25th May 2007
CV Russell Richards
Russell Richards is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Media Arts and Society, Southampton Solent University. He is a digital artist working in installation, print, application and web production. He has written on digital aesthetics and interactivity: “An Aesthetic or Anaesthetic? Developing a Digital Aesthetics of Production”, Journal of Media Practice 5 (3) March 2005 and “Users, Interactivity and Generation” New Media and Society 8 (4). Richards’ digital artwork includes, a virtual installation ‘Memory is Made of This’; a music generator installation 'DiskO'; 'Covertor', a digital art creation application, 'Nebula' gas cloud generator and ‘Cascader’ a generative music installation.
Since December 2005, I have been involved in projects that are under the general headings of installation and performance. These developments have informed and been informed by the Hidrazone theme of ‘Performativity’. In December 2005 I premiered my Covertor concept as a live performance in Australia. This was followed in January 2006 by the premier of “Mass Production’ a joint project with Julian Konczak. ‘Mass Production’ is a Macromedia Director project in computational video and webcam sensing. In June, Mass Production was also installed at Doncaster College.
Since November 2005, Richards has been working with Maurice Owen, a sonic artist. He has experimented with inter-relating sound produced by a variety of instruments and Macromedia Director derived digital art triggered by frequency analysis. These workshops have developed into the concept of ‘KikiT’ visuosonic performance involving the data projection of images produced through the software. In July 2006 Kikit was premiered at a workshop at Southampton Solent University 12. This workshop was followed by two, well received, gigs in Sofia, Bulgaria. KikiT then performed with Nicholas Batter, trumpeter, at Grange Du Faign Gallery, Jamoigne, Belgium in October 2006 again to good reviews.
CV Maurice Owen
Maurice Owen is Professor of Fine Art and Director of the Centre for Advanced Scholarship in Art and Design, in the Faculty of Media Arts and Society, Southampton Solent University. His two main research interests are Cultural Memory and VisuoSonics.
In cultural memory he has carried out pioneering research into the relationship between ?metaphysics and perspective? in the work of the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico and its relationship to ancient Roman wall-paintings from Pompeii and Herculaneum. The research outcomes have been exhibited and published by the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Freud Museum, London.
He is also a saxophonist and has conducted sonic research in collaboration with the improvising music groups Eye and Ear Control and more recently T.I.M.E: The Improvising Musical Ensemble.
Since November 2005, Owen has been working with the digital artist Russell Richards on real-time VisuoSonic research. This has focused upon inter-relating sound produced by a variety of instruments and Macromedia Director derived digital art triggered by frequency analysis. They are particularly interested in the real-time improvisory potential created by a computational link between sonic input and image output, which has been named KikiT VisuoSonics.
In addition to workshops at Southampton Solent University and the Bulgarian Academy of Science, they have also performed KikiT VisuoSonics in various European art galleries.
Abstract
KikiT Visuosonic Art / Technology in Performance
The KikiT visuosonic research project is a live improvisation between jazz musicians and computer systems outputting visual and sonic responses to jazz musicians’ input. KikiT is described as a visuosonic performance because the musicians become in effect digital artists working directly with the visuals using their instruments in a manner akin to the way in which a painter would use a brush.
In most analogue and digital music performances that are accompanied by computer graphics the musician focuses on their performance and does not look at the visual. In the case of KikiT the musicians interact with and respond directly to the visual output. The interaction between the jazz musicians and the visual output alters in real-time; no two performances are the same. The musicians currently involved in the project are Maurice Owen, who is principally a visual artist and is also project leader, and Nicolas Batter who is a member of the Convergence quintet. The digital artist Russell Richards has devised the computational aspect of KikiT. Richards programs in Lingo in Macromedia Director creating abstract animations of remarkable beauty. For our visual sonic research project he developed a series of interactive motion graphic programs.