Music 1

4 women, 12 legs.

120 DEN!

Tina Tonagel – Damendekobein
Conny Crumbach – Damenstrumpfbein
Gesine Grundmann – Schaufensterbein
Britta Fehrmann – Schaufensterpuppenbein

About 120 DEN

The Cologne based ladies‘ quartet 120 DEN, founded in 2019, plays with modified mannequin legs, which become independent electronic instruments through guitar strings, contact microphones and built-in synthesizer elements.

The resulting sounds range from subtle caresses to overflowing tapestries of sound, to knee-jerked death metal passages and conceptual electronic textures. The experimental leg sound is of course also supported orally.

The down-to-earth feminine performance moves on a large scale, incidentally referring to the background of the subtle numbering and giving Rosa Luxemburg a leg up: a spectacular stage show for a wide audience!

The unit denier (DEN, symbol Td) is defined as follows: 1 den = 1 gram per 9000 meters. Thus, for a filament yarn, 15 denier = 15g : 9000 m, 1 tex corresponds to 9 denier.

The lower the DEN number, the more transparent and fine the product is. The higher the number, the more opaque the stocking is. Pantyhose with only 8 DEN are just a hint and particularly finely worked. Opaque are fine stockings with 50 DEN or more, through which no skin shimmers. 120 DEN are therefore opaque and with the number 120 also refer to the noise character of the musical output: at 120 decibels is the pain threshold of the human ear.

To sum up:
1 tex = 9 DEN tex ⋅Nm = 1000 254 ⋅N e B ≈ 150 ⋅N m
254 ⋅N e L ≈ 420 ⋅N m
120 DEN = 13.333333333 tex!

article download:

Instruments on Instruments or How to Train Your Third Leg

Mannequin legs as feminist musical interfaces

We use selfconstructed mannequin legs as instruments. Each leg has an inbuilt arduino-based synthesizer/ soundgenerator with 6 potentiometers which control frequenz, oszillator, filter, volume and modulation.

The prototype is only using an arduino nano and MOZZi library, but we are busy with building the next leg level, it will be with teensy and teensy audio shield, so we can also use samples and a larger scale of sound effects. Furthermore we want to install different effect devices (distorsion, tremolo etc.) directy into the leg. They will be connected with patch cables (as a funny reference to modular synthesizers).

The guitar string can be tuned with a guitar machine and is amplified with a single coil pick up. The integrated piezo contact microfone amplifies every sound we play directly on the leg, for example stroking the leg or blowing into it.

Guitar-string and piezo are amplified with a small lm386 audio amplifier (inside the leg). A switch selects which source is active and one potentiometer controls the volume.

The arduino soundmodule don’t need a seperate amp and can be played simultaneous to guitar or piezo, but also independent. There’s one output, 6,3mm Jack.

Knotting the memory//Encoding the khipu_

Laddy Patricia Cadavid H.
Interface Cultures – Kunstuniversität Linz

The khipu is an information processing and transmission device used mainly by the Inca empire and previous Andean societies. The word comes from the kichwa1 language [khipu] which means knot. This mnemotechnic interface, is one of the first textile computers known, consisting of a central wool or cotton cord to which other strings are attached with knots of different shapes, colors, and sizes encrypting different kinds of values and information. The system was widely used until the Spanish colonization that banned their use and destroyed a large number of these devices [1].

In the performance, the interface is reused as a NIME using new materials in an electronic khipu, paying homage to this device with the convert into an instrument for the interaction and generation of live experimental sound.

Through the weaving of knots, the artist takes the position of a contemporary “khipukamayuq”(who was the person dedicated to knot the khipu) [2] seeking, from a decolonial perspective to encode with the touch, the gestures and the different kinds of knots, the interrupted legacy of this ancestral practice in a different experience of tangible live coding and computer music, as well as weave the past with the present of the indigenous and people resistance of the Andean territory with their sounds.

Zipper Music

By Judith Shatin
Max programming by Maxwell Tfirn

Zipper Music is scored for 2 amplified zipper players with interactive electronics performed by a MIDI controller operator. It forms part of my Quotidian Music series, embodying the musicality afforded by everyday sounds, and performable by ‘everyday’ people, without requiring traditional musical training. Each zipper has a distinctive timbre, depending on material and length, as well as the fabric to which it is sewn. The zipper players are amplified and the sound of each is sent to a laptop. Next, their sound is either transformed using a MIDI controller, or sent through untouched, to stereo speakers. Coomposer Max Tfirm developed the original Max patch in consultation with me, with some additional changes by Alex Christie. The piece can be thought of as a dialogue, where the actors may be in sync or not; may try to convince one another, interrupt one another, or even talk over one another. Ultimately, they agree.

This version is for 2 amplified zipper players and 2 MIDI controllers and was premiered by the University of Virginia New Music Ensemble with Danielle Zevitz and Tianyu Zhang as zipper players, and Alex Christie and Travis Thatcher on MIDI controllers. The duration is 8:00, a minute longer than your requested duration; the structure was built around this time frame.

NIME_2020_Music

Qin

Chi Wang, Indiana University

Qin is a real-time interactive composition of approximately eight minutes in duration for two custom-made performance control interfaces, custom software created in Max, and Kyma. Qin is a special symbol in Chinese culture and literature that is associated with delicacy, elegance, confidence, power, eloquence, and longing for communication. The symbol Qin appears in literature as early as the time that the Book of Songs was collected. Qin is also a Chinese instrument. Qin has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favored by scholars and appeared in literature as an instrument associated with the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. In my composition Qin, I took as inspiration the shape of the original Qin instrument and mapped some of the traditional functions on to my custom-made performance interface, replacing the traditional Qin performance techniques with newly developed techniques that draw the desired data from the controllers.

String Song (2019) for amplified prepared kinetic sculpture and live electronics

Aurie Hsu

String Song (2019) is a guided improvisation (4’30”) for prepared kinetic sculpture and live electronics.  The kinetic sculpture is a collaboration between Aurie Hsu and sound artist, Kyle Hartzell.  The sculpture integrates design elements of a violin, erhu (Chinese “spike fiddle”), and a hurdy gurdy in using motorized gears to draw a bowing mechanism across the strings.  The instrument also features two sets of sympathetic strings to augment the registral range and resonance of the instrument.  The various ways of playing the instrument – plucking, using a metal slide across the strings, actuating the sympathetic strings, mechanical bowing, and physically altering the bow pressure – serve as a sound source for live electronics that further expand the instrument.  This project was made possible by Grant-In-Aid funding from the Oberlin Conservatory.  Please note this is a performance at the 2019 NJDAC concert at Rutgers University as I was sadly apart from the instrument starting in March 2020.