Research into sound and space. Grant project of the Composition Department at HAMU 2016–2018
Space is a concept that creates a framework for relationships. Such a framework can be physical and material in nature, but it can also be mental, intellectual, or virtual. Cosmological, physical, and biological processes take place in space across time. As beings, we define ourselves in relation to our surroundings in space, and our communication takes place in space. One of the principles of such communication, which is the subject of one of the current creative research projects at the Department of Composition at HAMU, is acoustic communication – communication through sound, which (consciously structured in time) becomes music.
It is impossible to think about music without awareness of space. For music to sound, it requires a space in which air particles will vibrate depending on deliberate physical activity. And it requires space for mental relationships to be established so that communication can take place, even if the music itself only sounds in our consciousness, for example when reading sheet music.
The main focus of our interest is primarily the spatial arrangement of sound sources (speakers) or musical instruments that function as a living instrumental organism engulfing the listener within the listening space—instead of the traditional auditorium layout of concert halls. The project explores three lines of technological and compositional strategies for manipulating space with sound. These are the distribution of sound in space using speaker systems, software strategies for real-time spatial distribution, and special strategies for analyzing the spatial aspects of sound and the possibility of their transferability between physical spaces.
Speakerhead and Mobile Acousmonium HAMU
Concept: Jan Trojan & Michal Rataj
Technical design and implementation: Jan Trojan
Hardware development: Tomáš Mudra (DT Technic Teplice)
using OSC for Arduino [OSCuino]
(c) CNMAT, UC Berkeley, California
Soundspace – Spacesound
Rataj, Michal – Hořínka, Slavomír – Trojan, Jan – Dvořák, Tomáš. Prague: AMU Publishing House, 2018. 241 pp.
October 2018
Concert: The Past in the Present. October 3, 2018, 7:30 p.m.; D8: Baroque Refectory, Jilská 5, Prague
Concert in collaboration with the Institute of Musicology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, as part of the HERA Sound Memories project. New compositions, inspired in various ways by the music of the past, were composed by Bruno Cunha, Jan Dobiáš, Kateřina Horká, Patrik Kako, and Roman Zabelov. The performance in the acousmonium was given by Slavomír Hořínka, Jan Trojan, Michal Rataj, and students of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. At the end of the evening, there was a book launch for Zvukoprostor – Prostorozvuk (Soundspace – Spatial Sound), which was created (together with HAMU Acousmonium) during the eponymous grant project at the Department of Composition at HAMU and the Department of Photography at FAMU in 2016–2018.
Publication: Rataj, Michal – Hořínka, Slavomír – Trojan, Jan – Dvořák, Tomáš. Zvukoprostor – Prostorozvuk. Prague: AMU Publishing House, 2018. 241 pp.
September 2018
Concert: Slavomír Hořínka: In Carne Mea (version for acoustic track and strings) at a concert in Budapest.
August 2018
Publication: Hořínka, Slavomír. "Interspace: Distance as a Compositional Strategy" [online]. Musicologica Brunensia [cited 6 September 2018]. 2018, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 35–50. Available from: https://doi.org/10.5817/MB2018-1-3.
December 2017
Slavomír Hořínka, Michal Rataj, and Jan Trojan presented the results of their research at the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest. This was followed by a concert using a multichannel system with Speakerhead.
November 2017
Slavomír Hořínka received a special prize for Czech participants in the Musica nova 2017 competition for his composition Rány zářící (Shining Wounds).
June 2017
Concert: Slavomír Hořínka: In Carne Mea (version for acoustic track and strings) at a concert in Bratislava. The composition is based on the sound of the rumbling and beating of Easter Jerusalem, recorded inside the Romanesque Church of St. Anne.
May 2017
Concert: Prague Spring. National Technical Museum, May 29, 2017
Jan Trojan: Circulation, provocation for saxophone, clarinet, violin, and sound objects. Michal Rataj: Sentenceless Sentence.
Reviews: Harmonie: When sound runs away on wheels, ČT: Echo of Prague Spring, iHned - Boris Klepal
Concert: Sound Trails and Magnetic Fields. International Museum and Gallery Day, May 18, 2017, 7 p.m.; Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia, Prague.
This was an international collaborative project between AMU (Department of Composition, HAMU, Center for Audiovisual Studies, FAMU) and the Aktuelle Musik: Komposition department at the Hochschule für Musik, Nuremberg. Listeners had the opportunity to take part in an unconventional sound walk. The route led through the monastery, where visitors participated in sound interventions. At the end of the evening, the Ensemble Terrible HAMU performed, followed by a presentation of the new sixteen-channel ambisonic system with the Speakerhead robotic speaker head.
Reviews: Audiopro: Surrounded by Sound Acousmonia
Publication: Rataj, Michal. "Writing Sound: The Wacom Tablet – a Multifaceted Musical Instrument." In: Koubová, Alice – Jobertová, Daniela (ed.). Artistic Research: Is There Some Method? Prague: AMU Publishing House, 2017.
Concert: MTI presents: Michal Rataj, May 5, 2017, 7:30 p.m.; Leicester
Presentation and concert by Michal Rataj at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.
April 2017
Slavomír Hořínka: Rány zářící (Shining Wounds) in PremEdice Radioateliér Čro. The soundscape composition is based on recordings made during Easter 2016 in Jerusalem.
December 2016
Concert: AD 2016. Music in Context series. December 13, 2016, 7:30 p.m.; St. Clement's Church, Prague.
Slavomír Hořínka: Thursday and May God Forgive You for mezzo-soprano and 10 players
October 2016
Concert: Hesychasm, Music (from) Silence. Festival of Orthodox Music Archaillos Kallon. October 18, 2016, HAMU Gallery, Prague.
Slavomír Hořínka: Prayer Inside. Soundscape composition based on recordings made during Easter 2016 in Jerusalem.
Reviews: Harmonie: Prague festival in the spirit of Byzantine ars nova.
September 2016
Concert: ICMC 2016 - 42nd International Computer Music Conference. September 13, 2016, Utrecht.
Michal Rataj: Small Imprints for clarinet and live electronics.
June 2016
Jan Trojan successfully tested a stepper motor controlled by the Open Sound Control protocol, which is to become the core of the robotic speaker head of the new acousmonium.
Slavomír Hořínka: Face. Sound installation for the exhibition of the same name by Josef Pleskot in the Church of the Finding of the Holy Cross in Litomyšl, June 9–December 31, 2016. The installation is based on recordings made during Easter 2016 in Jerusalem.
Presentation by Michal Rataj at the 51st International Music Colloquium in Brno.
April 2016
Establishment of cooperation with the company APS, which should result in specially designed speakers for the new acousmonium.
Slavomír Hořínka traveled to Jerusalem, where he recorded in the streets of the city during Orthodox Easter, and especially at night inside churches.
March 2016
Michal Rataj and Jan Trojan began research and construction of the HAMU mobile acousmonium.
