"7 levels of awareness II" 

Reactive Ensemble feat. OP:____

17/03/23 |16:00 | Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg

PROGRAM:

Alvin Lucier - “Music for Solo Performer” (1965) for enormous amplified brainwaves and percussions

Fernando Munizaga - “Une voix persiste au travers” (2016) for soprano and electronics*

Pauline Oliveros - “The wheel of life” (1979) group meditations.

Fernando Munizaga - “Auscultaciones” (2022)  for two amplified voices, transducers, percussion instruments and electronics. 

David Rosenboom - Study for On Being Invisible (1976-77) for synths & EEG

Remmy Canedo - I don't know what. I feel anymore (2022) for EKG & multimedia.

Richard Teitelbaum – Spacecraft (1967) for 5 musicians, reeds, synths, EKG, EEG & transducers**

"7 levels of awareness II" is a blended program, an extended event with a hybrid format between concert and participatory installation, focusing on bio-signal driven art, also known as biofeedback art. The key concept of biofeedback is to provide visual or audible feedback of a specific physiological activity in order to become aware of it. The goal of biofeedback is to reach a level of consciousness that allows us to intentionally manipulate our body systems. In the artistic context, biofeedback is used to generate and control these impulses according to the ability of the performer. This opens up a new dimension for artists, based on the intertwining of inner and outer relationships, which lead to new experiences of a dynamic world through a deepening of self-awareness. In this sense, the artwork uses consciousness as a relational process, were experimenting with oneself opens up new ways of exploring and understanding one's environment.

The program consists of seven pieces exploring different approaches to how physiological functions of one's body can be used in artistic practices, for example in "Music for Solo Performer" (one of the first pieces for biofeedback) a performer plays multiple percussion instruments through the generation of Alpha waves using EEG in real time. Using a multilingual text created by the poet Irène Gayraud (and translated by the Outranspo group), in “Une voix persiste au travers”, Munizaga works on the amplification of the micro-phenomena that occur in the singer's throat, when she reads the text in different languages (thanks to the use of various types of microphones, including a laryngophone) and their electronic processing in real time,

In Teitelbaum's "Spacecraft" a new interpretation is performed by 3 musicians guided into collective consciousness, merging the many into the One. In "Auscultaciones”, the speech apparatus of interpreters is explored with the help of various technical devices. Starting from the isolated sounds of the mouth and larynx of the performers, a spatialization of this material is also developed in the concert hall, where the microscopic vocal functions of both become massively audible, surrounding the public, through various types of amplification. “Study for On Being Invisible” takes a different approach with a self-organizing form of music. Here Rosenboom uses EEG, synthesizers and a dynamic system to create a work in constant flux rather than a fixed composition. The hybrid concert-installation "I don't know what. I feel anymore" examines the concept of sympathetic resonance from a biological perspective, where performers participate with their heartbeat through EKG sensors.

Since most of these works are conceived as evolutive processes with an undefined duration, the whole program is designed as a concert installation. It focuses on the phenomenology of the temporal and spatial relationship expressed through music, pushing the boundaries of the traditional concert format.

This program is dedicated to Alvin Lucier (5/14/31 - 12/1/21), pioneer of biofeedback music.