What are BreakdownSessions?

streets of gent, a street recording: Gívan Belá; a guest on bariton sax: Phill Van Keymeulen

• ogg format
• wav format

• the original recordings were here but peter made something better with it – stay detuned!
• http://absolutevalueofnoise.ca/2017_luminiferous/index.html or the Luminiferous Noise Machine, A generative radio stream for Art's Birthday 2017.

1. 2 Barrels 2 Loggers 1 Dog 1 Sneeze (The Ghost Mix)

TK asked to record the two blue barrels in the cowshed, because he wanted to analyse their pitch for a piece he is working on. Two wood choppers and the microphones in the wrong spot produced this sublime accidental percussion piece. The ghost is the dog, barking in the back, and sneezing in the end.

wav format
https://oslepenikoncem.multiplace.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=2barrels2loggers1dog-theghostmix.wav

2. Doppler On A Bike Day And The Dog Is At It Again (The Ghost Mix)

175 years ago, Christian Doppler gave a lecture to the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences and published “Über das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne und einiger anderer Gestirne des Himmels”. We wanted to find out if the Doppler Effect can be perceived while one is biking and a church bell is ringing. What is the minimal speed for perceiving a Doppler Shift? Somehow the dog sneaked in again, and bit a microphone. For sure dog is a ghost, omnipotent and ubiquitous.

wav format
https://oslepenikoncem.multiplace.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=doppleronabike-theghostmix.wav

For a long standing creative friendship across oceans and continents with Peter. Recorded on 20180110 in Hranice, a windy place, the day wind gusts were reaching 90 kms/h. Running around just listening to the wind. Against my principles, there is no real processing on the file, just a silencing of noise in the microphones, a couple of DPA's by the way, and the Tascam elektrets in an akward position. No repetitions, no dubbing. Maybe the temperature (0˚C) had an influence. No noise, just wind. Suddenly while uploading changed the title from 'in the house of the winds' to 'in time of winds', to avoid further explanations. Have a nice Art's or Arts' Birthday 2018! Here is the collective piece Peter put together: http://absolutevalueofnoise.ca/2018_tapeloping/

wav format
https://oslepenikoncem.multiplace.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=20180110-inthehouseofwinds2.wav

We were making each half of the song, based on a Slavic Birthday song.
Here is the original
https://oslepenikoncem.multiplace.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=mnogaja_leta_-_20100301.mp3

And here is an intermediate version, just sang and played with the original in mind and playing in the background, wanted to take this away, but I guess this is a present for the more conventional inclined:
wav format
mp3 format
https://oslepenikoncem.multiplace.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=ab18-birthdaysong-001-16bit.wav and
https://oslepenikoncem.multiplace.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=ab18-birthdaysong-001.mp3

Like all good party people we were coming too late, and kept lingering out there for too long.
One instance of the song could have been like:
wav format
ogg format
https://oslepenikoncem.multiplace.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=ab18_e-version.wav and
https://oslepenikoncem.multiplace.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=ab18_e-version.ogg for downloading…

In January 2021, Rural Development (Akihiro Kubota, Dom Leroy, Geza Roman Bobb & Gívan Belá) performed a connected and hot streaming set, from resp. Japan, France, Germany and Czech Rep.. They shared the individual recordings and made their own imaginary versions afterwards:

Electronic experimental music must be older than 75 years. Generations of formerly young people are nowadays retired and listen with nostalgia to the warbled dissonant tunes and distorted broken rhythms from their youth. Once in a while they meet online to play memories from their imaginary songbooks and happily all improvise along. On Art's Birthday some of the finest old digital folk musicians from the band Rural Development (CZ, DE, BE, FR, JP) surprise you with a concert from empty wintery hothouses in the countryside and (un)covered greenscapes in the city. Next they will apply for heritage funding. kra.land announcement

You want to see the ArtsBirthday 2021 pictures?

But we are not just sticking up a microphone and saying _ how beautiful because that is a lie! …

The Taming Of The Stream was a collaboration with Vasulka Kitchen Brno and supported by The Asia-Europe Foundation, in which we played several concerts with Sonobus (open source P2P software) between CZ, NL, DE and South-Korea. With thanks to Michal Mitro for organizing this. September 2021.

“All humans seem to like music. Hilarious. Some animals do as well. Weird.” (August Todds, 1892)

1. On collaboration

There exist vast libraries with books about collaboration, from point of view of management, from industry to culture, and probably art. Still it is a mysterious phenomenon, how do animals and species like us collaborate? And when we try to collaborate, sometimes it works out, but at other times it fails terribly, though all the formal prescribed ingredients are being respected and all guidelines followed. Probably it is a too complex thing to grasp intuitively, because it could be an interaction on different levels, interactively and communicative wise, from personal/subjective (not individual) to social and environmental. Perhaps it is a simple mechanism that guides us on the biological level, like the notion of “metastability”, or the simultaneous realization of two competing tendencies: the tendency of the components to couple together and the tendency of the components to express their intrinsic independent behaviorm, which can be seen on the organism's cell level but is responsible for the coupling of organs, bodies, and relationships of the body to others. The latter is intriguing, looking at our own and other's creativity in the light of the commons, or the result of expressivity and ideas that create an art which eventually ends as a commons: defleshed from individual claims and appropriations, and in public domain, or not owned anymore privately. The fate of all art. Isn't the Mona Lisa part of all of our, though the real owner has it standing in Le Louvre? And as artists, aren't we all belonging to these commons, like the art places we share, the habits we expose, sorts or sounds and constructions we make, or the technology we are using? Though at the same time we 'perform' this individual bio/c.v. driven exceptional status of having an unique expressivity and presence. Maybe collaboration stems a dynamic play between this apparently contradictory behaviour?

2. Additional notes on the maintainance of a Poetica.

no virtuosity (since creativity is in all of us) no competition (like the futurists already wrote) no curators only facilitators and technicians (to cross galleries and museums) the fanfare metaphore: first learn to play together, then forget to show off in solos, because together it simply sounds better no repetition, unless inspired by natural observations no harmony, just just intonation and tunings to a world of dissonance no randomness, no control (are light, sound, windspeed, earthshakes, butterfly wings flapping, or others not enough?) no strict divisions digital-analog-nano-makro make your own instruments (or buy them and destroy them creatively before playing)

3. Fiber Optik Konsiderations

open a port on the physical network for every action create an input (from others to share with you) and an output (for others to share from you) think of a way to deal with the inputs, go along or contradict, sometimes play something new wait a little, repeat but every repetition should be different

4. Practical decisions

Sonobus [https://sonobus.net/] or how to create peer-2-peer sound connections, uncompressed and with low latency. Multiple platform, Free & Open Source. The manual online is really really good, detailed. I have nothing to add [https://sonobus.net/sonobus_userguide.html]. The other day a musician who claimed to be “non-technical” asked me to show how to set it up. It was done remotely in 10 minutes. She did not believe it. She thought there should be more to it, hidden. There isn't, it's just a connective device. There are many software like this, just that this one is easy to put up – for now… So set up a P2P connection, invite other people and play as if you were close! Considering the notes above on Metastasis, we will always feel a little apart and at the same time together, no matter what latency. Besides, when playing together in the same field, there is latency as well (3m/10ft=10ms). No fuzz. Don't drink and drive.

PS. I am interested in Live Lab, shall we try it out next week? Are you all available somehow? Let me know, I am in! Let’s have fun with it like last time!

Freely Dowload The PDF: Taming of the stream - performing within a protocol

Just what a lazy afternoon P2P jam between friends means: makes no sense but it's fun! And if you don't like it, there is more beauty elsewhere in the world hihi! Enjoy! Geza Bobb, Kirsten Reese, Gívan Belá for the last Sunday of 21!

Sarah Washington from Radia asked us:

I am making the 1000th Radia show for the network of 32 member stations and affiliates (Radia). Each Radia show is produced by members in turn, and syndicated on each station in a given week. For this show I would like to collect 100 voices - each speaking a list of 10 things they like. Just the actual things, no preamble or reasons such as “I like” …“because” …

Here come the likes, explained because I forgot she wanted a list haha: 10 likes for Sarah