Making, Moving & Music: A Collaborative Development Jam
Dates: Thursday September 28, 5pm-8pm | Thursday October 5, 5pm-8pm |
Potential additional date: Thursday October 19, 5pm-8pm (depending on interest)
Location: Concordia Library Visualization Studio
Are you interested in making music with others, but you don’t play an instrument? Would you like to learn more about developing interactive performances and installations using wireless devices? Are you curious about the intersection of accessibility, making, and performance?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be interested in this workshop series that will run in the Fall 2023!
ICanMusic is a system that simplifies the process of performing music in groups using a wide range of electronic sensors. This allows the development of musical “instruments” using free and open-source tools that can control sound using any kind of body motion, interaction with physical objects, or even brain waves and environmental sensors.
In this series of 2 workshops (3 to 4 hours each, with an optional extra day available if we need it), we are inviting participants to collaborate in developing wireless electronic music controllers attuned to their own unique interests in motion and materiality. The workshops will culminate with a performance “jam session” in Webster Library’s Visualization Studio.
No performance/musical experience or knowledge is required. The final performance will be more like a “movement jam session” than a carefully choreographed performance. Fun matters more than skill!
To register for the workshop, please fill this form (https://forms.gle/knRJQJm2n1QneVkx5).
Participants Will Practice:
- Coding with Arduino, specifically the ESP32 Feather Huzzah board, an Arduino with WiFi;
- Working with electronic sensors to allow physical interactions to control a musical system;
- Working with the ICanMusic system (runs on free version of Max software);
- Collaborating between artists and makers to develop performances and installations;
- Performing in a musical environment with others.
What we’re looking for:
4-6 performers
- No performance experience required, just a willingness to move, collaborate, communicate, and compromise
- Specifically seeking people with varied relationships to embodied experiences. For example: Disabled people, people experiencing disability, people using assistive devices, people working with motion and materials, and other people often left out of traditional conversations about movement and dance. If you just like to shimmy and shake, that’s great too!
- You will be asked to move according to your comfort levels and interests, sometimes in a repetitive way as you develop the instrument in collaboration with your maker partner.
4-6 makers
- Advanced programming expertise is not required, but some experience with coding (e.g. loops, variables, functions, etc) in any language will be useful.
- We will be experimenting with programming, sensors, wireless networks, digital fabrication, upcycling, etc. Any experience with these things will be a great contribution to the group, but not required.
- Lots of initial templates, examples to copy/tweak, etc will be provided.
- Willingness to collaborate, communicate and compromise required.
- You will be asked to: problem solve with code, sensors, physical materials, and in collaboration with your Performer partner.
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Don UndeenM. Des. Student
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Ann-Louise DavidsonProfessor | Concordia University Research Chair in Maker Culture
Dr. Ann-Louise Davidson is a Professor of Education and Concordia University Research Chair in Maker Culture. She is the Director of the Concordia University Innovation Lab. She is also Associate Director of the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology and she directs #MilieuxMake, the Milieux makerspace initiative.