05.10 – Vector Synthesis, SIMULTAN Festival, Timisoara RO (pictured)

09-10.10 – Field recording workshop, 7 DAYS of SOUND, Klaipeda LT

13.10 – Vector Synthesis, Meq Festival, Centre Dramatique National de Montpellier, Montpellier FR

14.10 – SoundBoxes workshop, Meq Festival, Centre Dramatique National de Montpellier, Montpellier FR

11.11 – Vector Synthesis workshop + performance, sound art festival, Copenhagen DK

18.11 – Vector Synthesis, Piksel Festival, Bergen NO

22.11 – Vector Synthesis, MuTe Festival, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki FI

24.11 – Vector Synthesis, Noisy November, Viljandi EE

27-29.11 – Vector Synthesis workshop, Piksel Festival, Bergen NO

04-10.12 – SoundBoxes workshop [w/ Björn Eriksson], Hola folkhögskola, Prästmon SE

11-15.12 – Neanderthal Electronics workshop [w/ Jeroen Vandesande], RITCS Academy, Brussels BE

Machine Deva Sound Track by macumbista

Original soundtrack by Derek Holzer for the short film “Machine Deva”, by Steve Holzer (19min, 2012, TX, USA). A very abstract love story created directly on 16mm film, using familiar and not-so-familiar direct manipulation. Hand color and intervention on found footage with unusual transfer techniques put the visual experience somewhere between cave paintings and a hand-held video of a dream world.

Tracklist

1.0: brief introductions/those who cannot remember [6:06]
2.0: first mutation [4:34]
2.1: the lecture(“étant donnés”) [1:51]
2.2: take the elevator [1:04]
3.0: second mutation/the dance [4:43]

Recorded April 15-May 15 2012, RSS-82 Berlin.

Derek Holzer: analog synthesizer, electronics, pure data, organ, percussion
Steve Holzer: synthesizer(1.0), guitar(2.1)

I will have CDRs of this soundtrack and DVDRs of the film itself available in late November, and I will try to organize a screening in Berlin to coincide with this. Please note that the film itself will not appear online, due to the detailed nature of the film manipulations which lose much of their impact through compression. Unless you are lucky enough to visit a screening organized by myself or Steve, the DVDR will be the next best thing. Please contact me if interested.

TONEWHEELS France Photos

Photos from Pau performance by Alvaro Ayuso

Photos from Pau performance by Nicolas Godin

Photos from Pau performance by Sandrine Ferrer

Photos from Marseille performance by Pierre Gondard

On the Road Again…

22-26 Oct: Neanderthal Electronics Workshop, Det Jyske Kunstakademi, Aarhus DK
26 Oct: Macumbista live set, SPLAB, Aarhus, DK
29 Oct – 02 Nov: Neanderthal Electronics Workshop, Nordic Sound Art, Copenhagen DK
02 Nov: Macumbista’s 40))) birthday whiskey-sipping session, hosted by Mads Bech Paluszewski-Hau, Copenhagen DK. RSVP for info.
05-09 Nov: Neanderthal Electronics Workshop, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki FI

TONEWHEELS HURDY-GURDY
(VIELLE A ROUE OPTOÉLECTRONIQUE)
DEREK HOLZER for ACCES(S) FESTIVAL
PAU FRANCE, OCT 2012

TONEWHEELS is an experiment in converting graphical imagery to sound, inspired by some of the pioneering 20th Century electronic music inventions, such as the Light-Tone Organ (Edwin Emil Welte, 1936 Germany), the ANS Synthesizer (Evgeny Murzin, 1958 USSR), and the Oramics system (Daphne Oram, 1959 UK). Transparent tonewheels with repeating patterns are spun over light-sensitive electronic circuitry similar to that used in 16 & 35mm motion picture projectors to produce sound.

The TONEWHEELS Hurdy-Gurdy presented at Acces(s) is not an “interactive” artwork in the common sense. While it does not reward the impatient museum visitor with flashing lights and noises at the simple touch of the button, it does invite participation in the process of technological music creation. Although it first appears to be a very traditional instrument known to many folk-music cultures, it functions in a very different way which can only be discovered by playing it.

The artist would like to thank Tobias Traub of Oroborus Customs e.K. and Carlo Crovato for their invaluable assistance in creating this instrument. Circuits designed by Jessica Rylan and Eric Archer are also used within the system.

More information on the TONEWHEELS project can be found at http://umatic.nl/tonewheels.html

INSTRUCTIONS

This instrument functions by turning light into sound. The audience is invited to experiment with it, provided that they read the following instructions and handle the instrument carefully.

—GETTING STARTED

1) Pick the instrument up by the strap and put it around your neck. You will hold the instrument as seen in the painting shown below, “Jeune fille à la vielle”, by Jules Richomme (1882). Please handle the instrument by the edges. Do not handle the triangular area in the middle, this area is very delicate!

2) Activate the power switch and adjust the volume knob at LOCATION A.

3) Using your the fingers of your left hand, locate the pressure-sensors at LOCATION B. When you press these, you will see different lights turn on at the center of the instrument.

4) With your right hand, turn the crank at LOCATION C. This will spin a wheel printed with transparent patterns. These patterns break up the light which falls on several light sensors, creating the basic tone of the instrument.

5) The sound of the instrument passes through a filter which can change its tone. The controls for the filter are marked in green at LOCATION D. The switch controls whether low, middle or high frequencies are passed through the filter. The controls marked “LFO” can be used to modulate the filter, while the controls marked “FIL” are used to affect the frequency and resonance of the filter.

6) There is also a distortion effect, marked in red at LOCATION E. The distortion only works when the large button has been clicked, and the red light is on. The four controls marked “DIS” control different aspects of the distortion.

7) When you are finished, please gently set the instrument down flat on the table and turn the power off.

—TIPS

1) The speed of the wheel affects the basic frequency of the sound
2) The filter and distortion shape that sound, but can also produce sounds of their own.
3) A good place to start is with the distortion off and all the controls set to the middle position.
4) There are some control settings which may not produce any sound at all!

“Jeune fille à la vielle”, by Jules Richomme (1882)

TONEWHEELS HURDY-GURDY(VIELLE A ROUE OPTOÉLECTRONIQUE) from macumbista on Vimeo.

FREIZEIT MACHT FREI

This hurdy-gurdy project might be the most complicated thing I have ever tried to build, involving quite a bit more technical research and development by myself and several others than I expected at first. All in all, we took about two months to build something that really needed a year to do right. Live and learn, unfortunately in that order. So when it was all over, and I finally had my first free day in ages, I took a little walk in les Pyrénées with Vincent Meyer…

I have three dates coming up in France for the TONEWHEELS project:

13 Oct – Acces-s Festival, Pau (with Andrey Smirnov, Toktek / Chapelle des Réparatrices, Conservatoire Musique et Danse)
17 Oct – RIAM Festival, Marseille (with Radian and Hervé Boghossian)
16 Nov – Visionsonic Festival, Paris

Additionally, at Acces-s in Pau,. I will have a new instrument on display which I am furiously trying to finish right now, with the help of Oroborus Customs, Berlin. It will be a TONEWHEELS-style opto-electronic hurdy-gurdy with plenty of extra noisy electronics. I made the mockup you see in the first photo below, and sent it to Tobias at Oroborus who began building a proper body for it… I will properly document this instrument and thank all the other wonderful folks who helped me out once it is completed.

Mads Bech Paulszewski-Hau and I will be running the “Rainforest” series of workshops at two events in Denmark next month: the LAK Festival in Copenhagen (6-9 September 2012) and the BY i BY Festival in Aarhus (14-16 September 2012). There are still spaces in both workshops, particularly the Aarhus one (which will be outdoors!), so please get in touch if you are interested at MACUMBISTA at the domain GMAIL dot COM.

Regsnkov 2012 is a contemporary re-interpretation of David Tudor’s series of compositions from the 1970′s entitled Rainforest. It uses various types of sonic transducers to play live sounds through a selection of resonant, found-metal objects in the performance space. A matrix mixer allows the sound from any of the performers to be sent to any of the objects, creating an immersive, tactile and spatial sonic experience.

The project is developed in a workshop format with up to 8 participants over a period of several days. The participants will work from the bio-acoustic model of an actual rainforest, where it is necessary for each species’ survival that they can both hear and be heard within their own niche of the busy forest soundscape.

You can download a PDF of information about the project here: http://macumbista.net/files/rainforest_overview.pdf

Other up and comings:

28 Sep – [w/Vanessa Ramos-Velasquez] Basic Electricity, Berlin DE (more on this soon!)
9-13 Oct – TONEWHEELS, Le festival accès(s), Pau FR
17 Oct – TONEWHEELS, RIAM Festival, Marseilles FR
22-26 Oct – Neanderthal Electronics, Danish Art Academy, Aarhus DK (TBC!)
29 Oct-02 Nov – Neanderthal Electronics, Nordic Sound Art, Copenhagen DK
05-09 Nov – Neanderthal Electronics, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki FI
16 Nov – TONEWHEELS, VisionSonic, Paris FR (TBC!)

Now Playing

crippled black phoenix–(mankind) the crafty ape[2012]
wovenhand–live at roepaen[2012]

TONEWHEELS Live

02.May.2011 – Multiplace Festival, Brno CZ
03.May.2011 – Školská 28, Prague CZ
07.May.2011 – Fête01, Orléans FR

SoundBoxes Workshop

09-10 June.2011 – Proximos Festival, Tenerife, Canary Islands ES

Descubre las escondidas calidades sonicas de los objetos de la vida cotidiana en estos dos días de taller, combinando las artes de la electrónica, ruidismo, escultura y collage. Los elementos básicos del taller serán una caja de madera, un altavoz, un pequeño amplificador y un micrófono de contacto (piezo). A todo esto lo mas atrevidos podrán añadir sus propios objetos, gráfica personalizada, imágenes, memorias e ideas para crear una única caja de ruido electro acústica.

INSCRIPCIÓN AQUÍ

Other News

A friend of mine was murdered here in Berlin last week. Up to now, I believed this to be one of the safest cities I have ever lived in. She will be missed. Ladies, if your country doesn’t allow you to carry a handgun, please learn kung-fu.

Watching Tomoko Sauvage Performance/Installation @ Grimm Museum Berlin (photos by Laura Gianetti)

Miss Tomoko was a fabulous host during my last stay in Paris, especially when she indulged my obsession with second hand stores and flea markets. The TONEWHEELS gig at the Art Museum of Dijon went strange, basically I was asked to turn it down about 5 minutes into the set, when I was only a quarter of the way up! Seems the security guards were frightened I might “vibrate” the paintings in the museum (organizers, on the other hand, were cool and supportive). Talk/demo for the /dev/art series was a bit friendlier, with lots of questions and interest, and the final I-R-L gig was super, very good PA and responsive audience. Thanks to everyone who made it possible.

However, a funny thing happened on the way to the airport…

I almost forgot to mention that I missed my flight going to France! The long and the short of it is this: I hadn’t done the TONEWHEELS set since last spring, so I had forgotten how screwed up all my equipment was. I started checking it the day before my flight, and realized that I would have to remake everything…motor controllers, light-to-sound converters and all. Mostly because of stubbornness, I have to confess. I had tried to make a single unit of the whole thing before my USA tour and abandoned it the day before leaving.

This time I would not be defeated! I worked until the last possible minute, but to no avail. Then I called a taxi to the airport, which never showed up. I rebooked the flight (at my own expense!!!) for the next morning early, and spent the whole sleepless night (again…) building the SlenderTONEWHEELS box.

SlenderTONEWHEELS takes it’s name and super-70’s enclosure plus matching carry case from a Slendertone “fitness” machine, designed to stimulate your abdominal muscles with electrical pulses while you perform such rigorous labor as eating popcorn while watching Saturday Night Live. I found the device at a flea market in Helsinki last winter and had been dying to use it for something. So at the cost of a missed flight, I managed to put a 6 channel Arduino-based PWM motor controller and four light-to-sound-converters inside just in time to show off for the Frenchies.

Now that I’m home I can start preparing for the next two upcoming workshops at NK Project Berlin plus a Tuned City trip to Tallin, as well as thinking how to concentrate more on crafting unique sound boxes to sell rather than traveling so much for gigs and workshops. Not that I don’t like playing and teaching, it’s just that I start to feel so un-grounded these days. Maybe missing flights is a sign I need some rest…

Now Playing

agalloch–marrow of the spirit[2010 profound lore]
bruce springsteen–nebraska[1982]
jazkamer–failed state of mind[2010 pica disk]
kris kristofferson–kristofferson[1970]
krzysztof penderecki–threnody to the victims of hiroshima(tren ofiarom hiroszimy)[1960]

17 November: TONEWHEELS performance @ Résonances Electroniques Festival, Museum of Fine Arts, Dijon FR

19 November: TONEWHEELS discussion + performance @ /dev/art/, 19h / 23h, BlackBoxe, 17 rue de la Chapelle 75018 Paris FR, FREE

20 November: TONEWHEELS performance @ I-R-L Performances / Optica Festival avec Art of Failure and Chloé Mazlo & Son of a Pitch, 20h30, Centre Mercoeur, 4 rue Mercoeur 75011 Paris FR – M° voltaire/charonne, paf: 5 euros

Thanks to Octarine Productions, Jack/Kevin/Laurent@RYBN and the beautiful Tomoko Sauvage for support putting this trip together.

Now Playing

kevin drumm–live at bardens boudoir, london, uk 29.01.08 mp3[2008]
kk null–akumu[2008 vital]
mattin (ed.)–noise and capitalism book[2009 arteleku audiolab]
paul demarinis–buried in noise book[2010 kehrer][danke carsten!!!]
prurient+cold cave–stars explode[2010 hospital productions]
merzbow+balázs pándi–live at fluc wanne, vienna 18.05.10 lp[2010]

TONEWHEELS @ Résonances Electroniques Festival
17 November 2010, Museum of Fine Arts, Dijon FR

TONEWHEELS is an experiment in converting graphical imagery to sound, inspired by some of the pioneering 20th Century electronic music inventions. Transparent tonewheels with repeating patterns are spun over light-sensitive electronic circuitry to produce sound and light pulsations and textures. This all-analog set is performed using only overhead projectors as light source, performance interface and audience display. In this way, TONEWHEELS aims to open up the “black box” of electronic music and video by exposing the working processes of the performance for the audience to see.

Looking for things to do in Paris 18-20 November. Get in touch!!!!

On 25 June, 2010, I played a live synthesizer improvisation in the hot, airless basement of Le Chat Noir, Paris. Accompanying me on this journey through the depths was Andreas Siagian (House of Natural Fiber, Jogjakarta), who made amazing video projections directly onto the audience from his position just behind me. Thanks to Mal Au Pixel for a fantastic time in Paris!!!!!!

All photos by Sylvie Astié (Dokidoki) except the last one of me and organizer Kevin Bartoli standing over my “busker’s suitcase” by Mathieu Margueri (Mal Au Pixel). You can see more Mal Au Pixel photos on their Flickr page,  Mathieu Margueri’s Picasa and Nathalie Aubry’s Flickr. You can also read Nathalie’s report on the festival for Pixelache.

Now Playing

belt–s/he cs[1991]
black mountain transmitter–black goat of the woods[2009 lysergic earwax]
merzbow–rainbow electronics[1990 alchemy]
peter yates–bullitt film[1968]
sam peckinpah–the getaway film[1972]
sam peckinpah–the wild bunch film[1969]
toshio matsumoto–experimental film works[1961-87 ubu.com]