"Seven levels of awareness"

Reactive Ensemble & Guests

25.06.22 | 19:00 | Werkstatthaus Stuttgart

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

Remmy Canedo – “Physiological Songs” (2014) for voice, biofeedback & electronics

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

Remmy Canedo – “Amniosis” (2017) for voice, violin, biofeedback & 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.

"Seven levels of awareness" 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, where 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 drummer plays multiple instruments through the generation of Alpha waves using EEG in real time. “Physiological Songs” is a post-dramatic Musiktheater in which the singer uses her organs as musical instruments to accompany her singing. In Teitelbaum's "Spacecraft" a double new interpretation is performed by 4 musicians guided into collective consciousness, merging the many into the One. Pop culture is also present in this program with the song cycle “Amniosis”, where the body signals are used to recreate the clichés of electronic music but with human 'glitches' due to the irregularity and imprecision of our impulses. “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 of Alvin Lucier (5/14/31 - 12/1/21), pioneer of biofeedback music.

with:

Nikola Lutz

Corazon de Robota

Lucas Gerin

Fernando Munizaga

Alessia Park

Natasha Lopez

Mayu Fujii

Remmy Canedo

Seven levels of awareness is part of the Stuttgarter Wissenschaftsfestival 2022

Funded by S.K.A.M. e. V., Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart, Fachbereich Wissenschaft und Hochschulen