Cybernetic Improvisation

Audio Essay

Improvising with machines. Listen to an audio essay featuring Brenna Murphy and Birch Cooper from the duo MSHR, in which they discuss their sound installation at Klangmoorschopfe 2023 based on a cybernetic feedback system.

Then it was the future, though what’s arrived
isn’t what we had in mind, all chrome
and cybernetics, when we set up exhibits
in the cafeteria for the judges
to review what we’d made of our hypotheses.
[…]
(Hawthorne 1994)

List of References

Hawthorne, Alison Deming. 1994. Science and Other Poems. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.

This audio essay was created by the musician, writer, and Norient editor Philipp Rhensius aka Alienationist in autumn 2023 at Klang Moor Schopfe 2023. Each piece features conversations with (and sounds by) the artists and their installations, merged with Rhensius’ own compositions, field recordings, and poetry. To open a speculative realm, each piece is assigned to a poem.

Biography

Philipp Rhensius is an editor for Norient, writer, musician, sound artist, sociologist & musicologist, and curator from Berlin. His work investigates the connections between the micro- and macro-political and is driven by the idea that «feeling the chains» is the moment when emancipation begins. His music and sound art projects (Kl.ne, aphtc, Alienationst) merge sonic fiction with sardonic poetry and visceral sound. His texts are published in i.e. Taz, Spex, FAZ, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, WOZ and several book volumes. He runs the music label Arcane Patterns and hosts a monthly podcast on Noods Radio. Follow him on Instagram, his Website, or LinkedIn.

Biography

MSHR is an art collective that builds and explores sculptural electronic systems. Their practice is a self-transforming entity with its outputs patched into its inputs, expressing its form through interactive installations, virtual environments and live improvisations. MSHR was established in 2011 in Portland, Oregon by Brenna Murphy and Birch Cooper. Their name is a modular acronym, designed to hold varied ideas over time.

Published on October 09, 2023

Last updated on March 26, 2024

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Knowing Your Tools

Podcast

by Philipp Rhensius,

Ioana Vreme Moser

How can old technologies be reactivated? In her work at Klang Moor Schopfe 2023, the sound artist Ioana Vreme Moser lets the supposedly obsolete fluidics interact with current electronic components to develop a more sustainable future. Listen to her vision in this short podcast.

Directions: For each pair of sentences, circle the letter, a or b, that best expresses your viewpoint. Make a selection from each pair. Do not omit any items.

1. a) The body and the material things of the world are the key to any knowledge we can possess.
    b) Knowledge is only possible by means of the mind or psyche.

2. a) My life is largely controlled by luck and chance.
    b) I can determine the basic course of my life.

3. a) Nature is indifferent to human needs.
    b) Nature has some purpose, even if obscure.

4. a) I can understand the world to a sufficient extent.
    b) The world is basically baffling.

(Bernstein 2007)

List of References

Bernstein, Charles. 2007. Girly Man. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Biography

Ioana Vreme Moser (b. 1994) is a Romanian sound artist engaged with hardware electronics, speculative research, and tactile experimentation. In her practice, she uses rough electronic processes to obtain different materialities of sound. She places electronic components and control voltages in different situations of interaction with her body, organic materials, lost and found items, and environmental stimuli. From these collisions, synthesized sounds emerge to carry personal narrations and observations on the history of electronics, their production chains, wastelands, and entanglements in the natural world.

Published on November 01, 2023

Last updated on March 11, 2024

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Accompanied by Physics

Audio Essay

by Philipp Rhensius,

Andi Otto

How does wood sound? This is one of the questions in Andi Otto’s interactive sound installation at Klang Moor Schopfe 2023. Listen to an audio essay in which he discusses his way of relating to the environment with sound.

A wind sways the pines,
And below
Not a breath of wild air;
Still as the mosses that glow
On the flooring and over the lines
Of the roots here and there.
(Meredith 2023)

List of References

Merdedith, George. 2023. «Dirge in Woods». Poetry Magazine.

Biography

Andi Otto is a composer, performer, and DJ of electronic music. He plays a self-built sensor-extended cello bow called Fello.

Published on September 23, 2023

Last updated on April 02, 2024

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Encounter

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Listening

Sound

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