Presentation of Nathan Bowen's dissertation work at Cal Arts, April 11, 2013. This includes a history of mobile phone music, networked, music, and other contexts leading to the development of "4Quarters"
4Quarters: real-time collaborative music environment for mobile phones
1. 4Quarters: real-time collaborative music
environment for mobile phones
Nathan Bowen, PhD
Moorpark College / CUNY Graduate Center
nbowen@gmail.com
April 11, 2013
@ CalArts
5. telephone art
interest in how this communication medium is
different than other available technologies
conversations as opposed to one-way ‘speeches’
(printing press, radio, TV, traditional concerts)
participative media: audience is given a voice
6. Art by Telephone – Robert Huot (1969)
artist creates context
for visitor to take part
in creative process
telephone used to
make art-making a
social experience
7. Max Neuhaus – Public Supply I (1966)
radio switchboard
plus callers making
sounds
mixed by Neuhaus at
WBAI, New York
performance space
over large geographic
area
8. ...It seems that what these works are really about is proposing to
reinstate a kind of music which we have forgotten about and
which is perhaps the original impulse for music in man: not
making a musical product to be listened to, but forming a
dialogue, a dialogue without language, a sound dialogue.
Max Neuhaus (1939-2009)
Public Supply I (1966)
Public Supply IV (1973)
Radio Net (1977)
10. mobile music
music on the go
old history – processionals, parades, marching
bands, etc.
instrument is frequently adapted for convenience
with mobile apps, the ‘pocket’ instrument carries on
this aesthetic
14. networked music
ability for ‘instrument’ to be played by multiple
people, intercommunication
ability to jam over great distances (JackTrip, The
Sound Wire Project, MUSE)
performer/composer/audience paradigm disrupted
(or not)
emphasis on new instruments, new configurations