A10lab, Area10,
Apo33, Noise=Noise, Beyond Signal, Fibrr Records & Sound Research
Practice, Goldsmiths presents:

RAINFOREST IV - DAVID TUDOR

"a
collaborative environmental work, spatially mixing the live sounds of
suspended sculptures and found objects, with their transformed
reflections in an audio system. "

PERFORMANCE &
INSTALLATION

3rd & 4th of July - from 2pm to 11pm 

£10
(online booking http://www.wegottickets.com)

£12 (on the
door)

at AREA10 PROJECT SPACE
Eagle Wharf
Peckham
Hill Street
London - SE15 5JT
(White building behind the
Library)
http://a10lab.info/rainforest

Buses: 12, 36, 37,
63, 78, 436, 345, 177, 312, 343 Train: Peckham Rye Station

Performed
by

RYAN JORDAN
JULIEN OTTAVI
KASPER T
TOEPLITZ
JEAN-BAPTISTE THIEBAUT
JOHN BOWERS
DOMINIQUE
LEROY
PHILIP JULIAN
CHRIS WEAVER
JENNY PICKETT
RYO
IKESHIRO
DAWN SCARFE
ANDY WHEDDON
DUNCAN RAVENHALL
ANTONIS
ANTONIOU

and more

Thanks to ResonanceFM for their
support!

RAINFOREST - David Tudor
 
Sounds electronically derived from the resonant characteristics of 
physical materials.
 
First version (1968), a sound-score for Merce Cunningham's dance work 
of the same name, established a means of sound transformations without 
the use of electronic modulation: the source sounds, when transmitted 
through the physical materials, will be modified by the resonant nodes 
of those materials.
 
Fourth version (1973): A collaborative environmental work, spatially 
mixing the live sounds of suspended sculptures and found objects, with 
their transformed reflections in an audio system.
 
"In the first version, I made objects which I could travel with. The 
object were so small, however, that they didn't have any sounding 
presence in the space, so I then amplified the outputs with the use of 
contact microphones. Then for the second version, I wanted to have a 
different kind of input... because for the first I had used 
oscillators that made animal and bird-like sounds. In the second 
version I wanted to use a vocal input to the system, the natural 
resonance of the object and its subsequent amplification. Its a kind 
of mechanical filter.
 
The third version had to deal with the ability to have any input go to 
any transducer. I made that system for a simultaneous performance with 
John Cage (Mureau). It was one of those pieces that changes all the 
time so I needed to have a sort of continuous thing, so I used tape 
sources, but having the ability to mix them or separate them into 
different output channels.
 
So the next step was "Rainforest IV"... the object was to make the 
sculptures sound in the space themselves. Part of that process is that 
you are actually creating a an environment. The contact mikes on the 
objects pickup the resonant frequencies which one hears when very 
close to the object, and then are amplified through a loudspeaker as 
an enhancement." (this transcription is partially edited from the 
original)
 
- David Tudor, form interview by John Fullemann 10/12/85
 
"My piece, "Rainforest IV", was developed from ideas I had as early as 
1965. The basic notion, which is a technical one, was the idea that 
the loudspeaker should have a voice which was unique and not just an 
instrument of reproduction, but as an instrument unto itself. an offer 
came, which didn't get realized, but I was asked to make a proposal 
for a park in Washington. The ideas was to have a sounding outdoor 
sculpture, so my mind began turning around. I thought, 'wouldn't it be 
wonderful if each sculpture sounded completely different from the 
other and the whole could be run by one machine which could be like a 
commutator.'
 
I eventually acquired some devices called audio transducers. They were 
first developed for the US Navy because they needed a device which 
could sound above and under the water simultaneously. I went to see 
the manufacturer of these devices and they gave me several samples. 
They later produced a commercial version. I had them in 1968 when MC 
asked me for a dance score and I decided that I would try to do the 
sounding sculpture on a very small scale. I took these transducers and 
attached them to very small objects and then programmed them with 
signals from sound generators. The sound they produced was then picked 
up by phono cartridges and then sent to a large speaker system. 
Several different versions of this piece were produced.
 
In 1973 I made "Rainforest IV" where the objects that the sounds are 
sent through are very large so that they have their own presence in 
space. I mean, they actually sound locally in the space where they are 
hanging as well as being supplemented by a loudspeaker system. The 
idea is that if you send sound through materials, the resonant nodes 
of the materials are released and those can be picked up by contact 
microphones or phono cartridges and those have a different kind of 
sound than the object does when you listen to it very close where it's 
hanging. It becomes like a reflection and it makes, I thought, quite a 
harmonious and beautiful atmosphere, because wherever you move in the 
room, you have reminiscences of something you have heard at some other 
point in the space. It's (can be) a large group piece actually, any 
number of people can participate in it. It's important that each 
person makes their own sculpture, decides how to program it, and 
performs it themselves. Very little instruction is necessary for the 
piece. I've found it to be almost self-teaching because you discover 
how to program the devices by seeing what they like to accept. Its 
been a very rewarding type of activity for me. It's been done by as 
large a group as 14 people. So that was how our Rainforest was done."
 
-David Tudor, from An Interview with David Tudor by Teddy Hultberg in 
Dusseldorf, May 17-18, 1988.
 
Who is David Tudor?

David Tudor
was born in Philadelphia, PA, in 1926. He studied with H. William
Hawke (organ, theory), Irma Wolpe Rademacher (piano) and Stephan
Wolpe (composition and analysis).His first professional activity was
as an organist, and he subsequently became known as one of the
leading avante-garde pianists of our time. Tudor gave highly
acclaimed first or early performances of worksby contemporary
composers Earle Brown, Sylvano Bussotti, Morton Feldman, Karlheinz
Stockhausen, Christian Wolff, Stephan Wolpe, and La Monte Young,
among others.

Tudor began working with John Cage in the early
fifties, as a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and with
Cage's Project of Music for Electronic Tape. Tudor gradually ended
his active career as a pianist, turning exclusively to the
composition of live electronic music.

As a composer, Tudor
chose specific electronic components and their interconnections to
define both composition and performance drawing upon resources that
were both flexible and complex. Tudor was one of four Core Artists
who collaborated on the design of the Pepsi Pavilion for Expo '70,
Osaka, Japan, a project of Experiments in Art and Technology, Inc.
Many of Tudor's compositions have involved collaborative visual
forces: light systems, laser projections, dance, theater, television,
film. Tudor's last project, Toneburst: Maps and Fragments, was a
collaboration with visual artist Sophia Ogielska. Tudor's several
collaborations with visual artist Jacqueline Monnier included the
development of a kite environment installed at the Whitney Museum
(Philip Morris, NYC) in 1986, at the exhibition "Klangraume"
in Dusseldorf in 1988, and at the Jack Tilton Gallery in New York
City in 1990. Other collaborators have included Lowell Cross, Molly
Davies, Viola Farber, Anthony Martin, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Tudor
had been affiliated with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC)
since its inception in the summer of 1953. In 1992, after CageÕs
death, Tudor took over as Music Director of MCDC. Merce Cunningham
has commissioned numerous works from Tudor, including Rainforest I
(1968); Toneburst (1974); Weatherings (1978); Phonemes (1981); Sextet
for Seven (1982); Fragments (1984); Webwork (1987), Five Stone Wind
(1988), Virtual Focus (1990); Neural Network Plus (1992); and most
recently Soundings: Ocean Diary (1994) for what was John Cage's last
conception, Ocean.


http://www.emf.org/tudor/


Musicans
& Artists
websites:

http://jennypickett.co.uk
http://doc.gold.ac.uk/~ma701rj/
http://www.noiser.org
http://www.apo33.org
http://jbthiebaut.free.fr/
http://www.myspace.com/tonesucker
http://www.leftright.org/
http://www.cmx.org.uk/
http://resonancefm.com/
http://www.ry-om.net/index.htm
http://www.myspace.com/aseaofsound
http://www.myspace.com/antonioua