Joseph Hyde

Over the last sixth months or so I’ve been engaged in (what I think will be) a long-term project – building a modular analogue synthesizer. Having spent so much time working on multimedia and collaborative projects I thought it was time to focus back on sound for a bit, and I wanted to try something different.

As Frank Bretschneider put it in this interview (I remember using those synths at EMS years ago), the pace of developments in the digital domain has slowed right down, and in the absence of much new, it’s time to return to the old and find ways to renew that. The Eurorack format has caused an explosion of new analogue modules made by all sorts of funky specialist manufacturers – it’s an exciting world. I’m putting together more details on what I’m doing here.

I managed a bit of time off in August, although I did go to the TIES conference in Toronto and kick off a new collaboration with super talented dancer/choreographers Roosna and Flak in Tallinn (this one will run for a while, so more anon).

Now everything’s very much getting under way: September saw the culmination of a long-planned collaboration between Seeing Sound, the Arnolfini, the Encounters Film Festival and McLaren2014 - McLaren the Musician (Cine-Seizure audiovisual club night pictured). It also saw me reaching the final stages of several collaborations: Cassandra with Ana Silvera and Ludovic Ondiviela (Royal Ballet), Unfold to Centre with Yolande Yorke-Edgell, and the REACT Object Sandbox Breathing Stone project (video here). Plenty more next month, so watch this space!

As usual in the summer I try and take it easy and do a few fun things locally – this is mainly due to the wonderful Frome Festival, which I’m usually involved in one way or another. Unfortunately, our audiovisual club night, sensonic, which was a sell-out success last year, had to be cancelled due to insanely stringent sound restrictions from Mendip District Council. We’ve got a bit of a protest going on, so maybe something good will come of it.

Luckily I’ve got something else on though – I’m very excited that danceroom Spectroscopy are doing a Molecular Music performance in this year’s Bristol Proms. This time we’re playing with the wonderful Charles Hazlewood All Star Collective, and we’re undertaking Terry Riley’s acid-fuelled 60s epic Rainbow in Curved Air. We’re trying some new things with the system – it going to be dazzling, psychedelic and loud!

For the last couple of months I’ve been working with a great team of people on a project for the REACT Objects Sandbox (Internet of Things) scheme, funded by the AHRC and produced by Bristol’s iShed.  The project is called Breathing Stone (I think – the name is somewhat in flux), and it centres around an object, the size and weight of a large pebble, you can cup in your hands. It uses sensors to detect your heartbeat and breathing, and produces music in response. The idea is that the music will give you cues to breathe ‘better’ and therefore aid relaxation, with all the health benefits that brings.  My own role is purely on the development of the music – an interesting challenge to make something generative that gives the user clear enough cues whilst remaining engaging.  We already have a working prototype, and some promising leads for further funding. Watch this space – there’s more info on the project here.

I’ve got two London premieres coming up at the end of this week (and month).  Feb 27th/28th sees a preview performance of Unfold to Centre by dance company Yorke Dance Project, choreographed by Yolande Yorke-Edgell, part of their Figure Ground programme, at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadlers Wells.  The piece uses Larry Cuba’s animation 3/78, and I’ve made a number of musical interludes based on the beautiful original Shakuhachi soundtrack by Kazu Matsui.  The piece will tour over next winter/spring.  On the 1st and 2nd of March, danceroom Spectroscopy is once again resident at the Barbican’s Weekender event.  The weekend will feature the installation, the latest versions of the Hidden Fields dance piece, and the UK premiere of Molecular Music, my sound-based work based on the system.

January started with a bang, with a residency for danceroom Spectroscopy at the very wonderful ZKM in Karsruhe, Germany (pictured). We had the installation up for three days, and did seven performances of the dance piece Hidden Fields. It went down very well – thousands of visitors, and standing ovations!

Since then I’ve been busy on Molecular Music, a new danceroom Spectroscopy offshoot. I’m trying to really see how far I can push the sonification of the particle system, the control of the particles by sound, and both at the same time in some kind of chaotic feedback loop.

I went over to the SoundImageSound festival at the University of the Pacific, California, to premiere the piece. It crashed twice, but I still felt it went well (and got a really nice reaction), so I think I must be on to something. I’m going to keep developing it.

While I was over in California, I did a couple of talks with Dave Glowacki on dS – one in SoundImageSound and one at Stanford University’s CCRMA. It was a busy week!

Seeing Sound 2013 was a great success.  By some distance the biggest so far, we featured 22 papers, 10 performances and 27 fixed media works, including a rare chance to see the films of James and John Whitney, some in glorious new HD restorations.

We had over 100 delegates from all around the world, with visitors from the US, Canada, Australia, Venezuela, Brazil, Japan, Spain, Ireland, Germany and the Nethelands.  Our showcase Bath Spa Live performance on Saturday night sold out, and responses to the event have been overwhelmingly positive. Many of the works shown are embedded on the site, and you can also find a gallery of photos. Here’s to the next one!

(photo: Yorke Dance Company, Paul Prudence)

Pretty much everything I posted about back in August has now come to fruition, and I’m near the end of an exhausting but very productive few months.  We had rehearsals for Hidden Fields (the dance piece based on the award-winning danceroom Spectroscopy system) over the summer and into the autumn, culminating in the premiere of a much expanded and improved version which premiered at the danceroom Spectroscopy festival in October.  This took place in the Igloo 360-degree projection dome, rather spectacularly sited within Brunel’s Old Station at Temple Meads Bristol (photo: Paul Blakemore). Now we go on tour! (more soon..)

The Touretteshero piece also had a rather grand premiere, at the Albert Hall in the wonderful Albertopolis TEDx event.  Jess’s talk is fantastic, and I’m very happy that our piece made it in there, even if only for one minute!  We’re working on a much grander project to follow up – more anon.

It’s too early for me to reveal much about developments on the the Cassandra / Royal Ballet project, but let’s just say I’m pretty sure I’ll be writing more on that here soon too.

Most of my efforts right now are focused on the 3rd Seeing Sound, Bath Spa University’s biennial Visual Music Symposium, which takes place on the 23rd and 24th November. The theme of this year’s conference is live performance, but as always the event spans a broad range of audiovisual work.  I’m very pleased with this year’s packed programme, all of which can be seen on the Seeing Sound site.

As previously mentioned, there’s been lots going on that I’ve not been posting about. danceroom Spectroscopy continues to go from strength – a recent highlight was a performance in the all-new Bristol Proms with violinist Nicola Bernedetti. We have rehearsals throughout September and October to make an all-new Hidden Fields dance piece to tour through Autumn and Spring – fixtures already include an igloo dome performance in Bristol (more details soon), the Barbican in London and ZKM in Karlsruhe.

I’ve got a few new collaborations in the works too.  One is a piece based on the Cassandra myth and exploring attitudes to mental illness.  It combines live music, electronic sound and dance, with singer Ana Silvera, choreographer Ludovic Ondiviela, artists Kate Church and Kate Keara Pelen and some of the Royal Ballet’s finest dancers – we’ve just done a pilot performance in the ROH’s Clore Studio and will see what happens.  Another is a collaboration with Tom Mitchell and Jess ‘Touretteshero’ Thom.  Jess has come up with the great idea of seeing what artists can do with her tics (as seen on the website).  Our brief is to sonify a year’s worth as a piece of abstract music, a section of which will be presented by Jess at the TedX Albertopolis event on the 23rd September.

There’s more coming up soon too, so watch this space. One thing I can give advance notice of (although there’s not much on the website yet), is that we’ll be hosting another Seeing Sound Visual Music symposium at Bath Spa University on the 23rd/24th November – more anon.

I tend to keep it local in July, as we have the fantastic Frome Festival right on our doorstep.  I’ve been involved in a couple of events this year.  The first is Adam Jansch’s ongoing in tones event, which this year has an audiovisual theme which is right up my street.  The second is a new venture on my part, an audiovisual club night called Sensonic.  I’ve always wanted to combine dance music with an immersive video environment, and this is my chance.  We’re using the lovely Silk Mill (pictured) – inside will be wall-to-wall multichannel projections, and outside will be projector mapping and interactive installations.  We’ve gathered together some amazing people, and it looks set to be a great night.

My site has been quiet for a bit.  Cogs have been whirring in the background, and things shift up a gear over the summer, with several exciting projects coming to fruition soon.  Watch this space!