Trondheim EMP @ WAC 2019

Trondheim EMP Repository processing. WAC 2019. Rockheim. Trondheim, Norway. December 4, 2019.

Left to right: Øyvind Brandtsegg, Andreas Bergsland, Anna Xambó, Carl Haakon Waadeland, Trond Engum. Photo by Shreejay Shrestha @ Rockheim, Web Audio Conference 2019, Trondheim (Norway) on December 4, 2019.

Program notes

The ensemble Trondheim Electroacoustic Music Performance (EMP) investigates new modes of communication in an ensemble when new technology is introduced as part of the ensemble repertoire. In the recent three years, the focus has been on crossadaptive processing as a musical intervention in the interplay. More info on the crossadaptive project can be seen at the project blog and also the album Poke It With A Stick / Joining The Bots released in 2019. For this performance we work with a web-based repository of sounds, explored via a live coding interface named MIRLC. This allows access to a massive archive of sounds from Freesound.org, and the selection of sounds is done via sound descriptors. The integration of this instrument in an ensemble setting is interesting, as traditional and nontraditional modes of musical interaction are activated in dialogue. Using web-based access to the repository allows a generality of instrument design, and this is combined with a strategic mode of performance in this instrument. With ”strategic” we mean here, that most sounds are not performed directly by physical action, but cued up in patterns via live coding. These sounds are then live processed by other members of the ensemble, responding more directly with physical and gestural instrumental action on the signal coming from the web instrument. The signal is also live processed in a crossadaptive fashion, so that audio features extracted from other performers’ actions will modulate the parameters of processing for the web audio instrument. The ensemble also utilize gesturally based interfaces from interactive dance, here used to control elements of audio synthesis and processing.

Video


  • Brandtsegg, Ø., Xambó, A., Engum, T., Bergsland, A., Waadeland, C.H. (2019). “Trondheim EMP Repository processing”. In Proceedings of the Web Audio Conference 2019 (WAC ‘19). Trondheim, Norway. pp. 161–162.