Russel Haswell and Florian Hecker

Curated by David Bussel

UPIC DIFFUSION SESSION # 1 Wednesday 14 December 2005, 7:00PM

LOCATION: IN THE BASEMENT PERFORMANCE STUDIO AT CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON, ST JOHN’S ST, (AT WYCLIFF ST) EC1

“Anybody,even myself or you,or children,can draw lines or graphics with an electromagnetic ballpoint, and they are transformed by computer directly into sound…” — Iannis Xenakis

Cubitt Gallery is pleased to announce a performance by artists Russell Haswell (UK)and Florian Hecker (Austria).They will present a live 14-speaker electro-acoustic diffusion of material generated from their research with the unique UPIC system at the Centre for Composition of Music Iannis Xenakis (CCMIX)in Paris.

“The UPIC (Unité Polyagogique Informatique de CEMAMu)is a sound synthesis system conceived by the late composer Iannis Xenakis and built by engineers at the Centre d ‘Études de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu)in Paris.The UPIC system offers both graphical (time-domain)and sonographical (frequency-domain)interfaces for sound composition.In an initial version dating from 1977,the user interacted by way of a large graphics tablet,mounted vertically like a painter ‘s easel… The UPIC system is an especially pliable musical tool since it integrates many levels of composition within a common user interface.Graphic functions created onscreen can function equally as envelopes,waveforms,pitch-timbre scores,tempo curves or performance trajectories.This uniform treatment of composition data at every level should be extended to more computer music systems.”

— Curtis Roads,Microsound,MIT Press

The artists use automatic and abstract drawing methods for the visual input material,as well as pictures sourced from online image banks such as `natural phenomena’,`everyday images’,`terrorist atrocities’,`the blackest ever black’,and `double helix structures’,rendering a sonic image of the visual world.

This will be the first public performance of this evolving body of work,which has been in development for the past two years,made possible through international research grants and residencies and through the kind generosity of Ian Stewart and City University London.