WHAT: Collaborations: Humanities, Arts and Technology festival
WHEN: Feb. 16-20
WHERE: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, various locations (see festival highlights)
ADMISSION: Many events are free but some require tickets or registration. For information and updates, visit www.chatfestival2010.com
By Cliff Bellamy
cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6744
CHAPEL HILL -- At a recent rehearsal in Kenan Music Building, digital technology merged with human artistry and skill, transforming the sounds from traditional instruments. UNC music professor Brooks de Wetter-Smith played a passage on flute, which was fed into a microphone. Computer software (MAX/MSP) then took the passage and created an echo effect, which was amplified in an elevated speaker.
Pianist and composer Stephen Anderson then came in, creating a percussive counterpoint to the flute, followed by percussionist Lynn Glassock. All three instrumentalists played an improvisational section that built in intensity, all the while amplified and modified by the computer program. Cellist Brent Wissick and violinist Richard Luby took the lead in a more pastoral, plaintive section of the composition, also using digital effects. The composition also has some pre-recorded passages, among them a child reading that often-quoted passage from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah ("The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ... and a little child shall lead them").
The musicians were rehearsing the first run-through of Stephen Anderson's composition "War Peace," one of some 30 pieces for electro-acoustic ensemble that will be performed during Collaborations: Humanities, Arts and Technology, a festival that begins today and continues through Feb. 20 at various locations at UNC.
The festival explores the impact of digital technologies on the arts and humanities. The festival grew out of some ongoing collaborations among faculty members at UNC, Duke University and N.C. State University, said Megan Granda, executive director of UNC's Institute for the Arts and Humanities, which is coordinating the festival with other partner agencies. The festival will include performances, discussions, workshops and interactive exhibits.
In the Anderson composition, three musicians -- on piano, percussion and cello -- have to follow the score and cue a laptop at certain intervals. The laptop is programmed to perform certain actions on what the instrumentalists play. The absence of a conductor and the fact that all musicians have to read from a full score requires lots of listening from each ensemble member, de Wetter-Smith said, who added that "you can never play it the same way twice."
When the piece is performed today at 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall, it will be integrated with video images from the Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraq war.
Music is one of many such collaborations festivalgoers will experience. STREB, a performance troupe that combines dance, extreme sports and martial arts, will present "Brave," a collaboration with composer David Van Teighem and the MIT Media Lab. Bathysphere is an interactive exhibit employing motion-capture technology.
One purpose of the CHAT festival, Granda said, is "to create these unusual conversations" and point out how "new technologies are important to the arts and humanities and how they are changing them."
One broad example of how the arts, humanities and digital technologies are interacting is in the games industry, which employs narrative, visual arts and other humanities-related skills, Granda said. The festival will explore this intersection with the Art of Gaming Exhibition, which will examine games themselves, but also how games have inspired music videos, films and other arts. Alex Macris, the president of the trade association group Triangle Game Initiative, and director Chad Dezern will discuss "The Ubiquity of Games" Wednesday.
Macris is coordinating the game industry's participation in the festival. He cited director James Cameron's movie "Avatar" as the most visible current example of how games have permeated popular culture. "You can't watch that movie and not think about video games," Macris said. He also cited the popularity of social networking games on Facebook and other sites.
The Triangle is becoming a center for video games, with Wilmington as an established film production city, Macris said. If the state continues to invest appropriately, North Carolina "could become an entertainment cluster for the Southeast," he said. The CHAT Festival will examine that emerging industry.
Granda also sees the potential for the area becoming a center for the types of digital research the CHAT festival will showcase. Organizers, Granda said, hope to make the festival an annual event in some form, either at UNC or with a regional rotation like the Literary Festival.
