Erin Gee Tag

Song of Seven

03.08.2016 , Music Composition, Performance, Portfolio

Song of Seven (2016)

2016 / 2022

A composition for seven soloists, biofeedback music, and piano.

In this song, young performers contemplate an emotional time in their lives, and recount this memory as an improvised vocal solo.The choir is instructed to enter into a meditative state during these emotional solos, deeply listening to the tale and empathizing with the soloist, using imagination to recreate the scene.  Choir members are attached to a musical instrument I call the BioSynth a small synthesizer that sonifies heartbeats and sweat release for each individual member to pre-programmed tones. Sweat release, often acknowledged as a robust measure of emotional engagement, is signaled by overtones that appear and reappear over a drone; meanwhile the heartbeats of each chorister are sounded according to blood flow, providing a light percussion.

The musical score combines traditional music notation with vocal games and rhythms determined not necessarily by the conductor or score but by beatings of the heart and bursts of sweat. Discreet flashing lights on the synthesizer boxes in front of the choristers allowed the singers to discern the rhythms and patterns of their heart and sweat glands, which therefore permits compositions to incorporate the rhythms of the body into the final score as markers that trigger sonic events.

Song of Seven (2022) for SSAATBB singers, adapted from the original for high voice /children’s choir (2016).

The text in this song is completely improvised from the sung childhood memories of the choir members. Each choir’s interpretation is totally original and could be performed in any language. The seven emotional vignettes are framed by textless song, accompanied by piano and Erin Gee’s original musical instruments the BioSynths. Gee first created the BioSynths in 2016 to measure the empathetic reactions of the choir singers to one another’s song, allowing for shifting intensities in harmonic notes in response to the sung memories. Composing not only notes, but composing physiological states for the biofeedback-enhanced choir, empathy is generated through personal narrative to activate the emotional resonance of the choir members. This performance strategy is one many Gee develops for her “music for alienated emotion”.

Credits

Piano accompanist: Daniel Àñez

Hardware design: Martin Peach

Software design: Erin Gee

Performance history

In 2022 a version of Song of Seven for adult voices was premiered at Orpheum Annex (Vancouver) with Vancouver New Music, featuring members of musica intima choir.

This choral composition was first workshopped for children’s voices over a one-week residency at the LIVELab (McMaster University) with members of the Hamilton Children’s Choir. This residency was hosted by Hamilton Artists Inc. with support from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Links

Hamilton Children's Choir
Daniel Àñez (Spanish biography)
Hamilton Artists' Inc
LIVElab
Canada Council for the Arts

Video

Song of Seven
Premiere for children’s choir: Hamilton Children’s Choir (2016)

Song of Seven
Premiere for adult choir: Musica Intima (2022)

Scores

Partitions1

Song of Seven (2016)

Gallery

Song of Seven (2016)

New Work for Hamilton Children’s Choir

25.04.2016 , News, Performances, Research

 

On June 25th 2016 I will be premiering new biosensor-driven work created especially for members of the Hamilton Children’s Choir.  This performance work will be presented in conjunction with my solo exhibition Vocales Digitales at Hamilton Artists Inc, thanks to the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

The Hamilton Children’s Choir is a nationally competitive choir of youth  accompanied by pianist Daniel Añez.  Áñez is a renowned pianist in the musical milieu of Canada and Latin America, an active performer of contemporary and experimental music, a touring soloist, and a chamber musician.

This new work will allow me to explore a highly personal composition process with the choir, featuring the sonification of group empathy as seen through physiological markers of emotion such as heartrate, respiration and sweat release.

For more information

Hamilton Children’s Choir

Daniel Añez (Spanish Biography)

Hamilton Artists Inc

Canada Council for the Arts

 

 

Monthly Music Hackathon NYC

19.04.2016 , Artist Talks, News
 Check out this article for “I Care If You Listen” with interviews with the presenters! (including me)
https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2016/04/gender-music/

Gender in Music Hackathon

Explore the role of gender in music.

Saturday, April 30th, 2016
Noon to 10:00 PM

45 W 18th St, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10011

Schedule

11:30 AM – Doors open
12:00 PM – Talks and performances:
– Feminist activist & MIA drummer Kiran Gandhi
– NYU Women in Computing on adjective analysis & gender portrayals in lyrics
– Banghra Basement’s DJ Rheka
– New media artist D’hana Perry
– Biotechnological sound artist Erin Gee
1:00 PM – Hacking Starts, optional brainstorming & collaborator-finding session
8:00 PM – Performances and demonstrations of hacks

Artist talk and Catalogue Launch for Vocales Digitales

19.04.2016 , Artist Talks, News, Workshops

I will be giving an artist talk on Saturday April 23rd at Hamilton Artists’ Inc. to support my solo exhibition Vocales Digitales.  The event will also feature a catalogue launch, featuring a bilingual publication that includes essays by philosopher Eric Lewis and curator Maiko Tanaka.

The next day on Sunday April 24th I will be giving an artists’ workshop that introduces the Teensy microcontroller through basic electronics and biosensors.

 

New VR artwork commission from Trinity Square Video

07.03.2016 , News, Research

I’m thrilled to announce that Trinity Square Video will be presenting new artworks for Virtual Reality interfaces in 2016-2017, including a new commissioned work by myself!  The work will feature pop music’s potential military applications in a first-person shooter style video game – expect autotuned voices, virtual pop stars, and new embodiments of my emotional biosensor hardware to take shape in this new work.

The project will feature Alex M. Lee as head artistic designer as well as work by Marlon Kroll and Roxanne Baril-Bédard.  I’ll continue to post teasers, hardware updates and more through this summer 2016!

Conversations in Contemporary Art

05.03.2016 , Artist Talks, News, Performances

Conversations in Contemporary Art Presents Erin Gee: Concordia University, Montreal

Thursday, February 11, 2016, 6pm

Le jeudi 11 fevrier à 18h00

Concordia University Fine Arts
VA Building 114
1395 René Lévesque Blvd West, Montreal
L’université de Concordia, 1395 René Lévesque Ouest, Montréal

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public. Seating is first come, first serve. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lectures will be held in English.

Tous les événements du programme Conversation in Contemporary Art sont gratuits et ouverts au public. Les sièges sont assignés selon le principe du premier arrivé, premier servi. Les portes ouvrent à 17h30. Les conférences se dérouleront en anglais.

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ERIN GEE is a Montreal-based artist and composer who explores human voices in electronic bodies, re-locating boundaries of musical form through technological interfaces. Her work in emotion-driven musical robotics, algorithmic music performance, interactive sonic sculpture/scores and digitally-inspired musical compositions have been recently presented at device_art festival, Croatia (2015), University of Toronto Art Center (2015), Trinity Square Video, Toronto (2015), Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal (2015), and Cirque du Soleil International Headquarters, Montreal (2014). Her work has been reviewed in Scientific American, VICE, National Post, and La Presse. Gee is currently teaching in the Communications department of Concordia University on topics of sound, gender and technology.
“There are layers of interrelation that all humans have, where we are objectified, reduced to our utility, treated as objects rather than subjects, reacting to and acting through a subject or group of people more powerful than we are. I want to make work that tries to bridge the gap, to create musical systems and worlds where the subject tries to learn the language of the object, to assume that the thing we assumed to be an object in fact has a voice, and it is important to listen.”

* * * * *

Artiste et compositrice établie à Montréal, Erin Gee explore les voix humaines des corps électroniques, repoussant les frontières de la musique au moyen d’interfaces technologiques. Ses œuvres – robots musicaux mus par les émotions, performance musicale algorithmique, sculptures ou partitions soniques interactives ainsi que compositions d’inspiration numérique – ont récemment été présentées en Croatie, au Festival Device_art (2015), à Toronto, au Centre d’art de l’Université de Toronto (2015) et au centre Trinity Square Video (2015), et à Montréal, au Musée d’art contemporain (2015) et au siège social international du Cirque du Soleil (2014). Son travail a fait l’objet d’articles dans Scientific American, VICE, National Post et La Presse. Par ailleurs, son enseignement au Département de communication de l’Université Concordia touche au son, au genre et à la technologie.

« Tous les humains entretiennent diverses relations réciproques selon lesquelles ils sont réduits à leur plus simple utilité. Traités comme des objets, plutôt que des sujets, ils agissent par l’intermédiaire d’un individu ou d’un groupe plus puissant qu’ils ne le sont et y réagissent. Je m’efforce dans mon œuvre de combler ce fossé en créant des systèmes et des mondes musicaux où le sujet tente d’apprendre le langage de l’objet. En effet, je crois que ce que nous supposons être un objet possède en fait une voix qu’il est important d’écouter. »
About the event: Conversations in Contemporary Art is a visiting artist lecture series and graduate-level course sponsored by Concordia’s Studio Arts MFA Program. CICA provides a unique opportunity to hear distinguished artists, critics, writers and curators from the Canadian and international community speak about their practices.

Vocales Digitales

05.03.2016 , Exhibitions, News

Erin Gee
Vocales Digitales
March 26 – May 14

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 26, 2:00-4:00pm

Artist Talk and Catalogue Launch: April 23, 2:00pm
Biosensor/Arduino Workshop: April 24, 10 am (full day) $25 registration required
Original Performance with Daniel Àñez and the Hamilton Children’s Choir (June 25, 2016)

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present Vocales Digitales, a solo exhibition by new media artist and composer Erin Gee, featuring installations exploring the potentials of human voices in electronic bodies as well as electronic voices in human bodies. Based on a robust research practice, Gee draws from neuroaesthetics, a field that investigates the potentials of neurological and physiological data, as both the basis of, and inspiration for, her technologically complex installations. Turning the inside out, Gee culls data from physiological sources such as the human larynx as well as intangible sources such as human emotions, and transforms them into highly realized aesthetic and musical compositions. Using languages of notation, code, and data, Gee explores the flesh and experience of human bodies, seeking out poetic languages of machine visualization to return the quantitative once more into a space of aesthetics through the experience of music.

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual publication featuring essays by Maiko Tanaka and Eric Lewis. The catalogue launch will be accompanied by an artist talk and will take place April 23, at 2:00 pm. The catalogue can be downloaded HERE (4.5mb).

Download Exhibition Catalogue
Erin Gee - Larynx Series

Larynx Series

29.01.2016 , Embodied Media/Performance/Scores, Gallery Artwork, Music Composition, Performance, Physical Media, Portfolio, Print

Larynx1, Larynx2, Larynx3, Larynx4 (2014)
Epson UltraChrome K3 ink on acid-free paper.
Edition of 5.
86 x 112 cm.

2014

What we consider our voice in a technologically mediated environment is a visual-vocal-technological assemblage that implicates amplification, scale, human and digital bodies and networks. The multiplication and proliferation of voice on someone else’s device happens in asynchronous ways, much the same as a vocal score is a vocal performance that lay crystalized and dormant until activated by human action.

This series of printed works is a set of vocal quartets created from the original material of the human voice, the larynx, which was amplified/reproduced/echoed through visual perception processes in machine and human cognizers and re-performed by multiple human singers. In endoscopic photography the flesh material of the larynx is extended through the sensory mechanisms of a machine. Light bounces off the flesh of the larynx and is interpreted by a camera as pixel data. This digital image is made of raster pixels faithful to their fleshy origins but limited in detail. If one amplifies the raster image of the voice (zoom) the image reveals its materiality as a technical assemblage. I transformed the raster image into a vector in order to continue playing with bouncing machine processes off one another to “voice” how a machine might perceive this human larynx. While the rasterization process I used eliminated the fleshy details of the original larynx, the image emphasized original architectural structures of the larynx, which now more closely resembled a topographical map, or circuit board. This technologically processed version of the larynx could be infinitely amplified or diminished without loss or distortion. At this point I detected an unexpected feature: my associative, human perception could see markings that resembled Western notation at the edges of this transformed image of the human voice, complete with staves, bar lines and notes. My transcription process included dividing each bar into four equal parts, and then transcribing rhythms in a linear relationship to where the small note-like marks were present horizontally in common 4/4 time.  Pitches were interpreted as they appeared vertically on the abstracted staves.

Since there exist four sides to each two-dimensional image, there were four staves for each representation of the larynx in the series. I set this music into four separate vocal partitions for choral song: returning this technologically amplified process of voicing back into multiple human throats.

Exhibition/Performance history

MacKenzie Art Gallery January 2020.

Toronto Bienniale November 2019.

Vocales Digitales – Solo exhibition. March 26 – May 14 2016, Hamilton Artists’ Inc.: Hamilton, Canada. Curated by Caitlin Sutherland.

Rhubarb, rhubarb, peas and carrots, 2015. Dunlop Art Gallery. Regina, Canada. Curated by Blair Fornwald. Larynx Songs premiered with singers Erin Gee, Carrie Smith, Kristen Smith, and Kaitlin Semple.

(Premiere Performance) Rhubarb, Rhubarb, peas and carrots. July 17-September 5, 2015. Dunlop Art Gallery: Regina, Canada. Curated by Blair Fornwald.

Erin Gee and Kelly Andres. August 25 – October 24, 2014. Cirque du Soleil Headquarters: Montreal, Canada. Curated by Eliane Elbogen.

Voice of Echo (Solo Exhibition), 2014. Gallerywest. Toronto, Canada. Curated by Evan Tyler.

(Performance) Tellings: A Posthuman Vocal Concert. Toronto Biennial. Curated by Myung-Sun Kim and Maiko Tanaka.

Collections

Larynx3 (edition 1/5) was purchased by the Saskatchewan Arts Board for their permanent collection in 2019.

Gallery

Photo Credits
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Erin Gee - Swarming Emotional Pianos

Swarming Emotional Pianos

29.01.2016 , Gallery Artwork, Music Composition, Physical Media, Portfolio, Robotics, Robotics/AI/XR/Quantum

Swarming Emotional Pianos (2012 – ongoing)
Aluminium tubes, servo motors, custom mallets, Arduino-based electronics, iCreate platforms
Approximately 27” x 12” x 12” each

2012

A looming projection of a human performer surrounded by six musical chime robots: their music is driven by the shifting rhythms of the performer’s emotional body, transformed into data and signal that activates the motors of the ensemble.

Swarming Emotional Pianos is a robotic installation work that features performance documentation of an actress moving through extreme emotions in five minute intervals. During these timed performances of extreme surprise, anger, fear, sadness, sexual arousal, and joy, Gee used her own custom-built biosensors to capture the way that each emotion affects the heartbeat, sweat, and respiration of the actress. The data from this session drives the musical outbursts of the robotics surrounding the video documentation of the emotional session. Visitors to this work are presented with two windows into the emotional state of the actress: both through a large projection of her face, paired with stereo recording of her breath and sounds of the emotional session, and through the normally inaccessible emotional world of physiology, the physicality of sensation as represented by the six robotic chimes.

Micro bursts of emotional sentiment are amplified by the robots, providing an intimate and abstract soundtrack for this “emotional movie”. These mechanistic, physiological effects of emotion drive the robotics, illustrating the physicality and automation of human emotion. By displaying both of these perspectives on human emotion simultaneously, I am interested in how the rhythmic pulsing of the robotic bodies confirm or deny the visibility and performativity of the face. Does emotion therefore lie within the visibility of facial expression, or in the patterns of bodily sensation in her body? Is the actor sincere in her performance if the emotion is felt as opposed to displayed?

Custom open-source biosensors that collect heartrate and signal amplitude, respiration amplitude and rate, and galvanic skin response (sweat) have been in development by Gee since 2012.  Click here to access her GitHub page if you would like to try the technology for yourself, or contribute to the research.

Credits

Thank you to the following for your contributions:

In loving memory of Martin Peach (my robot teacher) – Sébastien Roy (lighting circuitry) – Peter van Haaften (tools for algorithmic composition in Max/MSP) – Grégory Perrin (Electronics Assistant)

Jason Leith, Vivian Li, Mark Lowe, Simone Pitot, Matt Risk, and Tristan Stevans for their dedicated help in the studio

Concordia University, the MARCS Institute at the University of Western Sydney, Innovations en Concert Montréal, Conseil des Arts de Montréal, Thought Technology, and AD Instruments for their support.

Videos

Swarming Emotional Pianos (2012-2014)
Machine demonstration March 2014 – Eastern Bloc Lab Residency, Montréal

Swarming Emotional Pianos (2012-2014)
Machine demonstration March 2014 – Eastern Bloc Lab Residency, Montréal

Gallery

Swarming Emotional Pianos

Erin Gee - Vocaloid Gig At Nocturne (X + 1)

Gig Vocaloid

28.01.2016 , Embodied Media/Performance/Scores, Gallery Artwork, Performance, Portfolio, Sound Art

Gig Vocaloid (2015)
Vocaloid Gig At Nocturne (X + 1)

2015

A video-text pop band from a dystopic future where the human voice is lost and pop music reigns supreme.

Virtual voices are key for these pop stars. Dancing, costumed performers carry tablets that display the human larynx and song lyrics as they dance in sync.

The project is inspired by virtual pop stars such as Hatsune Miku, which exist equally as distributed visual media avatar (holograms, merchandise), and as digital software tools for public, fan-based synthesized vocal creation. GIG VOCALOID is also inspired by boy and girl pop bands, whereupon individual voices and musicality are often superseded by a pop “character.” This is especially true in Japanese pop group AKB48, which has 48 female members whom are voted upon by the public for the right to solo singing and “leadership” within the group.

In this pop music context, celebrity character, fashion and visual appeal is more important than the human singing voice itself, which is often replaced by synthesizers and pitch correction. GIG VOCALOID invokes a fantasy posthumanist future where the human voice is lost, subjectivity is dead, and everyone is celebrating.

Externalizing the human voice outside of the preciousness of the human body, the human larynx (typically a hidden, interior aspect of vocal performance) is displayed prominently on tablets. “Lyrics” to their song flash aleatorically through these videos, which enable humans performers to be the support for digital artwork. GIG VOCALOID re-localizates the voice beyond the borders of the flesh body in an infectious avatar-dream.

Performance history

GIG VOCALOID is a virtual pop band that had its first performance at the Musée d’art Contemporain de Montreal in February 2015 at X + 1: an evening of Internet-inspired art.

Gallery

Gig Vocaloid (2015)
Vocaloid Gig At Nocturne (X + 1)