Osaka Expo '70: The promise and reality of a spherical sound stage

The West German pavilion at the 1970 World's Fair in Osaka included a spherical auditorium with sound and lighting technology designed at the TU Berlin. Stockhausen's music was played live by a group of musicians every day of the Expo, alongside pre-recorded music of Boris Blacher, Erhard Groß kopf, Eberhard Schoener, Gerd Zacher and Bernd Alois Zimmermann. This paper uses technical designs, interviews, sketches, and correspondence to illuminate the experiences of this project from different perspectives and to connect Stockhausen's theory and practice of using space as a compositional element with the practical realities afforded by the auditorium and the technology used in its design

Orchid House - world of sounds: Sound from around the world, between 3 am and 6 am

8 channel sound installation as part of Dee Isaacs' opera for children "Watching" at the Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh

Separation/Integration

This programme is built around David C Johnson’s 4-channel tape piece Telefun, realised in the WDR Studio for Electronic Music, Cologne. Gemini 8 is a new work by Sean Williams for Grey Area based on NASA's Gemini missions of the 1960s which paved the way for the Apollo missions to the moon. Gemini 8, piloted by Neil Armstrong, was the first manned space mission in which two spacecraft, launched an hour and a half apart, successfully docked with one another, although not without almost catastrophic problems and the forced aborting of the mission. This was the practical application of technology that was going on outside the studio whilst others were toiling away, crafting some of the finest electronic music made to date. Gemini 8 is a structured improvisation, so aside from this structure, equal creative input is given by each player. David C Johnson occupies a rare position in 20th Century music history, having worked with many composers and musicians from Lachenmann to avant rock band Can. From 1966-1970 he worked at the WDR Studios for Electronic Music in Cologne, assisting Karlheinz Stockhausen with the realisation of Hymnen and other works, and was one of the musicians who performed for 6 months in the West German pavilion of the 1970 World's Fair in Osaka. In 1970 during the World’s Fair in Osaka, Johnson, along with Rolf Gehlhaar and Johannes Fritsch separated from Stockhausen to set up the Feedback Studio out of which a wide range of innovative music practices and research flourished, including more open ideas about the role of the composer, especially in sound art and more cybernetic audio practices. Telefun was composed and realised during a break in the realisation of Hymnen when Stockhausen was in Tokyo creating Telemusik. The piece allows for a number of interruptions, the first of which will be: Toccatina by Helmut Lachenmann, performed by Emma Lloyd, is a short study for solo violin. The piece explores some of the more peculiar sounds in the violin’s timbral range, including notes played with the screw of the bow and sounds made by bowing the tail-piece, bridge, tuning pegs and scroll. Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XVI was written for piano or synthesizer as a scene from Friday from the Licht operas and is our second interruption to Johnson’s Telefun. Simon Smith plays his own realisation for synthesizer and is accompanied by the 4-channel tape version. PIANO PIECE XVI does not demand virtuosity, but rather, imagination and a sense of humour. It is up to the pianist to decide how many and which notes of the tape he (she) synchronously plays. At a given moment, there are many different possibilities. Our third interruption is a realisation of Yoko Ono’s 1963 Tape Piece III: Snow Piece: Take a tape of the sound of the snow falling. This should be done in the evening. Do not listen to the tape. Cut it and use it as strings to tie gifts with. Make a gift wrapper, if you wish, using the same process with a phonosheet. ©Copyright Yoko Ono 1964 I started trying to realise this piece in November 2010 but my tape machine got stuck in a lift overnight as I was moving it to get near a window. It didn’t snow again in the evening that winter. I had better luck the following winter where it snowed over a couple of days, and I was luckier with my tape machine that time. Although two private gifts have been given so far, this is the first public realisation of this piece. After the final part of Telefun, we’ll have an interval, and after that… Unlimited was written by Stockhausen in 1968 as part of the Aus den Sieben Tagen text pieces and was performed by the ensemble on various occasions. Separation from Mary Bauermeister triggered the crisis that was the backdrop for the composition of these text pieces. Questions of distributed creativity and the roles of interpretation and performance surrounding these text-based works contributed to the separation of Gehlhaar, Fritsch and Johnson from Stockhausen's ensemble to form the Feedback Studio in 1970. This piece can last for a very long time... Sean Williams, April 2014 Contributors: Simon Smith – synthesizer Grey Area: Nikki Moran - viola Emma Lloyd - violin Owen Green - bowed box Armin Sturm - double bass Shiori Usui - piano frame and voice Sean Williams - synthesizer and sound projectio

"Kontakte - electronic music" sound projection

A performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Kontakte" for four channel tape, using historic sound projection techniques

Disruptive Strategies for Removing Drug Discovery Bottlenecks

Drug Discovery is shifting focus from the industry to outside partners and in the process creating new bottlenecks, suggesting the need for a more disruptive overhaul. Technologies like high throughput screening (HTS) have moved to a larger number of academic and institutional laboratories in the US, with little apparent coordination or consideration of the outputs and creating a translational gap. While there have been collaborative public private partnerships in Europe to share pharmaceutical data, the USA has lagged behind. Sharing precompetitive computational models may be the next frontier to provide more confidence in the quality of the leads produced and attract investment. We suggest there needs to be an awareness of what research is going on in the screening centers, more collaboration and coordination. These efforts will shift the focus to finding the best researchers to fund and require a rethink of how to reward their collaborative efforts

Ligeti and Stockhausen: A concert of piano and electronics works from the 195

I curated a concert of piano and electronics pieces including the premiere of my new realisation of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Studie II.

<i>Kontakte</i> with piano and percussion

I designed and carried out performance of the Sound Projection for a public performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Kontakte" with piano and percussion, featuring Nicolas Hodges on piano and Colin Currie on percussion at the Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow City Halls

Examining the Effects of Disabilities on VR Usage and Accessibility Issues for Persons with Disabilities

Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging technology that’s popularity has been increasing at a yearly rate. Despite this, concerns about the accessibility of VR devices are ever-growing as many users struggle to use the technology, especially users with disabilities. This study analyses how different types of disabilities affect how often a user uses VR and any associated re-occurring difficulties that are related to specific types of disability. To do this, a previous survey regarding VR accessibility run by Disability Visibility Project and ILMxLAB is examined. In this survey, 79 participants who identify as having a disability answered questions related to their experience of using VR. In this study, the results from the survey are sorted into six different categories representing their types of disability (Visual, Auditory, Lower body, Upper body, Hands, Cognitive). Using a mixed methodology, the data from the survey is tested using logistic regression – to test the relationship between disability and usage, while content analysis is used to examine specific difficulties the participants wrote about in the open-ended questions. Results showed that participants with a visual disability were 90% less likely to use VR at least once a month when compared to users with motor, auditory or cognitive disabilities. No correlation could be confirmed between the other five categories and VR usage. Also highlighted were 25 difficulties that appeared in three or more participants’ open-ended question responses. These difficulties highlight barriers that people with disabilities regularly face (such as not being able to stand, read text or require subtitles) which should be considered in VR development to make the technology more accessible