ICMC/25/d1/1930 Concert n04/04 Five Elements with Somax2

• Five Elements, a Co-improvisation with Somax2

  • My Notes
    • They are both on stage beneath the screen
    • visuals have some swirling space-looking nebulae and wormholes with random videos of tribes
    • lots of extended techniques in the flute become blurry, kindly, harsh gristle
    • some moments of coolness and thrumming gliss
    • this feels more like program music with the visuals like this
    • there's a blue planet being envelloped by a large wave, then another planet spinning in blue clouds
    • he is waving his hand and controlling it somehow, this is a bit more like the performer Person/Pavlos Antoniadis's ICMC/25/d1/1930 Concert n04/02 - For Cixin Liu.
  • composers and performers

    • Person/Cassia Bomfim
      • 

        
        Cássia Carrascoza Bomfim is a Brazilian flutist, educator, and researcher with an international career in classical music and networked arts. She is a professor in the Department of Music at the University of São Paulo (USP), where she actively promotes Brazilian contemporary music and explores the integration of technology into musical performance. From 1999 to 2018, she served as principal flutist of the São Paulo Municipal Theater Symphony Orchestra. Her performance career has included appearances in countries such as Hungary, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Belgium, the United States, Argentina, and China. Carrascoza’s current academic and artistic work centers on collaborative composition, telematic audiovisual performance, and improvisation involving electronic media and artificial intelligence. She currently serves as Director of the USP Symphony Orchestra (OSUSP).
        

    • Person/Mikhail Malt
      • 
      • Mikhail Malt – With a dual scientific and musical background in engineering, composition and conducting, Mikhail Malt began his musical career in Brazil as a flautist and conductor. He is the author of a thesis in musicology, at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, on the use of mathematical models in computer-assisted composition, as well as an HDR (Habilitation à diriger des recherches). He was an associate professor at the Sorbonne Paris IV from 2006 to 2012, and a lecturer in computer music at the pedagogical department of Ircam, Paris-France until 2021. He is currently composer in research in the Musical Representations team at Ircam and a research associate at iReMus-Sorbonne in Paris. Furthermore, he pursues his creative and research activities on generative music, creative systems, the epistemology of representation and different listening strategies.
  • description

    • Our artistic research is conducted in a telematic environment, with Mikhail based in France and Cássia Carrascoza in Brazil. This geographic separation enables us to explore sonic and visual elements specific to virtual space. The project investigates key concepts in telematics, such as sound space and the creation of virtual stage elements, while experimenting with binaural formats (SPAT), real-time electronic synthesis, and telematic interaction mediated by AI and machine learning tools like SOMAX2. We also work with computer agents to construct musical narratives in real time.

      
      Central to our creative process are collaborative listening, emotional response, and improvisation. In adapting our telematic performances for in-person settings, we preserve their poetic structure. Our work is inspired by Tibetan/Bön cosmology, which views the universe as composed of five elements—space, air, fire, water, and earth—each shaping the material and phenomenal worlds. We select musical and visual materials to reflectively engage with these elements.
      
      Performances unfold as improvisations within a pre-structured poetic-musical narrative, incorporating excerpts of canonical works, original recordings, flute, percussion, voice, and environmental soundscapes. The video component includes two layers: one generated by AI, the other featuring Brazilian landscapes that evoke the five elements. The narrative bridges virtual and natural realms through imagery of Amazonian Indigenous peoples, the Rio Negro, the boto cor-de-rosa, and central Brazilian landscapes. The final section expands into AI-generated landscapes, merging reality with imaginative constructs. We employ a system developed by Guilherme Zanchetta using TouchDesigner software, specifically designed for audiovisual performance. This system enables real-time control over video transitions, responding dynamically to sensory stimuli. It avoids repetitive sequencing and enhances visual variation in accordance with the performer’s actions.
      
      Cássia Carrascoza – Flute improvising
      Mikhail Malt – Performance improvising, Somax2, Spat
      Excerpts employed in Somax2 (corpus)
      Pauline Oliveros – Sound Patterns (1961)
      Different Breathing Patterns, Recorded at IRCAM
      Mario Davidovsky – Synchronism No. 1 (1962) for flute and pre-recorded electronic sounds.
      Bülent Arel – Electronic Music No. 1 (1962)
      Flute Whistletones, Recordings
      György Ligeti – Glissandi (1957)
      BowHeadWale Recordings from “Watkins Collection of Marine Mammal Sound Recordings, Australia”
      Flute Pizzicato, Staccato, and Other Articulations, Recordings
      Nana Vasconcelos, Berimbau Performance, Africadeus (1973)