Butch Rovan: "Obstinate systems: Resistance as process in interactive performance"

ABSTRACT:
This talk will discuss my use of  “obstinate” systems for interactive performance, and their particular application in several of my previous works (seine hohle Form, Vis-à-vis, COLLIDE). The thwarting and/or diverting of performer intent and the contingencies of live interaction form a common thread in these works, highlighting a compositional process that focuses on the resistance of the interactive system.
 
This approach is further explored in my new intermedia performance project, “Studies in Movement,” which pays homage to the great French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904). Through his pioneering work with sensor devices and graphical tracing, to his work with stop-action photography, Marey sought to break down locomotion in order to learn how humans and animals moved in the natural world. In “Studies in Movement”, I use Marey’s visual legacy to reconsider resistance in the realm of moving images – gestural data becomes both sound and image. The series of intermedia etudes explores the polyphony of resistance embedded in musical performance, striving to make visible the interface between bodies and instruments.

Butch Rovan and his group, GrayCode, will then perform a live@CIRMMT concert the same evening in Tanna Schulich Hall at 7 p.m. The concert program will feature Correspondences (2007), an audiovision for mixed media with images & music by Butch Rovan, followed by integer winter, performed by GrayCode. Performers are:

Fred Kennedy: percussion
Kevin Patton:   guitar + real-time electronics
Butch Rovan:  reeds + real-time electronics

VIDEO ARCHIVE - BUTCH ROVEN

 

APA video citation: 

Rovan, B. (2014, June 13). Obstinate systems: Resistance as process in interactive performance -

CIRMMT Distinguished Lectures in the Science and Technology of Music. [Video file].

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mzQRnWAu2A&feature=youtu.be