Interactive

In recent years I’ve started making sonic and music works that involve interaction — sounds, images and/or texts changing in response to the performer’s interaction, and also in relation to each other. At present I’m more interested in doing this in relatively simple ways, not through visible or (sometimes) obtrusive interface. I also write interactive works, what’s sometimes called e-literature or digital writing, where the reader interacts with the text or sounds, online.

A walk I do

Composed for Carla Rees (Kingma system alto flute), with support from the Britten-Pears Foundation and first performed at The Forge, London in May 2016. Like my other recent works. A walk I do is a composed work that combines instrumental performance with live audio and text processing. In this case I asked Carla to send me an informal description of a favourite walk, which I used as found material. As in another similar piece, Paul’s walk, originally written for clarinetist Paul Roe, the text itself is not so important as the fact that in describing, a person conveys their relationship to place, and the way we all relate to our environment through personal memory and experiences.

Download the app (contains score and info) and important installation notes [64bit app, only runs on Mac OS] You need an audio interface and dual display/projection to perform the piece but can test it without these]. Have a look at the score.

Last tested, May 2017. Please note that the app is no longer updated and may not work on newer OSX (> 10.9). I’ve reached the point where it’s too hard to keep doing major recoding. Might update it one day.

Here’s a screen movie (for audition/viewing purposes only)

A walk I do was made in Openframeworks (visuals) and puredata (audio) although the final software interface is packaged as a standalone mac osx app. Although written for specific performers initially, all my recent works are designed to be adaptable to other instrumentations and performable with software that requires minimal technical knowledge. Get in touch if you’re interested in discussing a version.

Paul’s Walk

for performer(s), live text and audio processing. Text by Paul Roe. First performance (original version), Up Close With Music, Concorde Ensemble, Dublin April 2015.

Paul’s Walk is a semi-improvisatory live work. It can be performed by any instrument (or two, sharing the part) but probably works best for sustaining instruments (e.g. woodwind or strings). This screen movie is of an older version. Paul’s Walk version 2: updated 2017 – download here: score / app (Mac OSX) / performance instructions

Paul’s Walk from novamara on Vimeo.

To try it out all you need to do is download the score and app, and use headphones and the mac’s internal microphone.

Last tested, May 2017. Please note that the app required for this work is no longer updated and will not work on newer OSX (> 10.9). I’ve reached the point where it’s too hard to keep doing major recoding. Code is archived (was originally made in Openframeworks/pd and ran as a Mac app).

Lately I’ve been making interactive or ‘responsive’ pieces that are a mix of music, text and sound, on themes to do with place – what it means and how it feels to walk and be in a landscape. This piece was originally composed for clarinetist Paul Roe. The words are taken from Paul’s informal description of a favourite walk, Upper lake at Glendalough in Co. Wicklow – a walk he says he ‘truly loves’.

Bees and broom

[This piece is quite old, you might find it doesn’t work in all browsers, or at least not without installing Flash and Jsynth plugins]

For a few years we lived on Pender Island, off the coast of British Columbia. Yellow broom, and invasive plant, was everywhere, and regarded by many as an unwanted, destructive presence. But not by all …

Bees and broom (2004) is a little piece of interactive online writing that contains a hidden game. It was my first venture into digital writing and uses Flash and Jsynth (for the game). You’ll need the sound up.

Here and there

Here and there (2006) is a small piece of interactive digital writing. For several years I lived on Pender Island, off the coast of British Columbia. At night it was truly dark, and the moon and stars were the only lights. Like the moths, we relied on both for nocturnal navigation. For a period, life was very different and our guidance systems changed … in some ways, forever.

Island Windrose

Island Windrose was made in 2006, while I was living on an island off West Coast Canada. There were frequent windstorms, during which the trees would sway, and often come down, and we would be without electricity for hours, sometimes days.

This flash-based interactive writing piece is a small allegory about life, death, and precarious conditions. Turn up the sound.
– [quite old – some online features may not work]

Making Place

Making Place

Here, setting out alone,
feet heavy in the clay,
travel seems a blind cacophony
replete with ancient allegories.
read full text

Scroll down to download materials and for more info.

Making Place is a poetic exploration of place, and place making, for one or two performers and live interactive processing of animation, text and audio. It can be performed by any instrument capable of realising a version of the semi-improvisatory score.

click to: DOWNLOAD MATERIALS AND INFO (64bit Mac OSX app, score etc). Please feel free to experiment – or get in touch.

As of 2016 the performer uses the score in conjunction with a mac app (OSX) that can be preloaded with the performer’s choice of field recordings and images. You are encouraged to incorporate your own images and recorded sounds.There are currently score versions for piano solo, piano duo, violin solo, violin and ‘cello, and ‘cello solo, but almost any pitched instrument could interpret the score.

Making Place was commissioned by Kate Halsall with funds from the Arts Council of England and the Britten Pears Foundation. First performance, Sonorities festival, Belfast, April 2013 (one piano version).Other performances Falmouth University, Cornwall, May 2013 (two pianos – Kate Halsall, Fumiko Miyachi), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (Kate Halsall), New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2015 (violin, Maja Cerar), International Computer Music Conference Athens, ZKM Karlsruhe (piano, Sebastian Berweck), Mannes College, New School NYC (piano, Daniel Schreiner), Banff Centre (Kate Halsall).

Window (for John Cage)

Life, and sound and music, go on — in all kinds of weather.
But everything is worth a listen.

An interactive sound essay about listening and everyday experience.

Turn up the sound and listen.

Winner, New Media Writing Prize (2012). Selected by the Electronic Literature Organization for inclusion in ELC 3 (2015).

The original online version dates from 2012 and may not work in all browsers (as of 2019 worked in Chrome). The apps are no longer updated and are not guaranteed to work.