This page contains additional material for the I WAS 17 piece for His Voice.

The Old As Unfamiliar: Beethoven Packed In Steel, and Processed By christoph De Boeck.

Eindhoven (NL), Allsaints, Allsouls days 2017. Philharmonie Zuidnederland is playing Beethoven's 4th Symphony, directed by Kristiina Polska. As part of their 'crossover' series they invited the artists Chantalla Pleiter and christoph De Boeck, both associated with the experimental company Crew. Recently more ensembles of older and classical music seem to radically embrace technological experiments. Bridging the gap towards more diverse audiences, they want to provide new experiences for more diverse audiences with the aid of technological tools, installations, virtual and real interfaces. All these experiments sound like blasphemy in the eyes and ears of a melomaniac purist, but sometimes produce interesting new contemporary works, often interacting with the music or the musicians, the audience and the artists.

1. A commissioned piece, a new idea.

I teamed up with Chantalla Pleiter and CREW for this production. We have been collaborating quite a few times over the last 13 years. CREW has been a pioneer in immersive performances and virtual reality and I’ve developed sound design for them. At the request of Philharmonie Zuidnederland we set up an extended concert experience. This orchestra has a program to invite external artists in order to broaden the scope of classical music or playfully experiment with the classical set-up.

We did this in 2015 in Bozar Brussels with the ensemble BOHO Strings led by David Ramael, who played the music of Vivaldi, Mahler, Pärt and others. The challenge for me now in 2017 was to process electronically and in real-time a Beethoven piece, which is another deal altogether, especially for the wide dynamics in the 4th Symphony.

This production aims at delivering a multi-focal listening experience. We want the audience to engage into different listening modes. We built 4 different concert environments and the audience is split up in 3 groups who rotate along the different experiences. After each symphony movement spectators travel in between the differen environments.

First, there is a stage built around the position of the conductor. People can lie down around her and feel through the floor how her balance shifts and how she uses her physical energy to conduct the orchestra. Also, the position amidst playing musicians (Viennese orchestra set-up in a big U) provides an excellent natural immersive listening mode.

Second, I suspend 8 sheets of steel with transducers at the back. Transducers play sound on a surface. The balance is quite subtle so that you can only hear the sound inside the material when you rest your head against the steel. The sound waves are then conducted through your skull right to the bones in your middle ear. People are invited to even close their ears by pressing fingers on them, yet still they will hear the sound through their bones. The sound is a mix of the acoustic, ‘dry’ signal of the orchestra and an electronic processing filter which tends towards a ‘drone’ based on the input of orchestra sounds. Beethoven himself used this method when he was going deaf: he clamped a stick into the piano frame and then he would bite into the stick. The piano notes would travel along the stick into his teeth and through his skull so he could hear them.

Third, the spectators move to beds that are positioned vertically upright, they stand against the beds. Over 5 minutes they will be tilted backwards to an horizontal position while listening to the music over headphones. The shift in gravity causes disorientation and a floating feeling. The beds are equipped with Buttkickers, a more powerful type of transducer or ‘shaker’ that transfers the bass frequencies of the music onto the surface of the bed. This means that spectators will feel the vibrations directly in their backside, they will be literally shaken by the music. To these beds I send the contrabasses and percussion in real-time.

Fourth, all spectators can at all times listen to an electronically processed version of Beethoven’s Fourth in real-time. The headphones have wireless reception over the whole hall area (Klokgebouw, Strijp-S, Eindhoven). This was the production hall of Philips in iconic years for audiovisual technology in the 20th century.

The effects played on the music are time-based and spectrum-based: multiple delays, real-time sample based layering, live and granular sampling, granular clouds, drones and pitch deviations in delays. Plus interesting fx made by Michael Norris: spectral blending and spectral gate and hold. A lot of GRM Tools by Ircam and Max for Live plugins.

Microphones were capturing the different instrument groups and an omnidirectional mic captated the conductor’s position. On some tracks I processed the stereo audio of the total sum, on other tracks only wind instruments or strings.

For preparation it took several weeks of discussion, preparing tech set-up and cabling, testing impact and resonance for beds and steel plates, preparing fx tracks, testing on an older recording of Beethoven with a different timing, which was not convenient, also because I had no separate instrument group tracks. In the 2015 version some rehearsals with the chamber orchestra had been recorded in a multitrack per instrument group. So that was easier, I could compose the whole development of the fx chain with envelopes, per instrument.

The sheets of steel were originally part of an earlier installation of mine: http://christophdeboeck.com/work/time-code-matter/

This was at the time already used for a concert with electronic music by myself and Yves De Mey. Sounds were travelling over 12 plates and with heavy bass frequencies they would shake and tremble.

The software was prepared at my home studio, while all of the heavy work and tech set-up was prepared at CREW studios and at OVERTOON studios.

2. Future work.

On the one hand I continue working on my investigation of materials under stress. This relates mainly to my visual installation work. Sound articulates tension because it is a result of some mechanical force that is oscillating or vibrating, even if micro-tensions occur deep inside of materials, like in the steel shell of a nuclear vessel. Ultra-acoustic technology detects the most minimal of cracks caused by stress. Check http://www.overtoon.org/productions/2016/uae/ and http://www.overtoon.org/productions/2017/floating-beam/ This project is about the fragility and meta-stability of a brutal steel and concrete world built in the 20th century. It covers the anthropocentric hubris versus the scale of time and the life of materials.On the other hand for my concert work I would like to explore some new spatialized set-ups in a more musical way. I look forward to working with an innovative speaker set-up like Iosono in the new IPEM lab in Ghent where I would like to mix noise and classical instruments.

3. And more...

OVERTOON is a platform for research, production and distribution of sound art and sound-based installation art or experimental media art, directed by Aernoudt Jacobs and Christoph De Boeck. In its Brussels-based studios artists can make use of a workspace in the centre of Brussels, tools which facilitate the production process related to audio and media art, technical expertise, artistic feedback, production and financial support and a broad international network.

4. The English version of the His Voice text.

I WAS 17 / #04
Interesting works, approaches, strategies for the future, 2017.

The Old As Unfamiliar: Beethoven Packed In Steel, and Processed By christoph De Boeck.

I.

Eindhoven (NL), Allsaints, Allsouls days 2017. Philharmonie Zuidnederland is playing Beethoven's 4th Symphony, directed by Kristiina Polska. As part of their 'crossover' series they invited the artists Chantalla Pleiter and christoph De Boeck, both associated with the experimental company Crew. Recently more ensembles of older and classical music seem to radically embrace technological experiments. Bridging the gap towards more diverse audiences, they want to provide new experiences for more diverse audiences with the aid of technological tools, installations, virtual and real interfaces. All these experiments sound like blasphemy in the eyes and ears of a melomaniac purist, but sometimes produce interesting new contemporary works, often interacting with the music or the musicians, the audience and the artists.

christoph de Boeck has a long term fascination for the acoustic and material properties of steel, that is for sure. I remember meeting him 10 years ago in a workshop on generative and interactive music, and since then started to attend some of his installations and performances. christoph is an artist of all trades, collaborating with performers and installation artists, directing the experimental Overtoon studios also open for other sound artists. He is working with very different themes, let's say from bio art to high tech sound art and everything that fits in between or not. Some years ago, I remember that Overtoon was moving from the 12th floor of an abandoned hospital in the centre of Brussels. A large space served as a storage for the multiple tons of steel plates by christoph. Since then I developed a secret interest in the aspect of steel in the oeuvre by artist De Boeck.

W.

In Time Code Matter (2007), 12 steel plates are hanging in a circle, and change sound when being approached. Staalhemel (2009) uses an EEG device that activates solenoids in a ceiling hammering out a composition based on brainwaves... on different sizes of steel plates. His recent Golfvorm (2016) and Floating Beam (2017) installations use different masses and shapes in steel as well. For Beethoven's Symphony #4 he recreated a circle of steel, fed by generative electronic spectra based on the dynamics produced by the orchestra. But there is more to it, so we asked the artist himself.

A.

“This production aims at delivering a multi-focal listening experience. We want the audience to engage into different listening modes. We built 4 different concert environments. After each symphony movement spectators travel in between the different environments. First, there is a stage built around the position of the conductor. People can lie down around her and feel through the floor how her balance shifts and how she uses her physical energy to conduct the orchestra. Second, I suspend 8 sheets of steel with transducers at the back. Transducers play sound on a surface. The balance is quite subtle so that you can only hear the sound inside the material when you rest your head against the steel. The sound waves are then conducted through your skull right to the bones in your middle ear. People are invited to even close their ears by pressing fingers on them, yet still they will hear the sound through their bones. The sound is a mix of the acoustic, ‘dry’ signal of the orchestra and an electronic processing filter which tends towards a ‘drone’ based on the input of orchestra sounds. Third, the spectators move to beds that are positioned vertically upright, they stand against the beds. Over 5 minutes they are tilted backwards to an horizontal position while listening to the music over headphones. The shift in gravity causes disorientation and a floating feeling. The beds are equipped with Buttkickers, a more powerful type of transducer or ‘shaker’ that transfers the bass frequencies of the music onto the surface of the bed. This means that spectators will feel the vibrations directly in their backside, they are literally shaken by the music. To these beds I send the contrabasses and percussion in real-time. Fourth, all spectators can at all times listen to an electronically processed version of Beethoven’s Fourth in real-time. The headphones have wireless reception over the whole hall area (Klokgebouw, Strijp-S, Eindhoven).”

S.

As a media and sound artist, christoph is working as close as possible with the circumstances and materials themselves. But how did he work this time, with classical music and an orchestra? “The challenge for me was to process electronically and in real-time a Beethoven piece, which is another deal altogether, especially for the wide dynamics in the 4th Symphony. This time, microphones were capturing the different instrument groups and an omnidirectional mic captated the conductor’s position. On some tracks I processed the stereo audio of the total sum, on other tracks only wind instruments or strings. For preparation it took several weeks of discussion, preparing technical set-ups and cabling, testing impact and resonance for beds and steel plates, preparing effect tracks, testing them on an older recording of Beethoven.”

And what comes after Beethoven?
“I continue working on my investigation of materials under stress. This relates mainly to my visual installation work. Sound articulates tension because it is a result of some mechanical force that is oscillating or vibrating, even if micro-tensions occur deep inside of materials, like in the steel shell of a nuclear vessel. Ultra-acoustic technology detects the most minimal of cracks caused by stress. The above mentioned Floating Beam (2017) is about the fragility and meta-stability of a brutal steel and concrete world built in the 20th century. It covers the anthropocentric hubris versus the scale of time and the life of materials. Also for my concert work I would like to explore some innovating spatialized set-ups in a more musical way.”

17.

In-depth descriptions of the works by christoph De Boeck can be found at http://www.christophdeboeck.com/ and http://overtoon.org while more pictures and information about the concerts are at https://www.philharmoniezuidnederland.nl/voorstellingen/22/Dirigente_Kristiina_Poska_Concept_en_techniek_installatie_Crew/i_Classics_Music_Technology/

An excerpt of his work for Beethoven's Symphony number 4, and the full interview, uncut, raw, noisy can be seen and heard at https://oslepenikoncem.multiplace.org/doku.php?id=iwas17, with or without the author or artist's consent, but all for the good cause.