This Saturday, Jan. 24, in conjunction with the Light in Winter Festival, local electronic music organization Deep beatZ will present musician Morgan Packard with visual artist Joshue Ott in an event titled “The Future: Sounds and Images from the Next Dimension.”
Long time friends and collaborators, the New York City-based duo was a hit at Montreal’s digital arts festival, MUTEK, this past spring. In 2007, the pair released “Unsimulatable,” a 30-minute DVD that accompanied “Airships Fill the Sky,” Packard’s debut solo full-length on Anticipate Records, the NYC-based label run by Ezekiel Honig, also a collaborator of Packard’s.
In addition to their Saturday evening performance at Castaways, that afternoon Packard and Ott will lead a free workshop that will explore processes behind digital music and visual art production, including demonstrations of their own home-made software. The event is co-sponsored by the Cornell Electroacoustic Music Center, Ithaca Experimental, and Deep Beatz.
Popcorn Youth recently spoke to Packard and Ott about their working relationship, utilizing computer technology, and new projects on the horizon.
Popcorn Youth: How would you describe your relationship between music and art?
Morgan Packard: I’d say synergy is the word. Either one will work without the other, but they can make a really effective, greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts package when put together.
Joshue Ott: I love music — I love listening to it, and lately I love letting it feed and influence my hand as a performer. I consider what I do as a visualist to be interpretive, I’m actively telling you how I feel and what I see in the music that I’m hearing. Designing a performance together with Morgan, it’s possible to create true visual music, where the music and the visuals are intrinsically tied.
Popcorn Youth: To what extent do you incorporate elements of improvisation?
Ott: I think a lot of what Morgan and I do is more ‘live’ in a sense, because much less of it is pre-recorded; pre-planned. It’s more like we’ve decided on a general structure, but every performance (even when we’ve agreed to a particular structure) is different. I find it exciting that any performance could be a disaster, or it could be amazing, and we can never know ahead of time.
Popcorn Youth: Can you explain the concept of an ‘audiovisual jam session’?
Ott: When we say jam session, we quite literally mean it in a traditional sense, sitting down together in the same room and using our software to create something in the same space. It’s a great way to practice, but also a good opportunity to try things and take risks. I’ve been jamming with Morgan and flutist Robert Dick lately, and at one of our first jam sessions Robert remarked that often when improvisers first get together they “run the vocabulary.” They move through all the things they can do, looking for ways to communicate and respond to one another. I found this striking, and indicative of how the “jam session” is an art form in and of itself.
Popcorn Youth: How much does your recorded output and live performance differ?
Packard: My live sets have less and less to do with my studio work these days. The things that interest me about live performance and studio work are fairly distinct. Studio work is about finding the perfect sound, creating the perfect structure. There’s a real art to beatmaking, which can only be done in the studio. You have to listen to the same loop over and over and over, and just tweak it ever so slightly. After that, you wind up with this potent little burst of perfect sound.
I lose that with this more live approach. Since I’m not playing back any pre-made beats, there’s less of that feels-so-goodness. Live performance is more about finding the perfect process. I’ve moved away from using loops in my live stuff and am relying more and more on home-made software. I wind up having a much smaller sonic palette to work with this way, but much more control over how the sounds behave.
Ott: Visually, everything I do is spontaneous, derived from my pen tablet and controller. The way I create music videos or recorded pieces is the same process - the only difference being that if I make a mistake, I can start over. Often my recorded pieces involve doing the same “take” over and over again until I get it right. For “Unsimulatable,” Morgan and I recorded ourselves doing each take. The entire 30-minute piece had to be recorded in one sitting, and so we ended up doing over 13 takes before getting it to a place we both were happy with.
Popcorn Youth: Have you always used of nontraditional spaces and other DIY methodology, such as the home-made software you mentioned?
Packard: I’ve had almost ten years of trying focus on making electronic music by much more “traditional” means, [like] off-the shelf software and hardware, rather than my own tools. At the beginning of the decade, I wanted nothing more than to be loved by all of my favorite British Drum and Bass DJs. I made some decent music, but was always trying to get good at someone else’s game. I’ve been on my current musical course for about five years. It’s now really tightly wrapped up with my software development, and I’m not sure where one begins and the other ends. Creating my own tools has been a way for me to make my own rules, to make my music a little more self-contained.
Ott: I studied at Pratt Institute, receiving a BFA in computer graphics animation. While there, I took a C programming class and had my first taste of how wonderful programming can be. I’ve always been interested in all forms of art, but am especially attracted to anything time based (music, film, video games, animation). I love video games and interactive art, and the idea of play is an important one in my art as well as the work that I do. I started working on superDraw as an experiment, but it has evolved into a platform for me to make art that involves all of the things that I love: animation, interactivity and music.
Popcorn Youth: You mentioned the word ’synergy.’ Structurally, how much is already established, how much is open? Are there ‘triggers’ that you use to communicate?
Packard: Sometimes we just jam, and there’s synergy in that. But we’re also interested in creating pieces, in composing, choreographing. We’ve taken different approaches. On the “Unsimulatable” DVD, we were sending lots of trigger messages between our computers, and the audio and visual components were very tightly coupled. Lately, we’ve been loosening up a little, planning a general arc of a performance.
Ott: An important aspect to our performance relationship is that we’re each open to trying different approaches, and both of us want to create methods of performing that can remain fun and fresh for both of us.
Popcorn Youth: Josh, you mentioned an interest in time-based art — has utilizing musical concepts in the context of visual art always been a fundamental concern?
Ott: SuperDraw is being created to be a visual instrument, something that you would have to learn, to practice with. I’ve always felt that if I can make something that is truly intuitive and responsive, a performer won’t want automatic processes because they’ll be able to create a much more interesting performance just by themselves.
Good screensavers use automatic processes to make pretty pictures to music - this is exactly what I don’t want. I want the visual performer to sweat as much as the musical one, to be able to make mistakes, or achieve brilliance.
Packard: I feel like we’re working well outside the limits of any defined scene or genre, and are really making it up as we go along. Some people are geeky like us and love code. Some people are totally happy to live more in the aesthetic realm and use off-the-shelf tools.
I started making my own software because I wanted my own approach, and I knew that if I built my tools up from a pretty low level, I’d really own my sound… I wanted to escape the influence of the standard tools.
Popcorn Youth: Morgan, you have a background in jazz and classical traditions. How does that knowledge influence your approach to composition now?
Packard: It doesn’t usually manifest itself explicitly, but I do think it broadens my horizons a bit… Occasionally I’ll pull out my saxophone or accordion and play some chords or melodies, and draw more directly from musical schooling, thinking about how to harmonize a melody, thinking about how different voices should work in counterpoint to each other.
Popcorn Youth: So, do you see yourself as operating within the ‘electronic music’ continuum?
Packard: I do. There’s still a nineteen-year-old in me who thinks that club music, massive bass, and all-night parties are the most important things in the world. However, there’s a lot more in me now. Still, I think my music is best understood through the club music lens. I place a lot of emphasis on groove, on repetition, on bass, on how my music feels physically. I’m very deliberate about the fact that my music doesn’t require close listening, that it’s as much about creating a space as it is about creating a narrative. These are all the rules that dance music plays by. My dance music just isn’t always danceable!
Popcorn Youth: How did the idea come about for the Ithaca workshop?
Packard: I got into music through formal lessons, and kind of miss that tradition, having now wound up in a scene that doesn’t have that. I don’t see myself giving electronica lessons or something like that, but I do like the idea of offering guidance to those who are looking for it. Also, it’s fun to geek out with new people!
Ott: For me, the development of superDraw as an instrument hinges on people using that instrument. It’s not available in that capacity yet, but I’m moving towards the day when it is, and interacting with the people who will potentially use it is the best way to figure out what needs to be done. Another thing I’ve been experimenting with is collaboratively generated art. At the workshop, I’ll be demoing multi-draw, the multi-user version of superDraw. Anyone with an iPhone or iTouch will be able to connect to the superDraw server and draw together at the same time on the same screen.
Popcorn Youth: What else is planned this year?
Packard: [My] new album is 95 percent finished, but the last 5 percent can take a while. At the risk of being immodest, I’d say I feel pretty good about it. I’ve progressed since the last one, and I think my sound is more solid and mature. I wanted to make a tighter album, both in terms of song length and style… I think I sound more like me on it than I ever have.
I think much of my energy over the next year will go toward my live performance approach. I’m relatively new to laptop performance, and am really enjoying developing my approach… My software, Ripple, embodies my approach to live performance, and I’m looking forward to releasing new versions of it, introducing people to my style of work, and maybe even enticing other artistically-minded programmers to contribute to it.
Ott: I’m very excited to be already working on many different projects with superDraw. I’m finishing up a permanent installation, an HD Blu-ray/DVD of musical collaborations, and, of course, the commercial release of superDraw as software that others can use.
Morgan Packard and Joshue Ott will perform at Castaways this Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009 as part of the Light in Winter Festival, hosted by Deep beatZ. They will host a workshop with Kevin Ernste and D.A.M.A.G.E. at 11am at Lincoln B20.