OPEN PLATFORM_7 17 November 2016 @algomech 2016 - Performances

RAP(s) - Random Access Performances - TwT.algomake

In November 2016 OPEN PLATFORM_7 returned as part of AlgoMech 2016 - the first Festival of Algorithmic and Mechanical Movement in Sheffield!

AlgoMech seeks to examine the complex relationship between technology and performance, with the first edition of the festival celebrating the resurgence of making in performance, where creative processes are made visible during a live event.





At the heart of OPEN PLATFORM/RAP(s) - TwT.  lies the idea of making performance from algorithmic processes and translating computational processes into physical presentations and performances. Here are the 5 performers who took up the challenge to re-think the digital at OPEN PLATFORM_7/RAP(s) - TwT.algomake!  


Susanne Palzer - On/Off (core performance)

With On/Off (core performance) Susanne Palzer radically reduces 'performance' and the 'digital' to the act of going on/off and binary machine code of ones and zeros. A performer steps on and off a platform saying 'on'/'off' and thus embodies computational processes in physical performance by 'writing' and 'executing script' simultaneously. All 'live coded' performances are improvised but draw on a pool of 'samples': (emotional) mental images are accessed semi-randomly to create a dramaturgy for the live performance. Human and machine labor become tangible through the performer's exertion which transmits to the audience. At the center of On/Off is the body, highlighting that both performance art and digital technology are about information exchange, communication and connection.



Lou Hazelwood - The Rendering of Digital Memory

The temporality of memory and its fragility is now stored in many mainframes and we are reminded of moments in our lives not by our senses or our relationships with people but by algo-rhythmical data. Facebook reminds us in date order of our memories; the fluidity of experience lost to time. 
Lou Hazelwood presented a timehopping reading performance compiled from snippets of overheard conversation. With contributions from Toni Buckby, Brain G Gilson, Rachael Hand, Susanne Palzer and others.

Michael Borkowsky - Pixel Poetry

Michael Borkowsky performed a number of poems from the zine 'Pixel Poetry'. Pixel Poetry is a series of poems designed to extend our experiences and perceptions of video games by pulling them out of their original context and examining them from the context of poetry. 

Brian G Gilson - Title Yet To Be Confirmed

Brian G Gilson presented a reading performance generated by audience throwing dice.
Having appeared at previous events this time Brian brought his own platform because now that Hull is going to be UK City of Culture 2017 he thought they should have one, too.


The first OPEN PLATFORM event in Hull will take place on 30 March 2017 at Ground. OPEN PLATFORM/RAP(s) - TwT. B2Gat60.Hull is part of Mobile Platform and a collaboration between OPEN PLATFORM/RAP(s) - TwT. , Sheffield, and B2Gat60.Hull.2016/2017: open events at Ground organised by Brian G Gilson. 




John X. Moseley - Readings from Towers' International Transistor Selector: The divine poetry of semiconductor specification

Most people that own a modern computer or telephone are familiar with the idea that such devices are full of billions of transistors. Most people, quite rightly, never consider the function of billions or individual transistors. Why would you? Today anyone can search and retrieve transistor specifications directly from manufacturers. However, internet browsing does not adequately convey the optical aura and pattern serendipity of the gaze on a page of data in a physical book. The poet Paul Valéry declared that "a book is a machine for reading". In the case of Towers' International Transistor Selector it is a machine that is made of transistors unlike any other.
http://johnmoseley.co.uk/



AlgoMech 2016 took place in various locations around Sheffield, UK, from 12-19 November 2016. The festival featured talks, hand-on workshops, concerts, performances and an Algorave, all exploring algorithmic and mechanical movement. AlgoMech was organised by FoAM Kernow and LoveBytes, in collaboration with Millennium Gallery, Access Space, and Sheffield Hallam and Sussex Universities. AlgoMech 2016 was part of Year of Making Sheffield 2016.

AlgoMech 2017 will take place from 8-12 November this year. The Facebook event is here.

TwT.network news

2014 has been a busy year so far and since OPEN PLATFORM_5 we have been engaged in many other projects and developments. We will be back with new editions of Technology without Technology next year - watch this space!


Susnhine Gray

The saddest news reached us in May when Sunshine Gray, sound artist, friend and OPEN PLATFORM collaborator and supporter passed away. To applaud her and honour her contribution to OPEN PLATFORM we are breaking our principle of not publishing video documentation: you can watch Sunshine's performance 'Body Sounds II/Audience' here. Jake Harries and Susanne Palzer will be staging a mini OPEN PLATFORM at Sunshine's Memorial Celebrations in Lincoln on Friday, 21 November.

Throughout her life Sunshine touched on the lives of an uncountable number of people with her work as a musician and sound artist and as an amazing person. She will be missed by everyone.


Technology with Technology

In July we, Alex McLean and Susanne Palzer, presented a preview of our new live coding experiment 'On-gaku' at Bloc Projects, Sheffield. In our second collaboration Alex was back to using his laptop rather than knitting needles ('Binary Transmission', Open Platform_4) while I performed 'On/Off' alongside his live coding with Tidal. However, this time we connected a pressure sensor to my platform so that Alex' screen was only projected while I was 'on'. As Alex worked with a wireless keyboard he had to cope with only seeing the code he was editing for fleeting moments. In joining our individual practices in this way our difficulty was more visible on both sides. In his case, he could not see his screen for most of the time and my physical exertion became clear.

Photo: Charlotte Morgan

Becoming code ... 
'On-gaku' at Bloc Projects
12 July 2014 

















Technology without Technology in unexpected places

In September I attended the very interesting Live Coding and Collaboration Symposium in Birmingham, organized by Live Code Research Network. Presentations were given by Tom Hall on live digital notation, Scott Wilson and Norah Lorway on live coding networked music, Alex McLean on collaboration, André Damião on streaming objects, Pam Burnard, Franziska Florak, Alan Blackwell and Sam Aaron of the Sonic Pi research project, and Sang Won Lee on models of networked live coding. 

Photo: Susanne Palzer

Especially enjoyable for OPEN PLATFORM were the live sessions on live coding without computers - a playful and unexpected experience in the context of the symposium.

Alex McLeans' 'Reflections on live coding collaborations' can be found here.

Technology without Technology worldwide

OPEN PLATFORM has started a collection of #TwTworldwide. Look out for the hashtag on Twitter! Here is a recent gem: 

We look forward to seeing you at a rebooted OPEN PLATFORM event in 2015! 
Enjoy the randomness!

TwT.network news

Alex McLean/Susanne Palzer - 'On-gaku'/work in progress

We, Alex McLean and Susanne Palzer, are presenting a preview of our new live coding experiment 'On-gaku' at "In the Courtyard" - a fundraising event by Bloc Projects, Sheffield - this Saturday, 6.35pm.

Our first collaboration at OPEN PLATFORM_4 explored "binary transmission" through the act of stepping on and off a platform (Palzer) and knitting (McLean). With 'On-gaku' we are building upon this work by presenting a new audio-visual connection between our performance and live coding practices.

Alex will also later live code some music for barbecues, in the algorave style if the mood is right!

"In the courtyard"
Saturday, 12 July 2014, 5-9pm

Bloc Projects
71 Eyre Lane
Sheffield
S1 4RB

The Facebook event is here.

With thanks to John X. Moseley for additional technical support.

OPEN PLATFORM_4 06 December 2013 - Performances

RAP(s)- Random Access Performance(s) - TwT.codemehappy

Alex McLean/Susanne Palzer - Binary Transmission

OPEN PLATFORM/RAP: Alex McLean/Susanne Palzer

Binary Transmission

Timelapse Still: Susanne Palzer

OPEN PLATFORM_4 opens with a collaborative experiment in live coding without electricity. For the duration of 10 minutes Alex McLean transcodes every step of my binary on/off movements into a knit or pearl and produces a piece of fabric which represents the live performance. To allow for the 'human transcoding' by knitting I perform a slowed down version of a performance piece in which I step on and off a platform. 

OPEN PLATFORM/RAP: Alex McLean/Susanne Palzer

Binary Transmission

HDV Still: John X. Moseley/Susanne Palzer

The collaboration brings together elements of Alex' ongoing research into 'the binding of analogue and digital forms in the context of computer programming' and my current practice of investigating into the fusion of digital technology and physical performance. On/Off is a series of performances which explore the intersection between performance and technology by deconstruction.

Some thoughts on Alex McLean's 'knitting metaphor' can be found here.






Eddy Dreadnought - Motherboard

OPEN PLATFORM/RAP: Eddy Dreadnought

Motherboard

Timelapse Still: Susanne Palzer

Next on the platform is Eddy Dreadnought presenting a spoken piece. Apparently drawing on his "complete lack of knowledge" of how computers work he reads us an enlightening story about silicon. 'Motherboard' follows on from 'Embryonic Thought' which he performed at Manchester Science Festival in November.

OPEN PLATFORM/RAP: Eddy Dreadnought

Motherboard

HDV Still: Susanne Palzer

Here is an excerpt from 'Motherboard':

"... First message: 'the silicon words become strange, scarce even one dimension flat. Taut as any rim-shot, unimaginably compressed, forever saved as the last sedimentary gills of fossils.'

Message two: 'silicon language is spelled in letters, but also numbers and algebra, punctuation symbols and symbols from keyboards like percentiles and money, and symbols from playing cards and from any alphabet, Arabic, Armenian, Cyrillic, Greek. And it has words for breathing, and pauses and stress, and the inscrutable intonations of Mandarin. And sometimes passages of volatile bits, its cells of zero and one, hoop and stick, all clicking like the consonants of Africa. And sometimes silicon language is in colour, and sometimes hovers over the screen as spatial as the helter-skelter of DNA'.

Message three: 'silicon cannot understand the kaleidoscopic ambiguity of our mother tongue, so talks in obsessively precise circles to avoid mistakes and shut out background. and its words are imperative because silicon has no common sense. It is at once retarded and advanced, concrete and mercurial. And unable to read eyes or bodies.'

The final message: 'the best silicon languages, though stripped of metaphor, can put into words inexpressible ideas, to become poetry. Recursively rhythmic like music or perseverating like Gertrude Stein. Esoteric languages whose vocabulary is the white space between words, or the movement between twenty modernist colours. or squares of cells like Vermeer chequerboard tiles.' ..."  

Kate Sicchio/Susanne Palzer - Asynchronous Transmission 
   

OPEN PLATFORM/RAP: Kate Sicchio/Susanne Palzer

Asynchronous Transmission

Timelapse Still: Susanne Palzer

Shortly after Eddy's performance a strange packet arrives and completes an asynchronous transmission from New York! Over the duration of four weeks, and based on a digital transmission that uses 'packet switching', Kate Sicchio sent several 'coded packets' by post from across the Atlantic to different recipients in Sheffield. All have brought their 'packets' with them to OPEN PLATFORM_4. Now a 'terminal' has to be 'unzipped' and placed on the platform. The 'packets' are being 'switched' between audience members, then assembled together in the correct order and finally 'presented at the terminal'. Contained within the 'packets' are cards with binary code on one side and a corresponding letter on the other. Once all cards are in place on the 'receiving terminal' the message is revealed: "Hello World"!

OPEN PLATFORM/RAP: Kate Sicchio/Susanne Palzer

Asynchronous Transmission

Timelapse Still: Susanne Palzer

We are currently developing OPEN PLATFORM/RAP(s)-TwT. into a mobile platform and our intention is to build a digital network with physical means. Asynchronous Transmission was conceived and devised in dialogue with choreographer Kate Sicchio exploring the possibilities for remote performances without live transmission.

A brief technical description of 'asynchronous transmission' can be found here.








Brian G. Gilson - if-then 

OPEN PLATFORM/RAP: Brian G. Gilson

if-then

Timelapse Still: Susanne Palzer

Straying slightly from his usual practice, which involves performance and the use of Processing and Csound, Brian G. Gilson performs a poem for his first appearance at OPEN PLATFORM: 'if-then' is an entertaining and clever simulation of a sonnet written using a two state cellular automaton. 












Jake Harries - Living the Spam I 

OPEN PLATFORM/RAP: Jake Harries

Living the Spam I

Timelapse Still: Susanne Palzer

With tinsel, santa hat, western union forms and a guitar Jake Harries brings festive spirit to OPEN PLATFORM_4. An expert in 'living the spam' he updates us on his latest romantic adventures and closes the event sharing his pre-Christmas joy!














OPEN PLATFORM_5  will take place on Friday, 04 April 2014 at Access Space. OPEN PLATFORM is an ongoing open call. If you are interested in taking part/performing at a future event please email Susanne or Jake.