Digital Care: An Evening of the Hands
The fourth event in the Digital Care series, focusing on Michel Waisvisz's The Hands (1984).
Shaping sound with your hands is the main concept that led pioneering artist Michel Waisvisz to create The Hands in 1984 at STEIM. With these two hand-held objects full of sensors designed exactly for his hands, he was able to control synthesizers and live sampling software in an expressive way. Through his year-long practice in performing with these, he became an exemplary virtuosic performer with a digital musical instrument. Today, his practice still inspires many artists and musicians that similarly have made it their practice to perform by capturing their gestures with sensors and manipulating the sound of their voice.
What was complex and unexplored territory back in 1984 and mostly inaccessible to artists due to lack of technical expertise and financial means, is now - almost 40 years later - accessible in terms of available and affordable technology. The art of using these technologies in a meaningful way however, is still something that requires creativity, dedication and practice – this is where the pioneering work of Waisvisz is still a source of inspiration.
On September 14, we will look at artistic work of Michel Waisvisz that he composed and performed for The Hands and take you on a tour inside The Hands to understand the intricacies of their working.
Vocal performers Franziska Baumann and Alex Nowitz have both created instruments at STEIM that were inspired by The Hands, and they will perform with their idiosyncratic instruments that give them gestural control over their voice. In between the performances, we will jointly discuss how their approach is inspired by, yet also different from Michel Waisvisz' approach.
Sanneke Huisman, curator at LI-MA and co-curator of the exhibition REBOOT: Pioneering Digital Art will introduce the evening. The historical introduction on Waisvisz' work will be presented by Andi Otto, who worked through the STEIM archives and the Waisvisz' archives between 2007 and 2013, resulting in his thesis "Dutch Touch", and Marije Baalman will present a look inside the Hands and how The Hands influenced other artists and instruments.
The event is commissioned by LI-MA and V2_, and presented by V2_ in collaboration with LI-MA. The evening is curated by Marije Baalman.
Performances
Pioneering extended vocal techniques and live electronic processing with her SensorGlove, Franziska Baumann creates solo works at the intersection of voice, gesture, mediated voice and spatialized vocal spheres. Her compositions and improvisations push the boundaries of perception, vocal creation and sonic expression by exploring the convergence of the embodied and mediated voice through the communicative practice of her gestural system. She explores the potential of the contemporary voice within mediated practices and the underlying practices, principles, and sensor technologies that support creativity in embodied human-computer interaction in music performance. Mapping plays a central role in her work, also as a means of deliberately provoking a loss of control that leads her into a sphere of heightened awareness.
Alex Nowitz will perform with his ‘strophonion’: gesture-controlled live-electronics that he developed and built from 2010 through to 2011 in close collaboration with Frank Baldé at STEIM (Amsterdam), and since 2014 further in collaboration with Sukandar Kartadinata. Alex calls his practice with the strophonion voice-induced or ‘vocal sound dance’, as the audience comes to experience unique ways of creating visually intriguing and fascinating, sonic outcomes ranging between the extremes of concrete emotional vocal sounds and abstract computational manipulations. During the lecture-performance “In the Thicket of Invisible Wires” Alex will touch upon the underlying concept and his performance strategies allowing new compositional and improvisational terrains to emerge. He will shed light on the powers as well as on the constraints of the instrument until he finally indulges in pure, non-verbal vocal performance art and merges into the thicket of the invisible wires.
Presentations
Andi Otto: "Dutch Touch"
What is the Legacy of The Hands? The Hands were a groundbreaking gestural instrument to perform music with. Less known and discussed than the instrument, are the compositions and performances made with The Hands. In his presentation Andi Otto will give a historical overview of performances with The Hands, outline the aesthetics and influence of the instrument on other STEIM artists, and ask for a contemporary perspective on the pioneering gestural interface.
Marije Baalman: “Inside and beyond The Hands”
The Hands were one of the first gestural controllers used in electronic music to shape sound. In this talk we will look into the technical workings of The Hands, and how The Hands influenced other artists to use similar gestural controllers related to their hands, fingers and forearms to perform and compose music. In addition we will take a look at current and past commercially available controllers that trace back to concepts found in The Hands.
About The Evening of
In the long-standing series “the evening of”, V2_ invites an artist or researcher to curate an event. The concept is that V2_ invites an artist, researcher, a fellow, or a group to curate an event of one evening.
Digital Care
Digital Care presents collaborative care for digital artworks through an open process. From March until October 2023, iconic works, including the_living, 1997-1998, by Debra Solomon, Ideofoon I, 1970-2013, by Dick Raaijmakers and Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam, 1990-present, by Remko Scha, have been researched and shown in public programmes across the country. Talks with artists, scholars, producers, technicians and the public have explored what it means to present these works today – and preserve them for a future generation.
Nieuwe Instituut and LI-MA present the exhibition REBOOT: Pioneering Digital Art. Featuring key works from the Netherlands from 1960 to 2000, plus new work by contemporary makers, REBOOT reveals the influence of digital technology on art and society. The Digital Care trajectory functions as a strong basis for the run-up of this public exhibition which runs from 7 October 2023 to 12 May 2024 at Nieuwe Instituut.
Event details
Digital Care: Evening of The Hands
A collaboration between LI-MA x V2_
Thursday, 14 September, 2023
V2_ and Online, Eendrachtsstraat 10, 3012 XL Rotterdam
Doors 19.30 // Programme begins 20.00
Entry: €7,00 (regular) / €5,- (student)
Get your tickets HERE
Digital Care and REBOOT are supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, Mondriaan Fund, and Network Archives Design and Digital Culture.
Images of event by Fenna de Jong. Final image of 'The Hands' (1984) by Michel Waisvisz at REBOOT. Pioneering Digital Art by Pieter Kers (beeld.nu).
