Atlantic Center for the Arts
1414 Art Center Avenue
New Smyrna Beach, FL 32168 USA

January 4-30, 1993

Where else would creative people like to spend the month of January but in Florida, at New Smyrna Beach's Atlantic Center for the Arts. The month was dedicated to working with Master Artists-in-Residence Joan LaBarbara, Morton Subotnick, Mark Coniglio, and Steina and Woody Vasulka.

Upon arrival at Atlantic Center, artists were greeted by a sixty-seven acre, secluded, heavily wooded oasis which we called home for the month. The Center includes an administration/gallery complex, a multi-purpose workshop, and an outdoor amphitheater. Master Artists resided in cottages, with associate artists in private rooms with baths. The land has been left in its natural state (including lizards, spiders, and snakes) and all buildings are joined by raised wooden walkways.

Morton Subotnick and Joan LaBarbara introduced the other master artists and we were all on our way to a month of work and fun, livings amongst the artists and other animals in the woods. Master Artists spent most of the month working on The Misfortune of the Immortals. Misfortune is a multi-media theater work of three interconnected scenes, which in the final version will be performed without intermission. Subotnick and LaBarbara are the musical directors of the project, with sound designer Mark Coniglio the technical director.

For the first weeks of the workshop, LaBarbara lead morning workshops on extended vocal techniques and vocal warm-ups. In addition, dancer Dawn Stoppiello conducted movement workshops. LaBarbara's focus was on the combination of voice with movement and the specific problems inherent to performance artists. LaBarbara's unique and always exploring voice lead for exciting workshops and experiments, for both singers and not.

Mark Coniglio and Subotnick lead workshops in the application and programming of Interactor; a computer program designed by Subotnick and written by Coniglio. Associates were given intensive lessons on programming and technique of using Interactor, and were then let free to use several Macintosh stations running Interactor. Coniglio constantly answered questions and offered support, and Subotnick freely divulged his particular application using the program.

After several days of workshops, the 15 Associate Artists divided into two groups, those interested in voice and movement, and those interested in learning and programming with Interactor. LaBarbara was available for private sessions during the days, and Coniglio and Subotnick were available for questions and help, as well as demonstration of their own work.

One goal of the month long workshop was a open rehearsal of Misfortune of the Immortals, and it was towards this end that the Master Artists worked. It was staged in the outdoor theater. LaBarbara enlisted the aid of several vocalists to perform as a type of chorus in her part of the work; a piece loosely based on the situation of Stephen Hawkins, the brilliant physicist and author of A Brief History of Time. Misfortune addresses the question that inevitably accompanies any technological advance: Is it a humanizing or dehumanizing force? The work is both a celebration of technology and a warning.

LaBarbara plays a person physically bound in a wheelchair. Like Hawkins, although the body is physically deteriorating, the mind is more alive than we can imagine. Communication relies on the use of technology. Through her extended vocal techniques, she presented a situation where it became obvious to a listener that she was trying to tell us something; but what? Thence the need for technology. LaBarbara sings into a microphone, which inputs through a MIDI pitchrider. The pitchrider converts her singing to MIDI notes, and tries to distinguish the pitch of her extremely timbrally rich voice. Through some Interactor programming, a single low tone causes an overhead light to fade in and out in time with her singing. Once she hits a multiphonic, the Interactor scene changes and she is then controlling a new set of lights. At the open rehearsal, the first section looked great.

Subotnick presented the second scene along with Associate William Pomerantz. Constantly referred to as the peacock, Subotnick shows a man who is learning about a new extension to his own body - musical hands. Through a glove designed by Coniglio using variable resistors attached to the fingers and a mercury switch on the wrist of the glove, Subotnick displays a person learning to understand the capabilities of their new hands. Hands which pick notes from the air. These same hands eventually play concertos in mid air. Morton Subotnick explained at the open rehearsal the scale of his portion of Misfortune. What we saw was only a small portion, the rest is certainly awaited.

Mark Coniglio, working with dancer Dawn Stoppiello, created a piece using Coniglio's MidiDancer. MidiDancer is an expanded version of his glove, using the same variable resistor bands which strap to the dancer's body and get hooked into an FM transmitter on the body. A much needed MidiDancer leotard is on the way. The sensors were on various parts of Stoppiello and each unique combination of limb movements would send a number to Coniglio's FM receiver, which was input to the printer port of his Macintosh and arrived into Interactor, in real time. Instead of dancing to music, Stoppiello created the music as she moved, and was in complete control of when events happened. Coniglio's slick programming and Stoppiello's choreography were a collaboration that we usually only dream about. The dancer pushing the musician; the musician pushing the dancer. The result was a young team with total integrity and commitment to their work. Look out for these two.

Steina Vasulka, a video artist, was also in residence during January. She put up a 8 monitor laser disk installation in the gallery building. Tokyo Four uses footage that she took on her recent visit to Japan. From Zen rock gardens to shy women, Tokyo Four was a beautiful study in movement; people's movement, machine movement, and camera movement. The laser disk panned perfectly in snyc across the verticals and horizontals of the video towers. The color was always intense and the continuously running presentation was a welcomed place to sit and escape for a bit.

A part of the month initiated by Steina Vasulka was Associate performances during the evening hours. Singers John Caponegro (Bucknell University), Dina Emerson, Chris Chalfant, and Elise Morris (all from New York) gave performances. Barbara Dickinson (Duke University) taught modern dance classes while gracing the outdoor theater with her obviously well rehearsed movements. Composers included Kristine Burns-Coil (Ball State University), Donna McCabe (Mills College), Jeffrey Harrington (NY), Joseph Fosco (IL), Orlando Garcia (FL), Jon Nelson (FL), Robert Martin (MI), Don Meissner (NY) and Andrian Pervazov (PA). Of particular note were Martin's use of dance and lasers in performance, Emerson's dramatic performance art, Harrington's own expert musical system and computer virus music, Meissner's incredible 'portable' studio and well produced rhythms, Burns-Coil's text music which gave her a huge project for Interactor, and McCabe's compositions which reflect stories of Americana.

During the final week in residence Subotnick and LaBarbara produced an open rehearsal of Subotnick's new opera Jacob's Room in the indoor workshop area. This powerful opera grew from string quartet years ago to now include LaBarbara, the recorded presence of Thomas Bruckner, and a cellist. The version we heard was not complete, and staging was just beginning by director Herbert Blau. The story is that of a boy who we know only through his conscience, as the recorded Bruckner. He is a survivor of the Holocaust. This recorded voice eventually promises to be completely spatially located about the hall. Jacob's mother is portrayed by LaBarbara, who was passionate in performing this role. Her powerful voice compels us into her emotion, and the ever increasing energy in Bruckner's recorded voice match well. The climax of the opera is a powerful setting of the Lord's Prayer, which Subotnick creates as a pivotal and extremely emotional moment.

Video images for Jacob's Room were those of Woody Vasulka. The images ranged from the complex to the simple, but Vasulka's work is very clean and powerful. During their performance at Atlantic Center, there were two laser disk players which were being controlled through Subotnick's and Coniglio's Interactor program. There will eventually be three video images which will be switched in time with LaBarbara's voice. Interactor was set up to allow the computer to essentially follow the performer by monitoring the voice and waiting for specific cues, determined by Subotnick. Coniglio built a rotating platform for the liquid crystal projector, so that not only is the image itself moving, but the image can change its location in the physical room as well. Again, the computer controlled lazy susan type moving platform is being controlled via Interactor so that the staging always will remain in time.

Steina and Woody Vasulka generously spent time with Associate Artists demonstrating their own video work, as well as giving helpful tips on shooting footage at places such as the chocolate factory just down the road, and at the Spiritualist Center in a quaint town about 30 minutes away from the Center. Woody showed his laser disk project which detailed a history of both electronic music equipment and early video machines. An interactive history which is well needed. We anxiously await U.S. publication. Vasulka also encouraged Associates Harrington, Meissner and McCabe to work on the Buchla Lightning to integrate with his own rotating camera stand. His stand has a rotating head wich locates to any position in space by computer control. If Lightning could also locate his stand in any position of the room, he would then be able to gain access to moving the stand from its traditionally stationary position.

This residency marked Atlantic Center's 51st interdisciplinary session since the residency program began in in 1982. The value of the workshop was both in learning from the Master Artists, as well as living among and working with other Associate Artists. When 15 artists become your neighbors for the month, expect great things to happen. Time at the nearby beaches, walks around the wooded Center grounds, and dinners with Woody and Steina made for both a relaxing and productive month. Lucky as we were to spend January in Florida, we also got a good look at a Endeavor lift-off from the nearby Cape Canaveral. Past residencies at the Center have included Morton Feldman, Allen Ginsberg, Alvin Lucier, Lou Harrison, Pauline Oliveros, Joan Tower, and Robert Ashley. Contact the Atlantic Center for the Arts for additional information about upcoming residencies.