Hi all,
Thought I'd share a couple of simple techniques I've developed lately..
Firstly I have realised through collaboration with Hester Reeve that
the posture and fixated stare of a programmer at work is quite
intense. For this reason I now think projecting the screen is not
important due to lack of presence, but is important because the
audience will naturally get frustrated if they can't see what is being
stared at.
Relatedly, I have embraced the wireless keyboard and started using the
projection as my primary screen. This means I can move between
speakers while setting up juxtapositions, and sit within the audience.
The first time this felt a bit awkward, so I used the wireless
keyboard every day for a while as my main keyboard until my fingers
were used to it. This isn't a rejection of the laptop though, I still
might return to it from time to time during a performance.
I've started making even more repetitive music (cf
http://yaxu.org/smoothdirt-programme-notes/) , which makes timekeeping
really difficult, as its easy to loose track of time. I ended up
doing an 8 minute performance when I meant to do 20.. Rather than
clock watching, at the BEAM festival I ended up asking the sound
engineer to cut the sound at the right time, when the music felt like
it was peaking (rather than coming to an end). This allowed some
extra focus I think. Here's the recording, a minimal set (due to lack
of Dave+Ade), but had fun with the bass bin:
http://soundcloud.com/yaxu/live-beam-2012
Cheers,
alex
Received on Tue Jun 26 2012 - 09:12:37 BST