Performance as Composition News from the School of Art, Architecture and Design

Workshop using a computer-mediated performance strategy by sound performers (musicians and non-musicians).

Date: 30 September 2013

Performance as Composition is workshop using a computer-mediated performance strategy in which sound performers (musicians and non-musicians) devise and perform a coherent musical structure in real-time.

In this workshop, the composer Fergal Dowling guides participants in a computer-mediated sound performance in which musicians and non-musicians interact with a computer in the role of composer-performers to devise a musical structure in real-time. As groups of participants devise an extemporised sound performance their gestures are recorded on the fly. As the performance continues, subsequent sound-events re-trigger simultaneous replay of previously recorded performances. The combination of live sound and computer replay creates elisions, cuts, and re-orderings of the on-going temporal flow to reveal an evolving musical relationship between performers, musical material and context.