MoMA Director Glenn D Lowry at Melbourne’s ACMI on ABC Arts Online

On Friday 25 June MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry visited the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney to present the inaugural Ann Lewis AO Contemporary Visual Arts International Address. He used his time to speak on ‘The Museum of Modern Art and the Future: thoughts about art museums in the 21st century’.

Lowry opened by quoting MoMA’s first director Alfred H. Barr, Jr., saying MoMA “is a torpedo moving through time, its head the ever-advancing present, its tail the ever-receding past of 50 to 100 years ago.” Lowry elaborated on this concept noting MoMA’s “commitment to change”, to “adjust to the shifting nature of art”, to be a “50 year window constantly moving through time” “shedding its past”. Lowry spoke about how the design of, and space within, the museum itself is being constantly rebuilt and modified in order to create “not more space but different space”.

Lowry went on to talk about how MoMA has a “commitment to the energy of New York”, how glass walls and a design which opens directly onto the street connect the museum to the hustle and bustle of the city. This is in stark contrast to some other museums which he says operate as a series of white boxes with the “intention to disengage” from their surroundings. If you look at the fly through of the upcoming MCA extension you can see a limited degree of this MoMA influence in its design.

The next interesting point was about MoMA’s internal layout. Lowry and his team realised that the history of modern art is not yet fixed, and thus that it is not possible to say “here is the history of modern art”, but that “the best we can do is to present an argument”, to say “here is a history of modern art”. They have disposed of the “art as beads on a chain” mentality, and have redesigned their exhibition spaces to have multiple entrances and exits so that visitors can make their own choices about how to navigate through the world of modern art.

Lowry continued, outlining the financial structure of MoMA. It was starling to discover that MoMA’s 2008 net assets were $USD 1 232 573 000. Compare this to the MCA’s $AUD 15 998 337 and you start to see just how small a fish Australia is financially in the contemporary/modern art world. Interesting to note is that according to one of Lowry’s presentation slides roughly 31% of MoMA’s income during a one year period came from its endowment, with 21% fundraising, and 20% admission costs following closely afterward. A quick comparison between the MoMA financial statements from 2007-2008 and the MCA’s 2008 annual report shows that, at least on the surface, MoMA is making considerably more money from the private sector than from the American government, whereas the MCA is quite heavily reliant on Australian federal and state government grants as a primary source of income. This seems to be echoed through the majority of Australian arts organisations. It would be a welcome change see this level of individual and private sector involvement in the Australian arts industry.

Lowry then introduced the future direction he believes museums need to take. He said that in the future no museum will be able to go it alone, that “museums will have to create networks for themselves in order to survive”. He gave examples of this in MoMA’s merging with PS1 Contemporary Arts Centre in Queens as well as its relationship with Japan’s MORI Art Museum. He also explained that it is just as important for MoMA to know what is going on artistically in Australia as it is New York and America. It would be great to see this view lead to further opportunities for Australian contemporary artists to exhibit at MoMA and other museums and galleries around the world.

Lowry’s final point, a prediction about the future of art, sounds like good news for installation artists. He says “participatory work is where modern art is going”, namely that which inscribes the visitor into the work of art, which makes the visitor “not passive but active in the work of art”, which can be “both singular and multiple”, “work which challenges but invites”.

iPhone as Musical Instrument from UMNewsService on Youtube.

For the last year Georg Essl from the University of Michigan has been working on an interactive programming environment for mobile devices. An alpha version of urMus, currently used by the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPhO) and Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble, has recently been released for download. I was lucky enough to be invited to the second urMus workshop ever, held by Essl on the 21 June 2010 at the University of Wollongong.

Basically urMus is a tool for the creation of sonic and visual instruments directly on mobile devices (currently the iPhone and iPad, with wider non-Apple compatibility coming in the future). It gives you multiple entrance points from which to build these instruments. You can use Essl’s default urMus interface to work in a high level Pd-like way linking boxes together to create and process sound and vision, or you can delve deeper, using urMus lua code to build your own processes and interfaces. Where it differs from apps like RjDj is that it lets you create your own instruments and interfaces directly on the mobile device itself.

urMus makes full use of the capabilities of mobile devices including multitouch, microphone input, speaker output and accelerometer data. Essl’s default interface has been created with live coding in mind and as such everything is very accessible and controllable in a live context. For instance it takes almost no time at all to get the X-axis of an iPhone accelerometer to control the pitch of an oscillator and send that to the iPhone’s line output. You simply touch the ‘Source’ arrow, scroll through a list of flowboxes (similar to a list of Pd objects) and drag an ‘Accel X’ onto the interface’s grid. Then you touch the ‘Filter’ arrow and drag a ‘SinOsc Freq’ onto the grid. Finally you touch the ‘Sink’ arrow and drag a ‘Dac In’ onto the grid. There is no need to link up patch cords or type in object names or parameters, everything happens automatically. In about six screen touches you have a fully interactive instrument in the palm of your hand. If you then drag a ‘Vis In’ object onto the grid you instantly have an audiovisual instrument. As well as hearing a sine wave you see the wave being drawn on the screen. Tilting the iPhone on its X axis changes the frequency of both the audio and visual representation of the wave. Replace the source flowbox with a ‘Mic’ object and you have a simple pitch shifter, controlling the frequency of the sine wave with the volume of your voice. These are just a few examples of how you can use urMus to build complex instruments during a live performance without having to go anywhere near a laptop or even access the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.

A key feature of urMus though is that you aren’t forced to work in this way. If you don’t like the way that the default interface works, you can change it to work however you want it to. Other examples of interfaces built by Essl and his students include virtual keyboards, ocarinas and samplers. If you prefer text based live coding you can even do away with an interface altogether and create audiovisual works using straight urMus lua code.

At the present time urMus is very much in alpha but is definitely worth experimenting with. I managed to crash it a few times during the workshop but when it did work it worked fast and intuitively. urMus is a clear step forward in using mobile devices not only as laptop controllers but as compact self-contained instruments in their own right, something I look forward to more of in the future.

Vivid Live is an interesting concept. Each year it gives an internationally acclaimed artist the opportunity to curate a large scale festival through the Sydney Opera House. Last year Brian Eno curated the inaugural festival. I was lucky enough to see Eno’s keynote address, his projections onto the Sydney Opera House and his 77 million Paintings installation as well as performances by electronic/rock acts Pivot (now PVT) and Ladytron.

This year the projections onto the Sydney Opera House are back, created by Laurie Anderson. Anderson and Lou Reed are the Vivid Live curators for 2010 and have scheduled a very interesting and diverse line-up including Tuvan throat singers Chirgilchin, stylistically differing Japanese rock bands Boris and Melt Banana and The Blind Boys of Alabama.

On Friday I went to see Boris perform in the Studio. Thanks to the Sydney Opera House for providing tickets to Boris and the opening night party that followed. I think the organisers learned from an issue I noticed last year. Putting a ‘rock’ band in a seating-only venue such as the Opera Theatre doesn’t work very well. The energy level suffers which affects the performer and audience equally. The Studio is a much better space. The line between stage and audience is less defined resulting in a much more dynamic environment. I didn’t really know what to expect when I went to the gig. From listening to a few clips on the internet I was bracing for Melt-Banana or Boredoms insanity. Boris’ music definitely had a bit of that vibe but was actually quite harmonic, exploring the intricacies within their chosen tunings. Apart from a slight crackle issue with Takeshi’s double neck guitar/bass the band sounded incredible. Walls of noise often broke away to reveal reverberant lyrics sung by any one of three band members. Female guitarist Wata’s vocals were truly haunting. The gig never strayed from being insanely loud though, even in the breakdowns. A stack of Orange and black quads coupled with a line array and massive subs in a 15m2 room tends to have that effect. I look forward to hearing Melt-Banana and the Blind Boys of Alabama this week.

This brings me to another point. There has been some controversy around the lack of Australian artists in the Vivid Live line-up. This is valid criticism but we do have a distinct lack of quality non-top-40-oriented internationals performing in Sydney as well. I think it is important to develop both sides of the equation as opposed to play one side against the other. Australian based artists definitely need more high profile arts events to perform at but I myself, and I sure others too, need the inspiration that culturally diverse acts from all over the world can provide. I see Vivid Live as a festival that can play a big part in developing a more vibrant arts scene in Sydney. Introduce a few more venues for live performance during the festival such as the Opera House and Museum of Contemporary Art forecourts, bring the mix of local and international artists closer to a 50/50 split and pretty soon Sydneysiders will have a world-renowned festival on their hands.

Public Bunnies flyer design by Mickie Quick

I went to see Public Bunnies; (Op. 3 in C# Minor) at PACT last Friday. It explores the rules and rituals we impose on ourselves by creating an elaborate society in which old underwear is treated with the highest of importance and status. The concept is quite strange but it works, and it works well.

Public Bunnies begins and ends in the theatre but the majority of the work is an interactive exploration of the entire PACT lot, expertly transformed into a junkyard outpost. The audience here becomes a part of the society it is exploring. You could walk amongst the goings on and characters in this world, and at times characters would reach out and interact with you directly. A resident mystic had an in depth conversation with me about what the colour of my underwear meant would happen in my future. With this form of interactive structure there are always bottlenecks in certain places, meaning you don’t get to experience everything, but that’s to be expected, and for the most part was dealt with quickly and without breaking character.

Director Michal Imielski’s self-composed drone-infused soundscape, combined with Aaron Clarke’s pulsating lighting design and impressive acting by PACT’s ImPACT ensemble immediately envelops the audience in this alternate world. The highlight for me though was the piano choreography in the theatre portion of the show. Members of the ImPACT ensemble rolled over, under and around a series of upright pianos with such precision that the distinction between human and piano was lost. The combination of instrument and human melded into one organic mass.

In my opinion, after having worked on a previous show of his called Blind as you See it, and now having experienced Public Bunnies, Imielski is one of the most interesting Australian based directors around at the moment. In the Public Bunnies program he says he treats the visual motifs of the work “similar to musical motifs. They are like musical notes or scales, with which one can compose a song or a symphony.” As a sound oriented person I think this is what appeals about his work. He also trends towards dark lighting and composes his own deep, thickly textured sound with elements of non-western instrumentation, all of which I am a big fan.

If you get the opportunity to see a later iteration of Public Bunnies or one of Imielski’s other directorial efforts I highly recommend going. Also, congratulations to PACT’s ImPACT ensemble of young artists for devising such an interestingly unusual work.

Ólafur Arnalds – Ljósið (Official Music Video) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

I just came across this clip on the Create Digital Motion website. It is one of the most beautiful music videos I have ever seen.

The way the music and vision are linked through movement, colour and texture is mesmerising. The strings enter with a restrained, graceful flourish of colour, pulling back to the solo piano’s minimal swaying harmony, all with an overarching beautiful melancholy. Esteban Diácono’s vision is literally woven through Ólafur Arnalds’ music, creating a multimedia work that reaches the listener/viewer on a deeply emotional level.

Simplicity is beauty.