatz early this evening that the piece came to me, bringing together my solo voice work, spectrum concerns and the recent collaboration with PD maestro, Frank Barknecht.

Requiem in A Modulation is multi-modal radiophonic composition for solo voice, aleatoric^[1] micro-tonal scales and valve radios. Inspired by Mozart’s Requiem in A Minor, Requiem in A Modulation is a mass mourning the death of analogue spectrum. mass mourning the death of amplitude modulation - the analogue broadcast spectrum. Commissioned by KunstRadio for live broadcast, on-air and online, 2 December 2008.

Project notes and other work in progress for this piece on the wiki.

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Tags: compositions, kunstradio, spectrum

Notes for a new structured improvisation in the Drift Theory series for the Terminal Quartet.

Licht Drift is the eighth collaborative composition in the Drift Theory series. Drift Theory is a structured improvisation, each performance entirely unique, each performance influencing the next, exerting notions of drift as it may occur in creative, social and psychological development, both of the performers and the piece itself.

Licht Drift, inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen’s epic operatic cycle, Licht, is based on four movements, each movement draws references from sacred music, sounds and text the world over.

All four movements, conceived independently by each performer, and in isolation from each other, must ensure that principles of drift influence the overall direction and outcomes of, for example, any cultural, political and astronomical contexts explored.

Drift is used to define a system having a distribution of events, objects, associations and intentions of individual velocities.

The theme(s) of the piece would be based on music as a communal, cultural process that seeks to transmit that which separates and that which brings us together…

In effect, I’m talking about creating an electro acoustic work that expresses separation, longing and unification - a contemporary work that draws on the sacred, that communicates to audiences through the relentless pace of commerce, its unyielding drain on finite resources and the homogenisation that results from its opportunistic outreach.

For more details about Licht Drift, go to the Secession wiki.

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Tags: composition, improvisation, stockhausen, terminal quartet

Have some thoughts on the Terminal Quartet performance commissioned for the Growing the Australian Commons Conference, some of which I’d like to incorporate acoustic instruments that are appropriated in real time, in that what each participant contributes is not only a theme as such, but a process for integration of the acoustic qualities of the instruments at hand… and the instruments would be of a traditional nature, tuned to accommodate a pre-defined markam (or marquam). These are essentially Turkish scales used for improvisation that display unique intervalic characteristics.

So, that’s roughly the theory side of things. In practical terms, everything the quartet performs, from the individual movements created by each performer to the final work would be CC licensed for re-use and catalogued online within freesound, etc. Each participant would also be encouraged to utilise CC licensed samples and soundscapes…

The theme(s) of the piece would be based on creativity, specifically music as a communal, cultural process that seeks to transmit that which separates and that which brings us together… in affect, I’m are talking about creating an electro acoustic work that expresses separation, longing and unification - a contemporary work that draws on the sacred that communicates to audiences through the relentless pace of commerce and homogenisation, the excessive drain on finite resources to sustain modernity and every other mind numbing global crisis.

We may call the piece, Licht Drift and dedicate the work to Stockhausen.

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Tags: creative commons, electroacoustic, markam, sacred music, terminal quartet

Interactive sound and image performance, conceived in June 2000, by Andrew Garton and Ollie Olsen.

Continue reading “Regenerative Generative”

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On the occasion of Art’s Birthday Andrew Garton revisits Radio Derive, a non-linear “re-invented” internet and radio play based on a 30 year plan to “manage growth and change across Metropolitan Melbourne.” A reinterpretation of Radio Derive has seen the emergence of a new work, The 2030 Derive.

The 2030 Derive deconstructs ministerial language, reducing it to an ineffectual text and uninspirational narrative of the ongoing erosion of public and individual rights towards the semi-permanent creation of the city as we know it.

Bound within The 2030 Derive is a dialogue that unravels support for commerce at the expense of the citizenry, where centres for creativity and cultural development become the battle grounds between those who aspire to debt and commodified existences and those who choose to live with difference, reverence and a sense of custodianship to the land we inhabit.

The 2030 Derive was produced for “Permanent Creation”, an EBU Ars Acustica Special Evening by KunstRadio (Vienna) for Arts Birthday.

The 2030 Derive Stream
http://radio.free2air.net:8000/arts2005 (stream now offline)

KunstRadio’s Arts Birthday Site
http://www.kunstradio.at/AB2005/

• Conceived and Produced by Andrew Garton
• Performed by Beth Schubal, Mark Tallon, Andrew Garton
• Sound processing and production by Steve Law
• Audio Streaming provided by Free2air.org

Produced by Toy Satellite, Melbourne
http://toysatellite.org/

About Radio Derive and origins of The 2030 Derive
http://toysatellite.org/radio-derive/

Continue reading “The 2030 Derive”

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