Residencies

NAM  is an experimental project where live music and visual art come together through improvisation and composition, using flexible structures. During a residency at Studio Loos in August 2011 we focussed in four different activities: the two main ones, collective creation and the multi screen set up, and the other two, which are a continuation of something we already had worked on: extended instrument creation and the piece “Shift Time”.

1. Collective creation. At the moment Nam is development its own language, the result of a long and constant search of sonorous possibilities integrated in an artistic context, where free improvisation and electro-acoustic composition together offer new forms of expression, and are used as a way of creating open musical pieces. We were improvising with a common initial idea that each of us would treat differently according with the nature and possibilities of our instruments, finding really interesting combinations arising spontaneously. The challenge came when trying to reproduce that spontaneous way of playing structured in time. The residency at Studio Loos has been very fruitful in our way of working towards a “Nam” language identity.

2. Extended instrument design. This is one of the long term activities of the group, which is connected to the previous paragraph. Is what gives the identity to the sound of the ensemble, so the idea during this residency was to find what materials we already connect with, and expand the instruments in the way that the music we want to create asks us.

3. “Shift Time”. This piece for quadraphonic set up was composed by Yamila Ríos for the ensemble   ̈Nam ̈, where the relationship between the position of the sound in a specific space and the way the sonic material evolves in time. The music unfolds the space and vice-versa in a constant slow breath.

4. The “multi-screen” set up. That was the main work in the residence at Loos for the piece, to visualize it in space. In order to bring projected images out of the standard two dimensions, Yolanda Uriz is developing a multi screen set up with semi transparent fabric. It allows the image to be in multiple places at the same time, and feel depth with that projection. In the residence we tried different shapes of the set up, discovering what works better in terms of disposition of the fabrics and materials projected. The main idea of the images projected is the development of an interactive system between sound and images, where those respond to different parameters of the music in real time.

DOTNOTATOR – short residency project at Studio LOOS in June 2011.

This project is a performance of overlapping complex multi dimensional patterns of sound and shadow in one flowing motion. We keep on searching for the playful, the mystery and the intriguing.

The project was born in a research group about the mind of an artist. The starting point was the person of Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), a German Jesuit who was notably dedicated to the fields of Eastern studies, geology, and medicine. Kircher was, as the books tell us, the last scientist who tried to apprehend all knowledge. In his studies he didn’t put a border between any research field. In this context we invented an artist who also tried to achieve all knowledge and combine it with his/her work of art. Our fictional artist lived in Paris, during the 19th century. By studying the maps of the city and being interested in the process of the mind, our artist elaborated a complex theory which is demonstrated through our installation/performance.

DOTNOTATOR is a collective originated in Artscience department (Den Haag) by Ludmila Rodrigues, Marijke van Gorp, Mike Rijnierse and Nenad Popov. They are interested in finding a perspective to achieve all knowledge.
Marijke van Gorp (Netherlands) is a designer / researcher currently studying at the Media Technology department, Leiden University. http://marijkevangorp.blogspot.com
Nenad Popov (Serbia, 1978) is an artist who researches the relation between sound, image and space, specialized in video analysis and real-time image processing. Currently studies and teaches at Artscience department.
Ludmila Rodrigues (Brazil, 1979) is an interdisciplinary artist, graduated in Architecture and currently studying at the Artscience department, Den Haag. http:// www.tinamustao.com
Mike Rijnierse (Netherlands, 1974) is an interdisciplinary artist who frequently works with light and sound. http://mikerijnierse.nl

ANGEL FARALDO and ANA LADAS residency at Studio LOOS in May 2011

The ongoing project Feedback Study #2 by Ángel Faraldo (music) and Ana Ladas (dance), which they have been partially developing during an artistic residency at Studio Loos.

Feedback Study #2 inquires into the relationships between sound, dance and space in a naked and direct way. The research focuses on the explorations of a feedback sound system via the dancing body. The musician is in charge of altering the conditions of the feedback sound system while the dancer continuously seek for the musical potentials in it (rhythms, intervals, articulations, melodies…)

GABRIEL PAIUK short residency at Studio LOOS in May 2011

This residency at Studio LOOS forms part of a project investigating diverse conventional and unconventional ways of recording the sound of a piano. This material is aimed at developing a series of pieces that will aim to investigate the minute material perceptual possibilities embedded in the encounter between recording/reproduction media and the piano, dealing with the association with the history of recorded piano sound as well as the embedded spatial information involved on the recording process.

Gabriel Paiuk is a composer and pianist born in 1975 in Buenos Aires. Winner of the Gaudeamus. Prize 2006 for his electronic sound work and sound installation Res Extensa. His works have been performed by the ASKO ensemble, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Slagwerk Den Haag, Kwartludium Ensemble, Quinteto Sonorama, Alexander Bruck and others in Berlin, Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Warsaw, Morelia and Buenos Aires. In 2010 he has received an HSP Huygens Scholarship from the Nuffic (Netherlands) to carry out a Master of Arts at the Institute of Sonology in Then Hague starting in september 2010. During 2009 he was director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Contemporary Music in Buenos Aires. From 2004 to 2009 he worked as sound design teacher within the performing arts department of the C.I.C. (Center for Cinematographic Investigations) in Buenos Aires. As a pianist he has been particularly focused on free improvisation, having perfomed and recorded with internationally acclaimed improvisers like Axel Doerner, Jason Kahn, Andrea Neumann, Rhodri Davies, Robin Hayward and others in venues and festivals in Berlin, Brussels, Barcelona, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon and New York. Since 2001 he is stable composer of the La Otra dance company, regularly staging works for dance and music in important theatres and festivals in Buenos Aires. Website: www.gabrielpaiuk.com