Special Program

with Gerhard Eckel

+ Ramón González-Arroyo:

 

Choreography of Sound

Gerhard Eckel (* 1962) is Professor of Computer Music and Multimedia at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM), University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria. Eckel received his doctorate in Musicology from the University of Vienna. He also studied Electroacoustic Music and Sound Engineering at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In the past Eckel worked at IRCAM, the computer music department of the Pompidou Centre in Paris and at the Fraunhofer Institute for Media Communication IMK in St. Augustin, Germany. Eckel takes both an artistic and scientific interest in matters of sound. His research topics range from psychoacoustics, over sound analysis, visualization, processing, spatial rendering and synthesis to virtual and augmented reality systems. His artistic work focuses on the possibilities of installations to convey formal openness to the audience in a tangible way. He creates sound and music installations for real and virtual spaces, which are presented at international festivals, conferences and fairs. He initiated and coordinated the EU-IST-project LISTEN, which defined and explored Immersive Audio-augmented Environments from a scientific and artistic perspective. In a recent artistic research project he developed a new form of intermedial expression called Embodied Generative Music. In his current artistic research project "The Choreography of Sound", funded by the Program for Arts-based Research (PEEK) of the Austrian Science Fund FWF, he explores the spatial in electroacoustic composition together with the composer Ramón González-Arroyo. He served on the editorial board of the Journal for Artistic Research (JAR) and is a member of the executive board of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR). He is also active as Affiliated Professor at the KTH Music Acoustics Group in Stockholm.

 

www.iem.at

Ramón González-Arroyo is a composer and researcher born in Madrid, where he also started his musical studies, subsequently followed by studies in Utrecht, Den Haag and Paris, with L. de Pablo, C. Bernaola, W. Kaegi, G. M. Koenig and H. Vaggione. He holds a PhD in Ésthetique, Sciences et Technologies des Arts from the University of Paris 8. He is currently member of the Centre de recherche Informatique et Création Musicale CICM-Université de Paris VIII-MSH Paris Nord and of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) at Kunstuniversität Graz.

Hand in hand with his creative work he has collaborated or initated several musical-research projects at different european institutions: IRCAM, ZKM, GMD, IEM, Institute of Sonology. His latest research project, The Choreography of Sound (in collaboration with Gerhard Eckel and funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF) explores the imbrication of space and sound matter.

His music, including electroacoustic pieces (Streams Extremes & Dreams, A Media Luna, Light Matters), mixed (De la Distance, Charybdis’ Muse & Scylla’s Bloom, Philia-Neikos) and instrumental works (Clockwork, Nocturno, ‘Twixt tinged twining threads), has been played at different festivals and concert seasons (Wien Modern, Berliner Inventionen, Internacional de Alicante, Festival Bartók, Musiques en Scène, Multiphonies, Multimediale). Since recently he has also become interested in the universe of installation and has produced sound pieces (L'isla des Neumas) and, in collaboration with other artists, multi-disciplinary pieces (Rain-Taps, Raumfaltung), which have been presented at several european museums (Kunst Museum Bonn, Koldo Mitxelena, Sammlung Essl).