This artistic PhD project is a composer-performer oriented exploration of live electronics understood as modular musicking systems. The conceptual framework draws upon an understanding of agency that views musical instruments as real or virtual objects-in-time that come into existence through the act of musicking. The systems created and presented in the thesis are explored through various scenarios presented as patches that include compositions, performance systems, and strategies for musicking. The project seeks to gain knowledge about the co-evolutionary processes found within the acts of composing and performing with such systems. At the core of the research is an exploration of the field of tension between the relative stability and flexibility in the affordances of live electronic instruments. It presents strategies for the design of live electronic systems in order to obtain a balance between these two states, and to understand how instruments are adapted in relation to the artistic processes of composing and performing. The thesis addresses the following research questions: 1. In what ways are my live electronic setups adapted within the acts of composing and performing? 2. How do my live electronic instruments manifest the field of tension between stability and flexibility? 3. What type of strategies can be used to create a predictable field of affordances of live electronic instruments? Through artistic research methods of meletē, transcription, and re-composition, the project gains a deeper understanding of when, how, and why human and non-human agents co-evolve in musicking with live electronics. It presents four core systems developed and refined within the project: Paragraph – a live coding environment, Parsimonia – a modular digital musical instrument, the EMP Triangle – a serial and modular composition tool, and the Sinew0od feedback system – used as a foundation for three transcriptions. The artistic outcomes are further studied using qualitative methods for data collection and analysis. The main contribution of this thesis is a novel understanding of live electronic musicking as co-evolutionary acts of patching. These acts entail processes of making and breaking connections between human and non-human agencies, and through patching create, transform, and manipulate compositions and performance setups, in order to achieve metastable systems. Hereby, the thesis proposes a cybernetic understanding of musicking as a process, challenging the traditional notion of fixed musical works, blurring the lines between compositions, instruments, interpretations, and performances.

Systems >>

1. Paragraph

2. Parsimonia
3. EMP Triangle
4. Sinew0od

>> Patches

1. TCP/IP: NIME
2. TCP/IP: Sestina
3. TCP/IP: Reconciliation
4. Re-patching Bach
5. Triangular Progressions
6. Sinew0od for Bass Clarinet
7. Sinew0od for Halldorophone
8. Sinew0od for Buchla

Publications >>

1. Global Hyperorgan

2. Exploring Sinew0od

3. Live Coding the Global Hyperorgan

4. A New Morphology

Book >>

Patch 1: TCP/IP – The NIME Performance

The TCP/Indeterminate Place Quartet (see Ek et al., 2021) was formed with the intention to explore different types of interaction with the hyperorgans in the context of the Global Hyperorgan project (Harlow et al., 2021).

A modular approach was used, both to the organs and to the instruments and agencies of the quartet. The notion of an organ as a modular system enables the addition of both new controllers and sonic extensions. Here, these extensions are other musical instruments, including Robert Ek’s clarinet fitted with a motion sensor on the bell (Ek, 2024, Harlow et al., 2021), an electric MIDI guitar played by Stefan Östersjö, and Federico Visi performing with a laptop and gestural controllers. Visi’s setup navigates a sonic corpus of pre-recorded guitar sounds, i.e., sonically extending Östersjö’s guitar, and sending controller data to the organ network. Finally, the Paragraph live coding system developed within this thesis project, functions as an instrument played by me. Thus, the auditory output of a performance consists of the controlled local and remote organs (represented in speakers), the clarinet, the electric guitar, and any sounds produced or processed by the laptops. Visually, the organs have been a dominating part of the audiovisual stream due to the nature of the project, but also code projected on or next to the organs has occurred.

The Patch

The figure above shows the patched-up TCP/Indeterminate Place system from the perspective of the live coder. Here, Paragraph takes live input from the MIDI guitar, where each string represent a pitch in an unsorted six-note array that changes dynamically. Using this array as a scale, the live coder can write patterns that play those notes as chords or as arpeggiated phrase on the connected organs. The clarinet has a sensor on the bell that is used to control the gate length (the legato parameter) of the notes produced by Paragraph, and also controls the wind speed of the organ directly. The whole system is tempo synchronized by means of Ableton Link.

The video above is an edited excerpt of our performance that was part of the NIME conference 2021. The quartet performed from the R1 space in Stockholm, where the local Wurlitzer Cinema organ was played by means of MIDI control. In addition, the telematically controlled Utopa Baroque organ at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam was controlled over the Internet. The audio was mixed down to stereo for streaming to the online audience as well as to those listening on-site in Shanghai.

This video is the recording that was sent in as a proposal to the NIME conference, and was the first actualization of this Global Hyperorgan scenario. Here, the quartet performs with the Acusticum Organ in Piteå and the Utopa Baroque organ.

Tip

Tip

Patch 1: TCP/IP – The NIME Performance