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STEIM

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STEIM (STudio for Electro Instrumental Music) was a center for research and development of new musical instruments in the electronic performing arts, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Beginning in the 1970's, STEIM became known as a pioneering center for electronic music, where the specific context of electronic music was always strongly related to the physical and direct actions of a musician. In this tradition, STEIM supported artists in residence such as composers and performers, but also multimedia and video artists, helping them to develop setups which allowed for bespoke improvisation and performance with individually designed technology.

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Experimental musical instrument

Experimental musical instrument

An experimental musical instrument is a musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments, or defines or creates a new class of instrument. Some are created through simple modifications, such as cracked drum cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano strings in a prepared piano. Some experimental instruments are created from household items like a homemade mute for brass instruments such as bathtub plugs. Other experimental instruments are created from electronic spare parts, or by mixing acoustic instruments with electric components.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 921,402 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area. Located in the Dutch province of North Holland, Amsterdam is colloquially referred to as the "Venice of the North", for its large number of canals, now designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country located in northwestern Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east, and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium in the North Sea. The country's official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean territories.

Electronic music

Electronic music

Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means. Pure electronic instruments depended entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Such electromechanical devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano and the electric guitar.

Background

STEIM existed since 1969. It was founded by Misha Mengelberg, Louis Andriessen, Peter Schat, Dick Raaymakers, Jan van Vlijmen, Reinbert de Leeuw, and Konrad Boehmer. This group of Dutch composers had fought for the reformation of Amsterdam's feudal music structures; they insisted on Bruno Maderna's appointment as musical director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and enforced the first public fundings for experimental and improvised electronic music in the Netherlands. [1] They were offered a budget for their collective multimedia opera "Reconstruction" which was premiered in the Holland Festival in 1969. [2] The technology used in this opera was then taken to Amsterdam's Prinseneiland which was STEIM's first location. Soon, in 1971, the studio moved to the Groenburgwal in the city center, where there was more space for workshops and concerts. Since 1986, STEIM was located at the Achtergracht in the city center's southern area in a building containing including three studios, a concert hall, hard and software workshops, offices, and a guesthouse for artists in residence.

STEIM officially ceased to exist as an organization at the end of 2020 due primarily to cuts within the Dutch national cultural funding system.[3]

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Misha Mengelberg

Misha Mengelberg

Misha Mengelberg was a Dutch jazz pianist and composer. A prominent figure in post-WWII European Jazz, Mengelberg is known for his forays into free improvisation, for bringing humor into his music, and as a leading interpreter of songs by fellow pianists Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols.

Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen

Louis Joseph Andriessen was a Dutch composer, pianist and academic teacher. Considered the most influential Dutch composer of his generation, he was a central proponent of The Hague school of composition. Although his music was initially dominated by neoclassicism and serialism, his style gradually shifted to a synthesis of American minimalism, jazz and the manner of Stravinsky.

Peter Schat

Peter Schat

Peter Ane Schat was a Dutch composer.

Reinbert de Leeuw

Reinbert de Leeuw

Lambertus Reiner "Reinbert" de Leeuw was a Dutch conductor, pianist and composer.

Konrad Boehmer

Konrad Boehmer

Konrad Boehmer was a German-Dutch composer, educator, and writer.

Concertgebouw, Amsterdam

Concertgebouw, Amsterdam

The Royal Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" translates into English as "concert building". Its superb acoustics place it among the finest concert halls in the world, along with Boston's Symphony Hall and the Musikverein in Vienna.

Holland Festival

Holland Festival

The Holland Festival is the oldest and largest performing arts festival in the Netherlands. It takes place every June in Amsterdam. It comprises theatre, music, opera and modern dance. In recent years, multimedia, visual arts, film and architecture were added to the festival roster.

Groenburgwal

Groenburgwal

The Groenburgwal is a canal in Amsterdam that connects the Raamgracht with the Amstel. The Groenburgwal is parallel to the Kloveniersburgwal and the Zwanenburgwal, in the shadow of the tower of the Zuiderkerk.

Achtergracht

Achtergracht

The Achtergracht is a short canal in Amsterdam, located between Frederiksplein and the Amstel, parallel to the Prinsengracht. The Achtergracht is located in the eastern part of the Grachtengordel.

Selected STEIM instruments

Hardware

Crackle Box
Crackle Box
The Hands
The Hands
  • Black Box System (Zwarte Dozen), by Rob van de Poel (1972)
  • Eemnes Machines, by Victor Wentink (1975–79)
  • Crackle Box (Kraakdoos), Crackle Synth, by Michel Waisvisz, Geert Hamelberg, Peter Beyls and Nico Bes (1975)[4]
  • The Hands, by Michel Waisvisz (since 1984). One of the world's first gestural MIDI controllers. Two wooden frames for the hands with switches, potentiometers, tilt sensors, and ultrasound.
  • Hyperstring Project, by Jon Rose. Extending a Violin Bow with Sensors. (since 1985)
  • STEIM Sensor-Lab. Portable Mini-Computer which translates analogue Sensor data into MIDI Code. (1989)
  • The Web, by Michel Waisvisz (1990)[5]
  • The Sweatstick, by Ray Edgar (1990)
  • The Lady's Glove, by Laetitia Sonami (1991)
  • Nic Collins: Midi Concertina (1992)
  • Chromasone, by Walter Fabeck (1994)
  • Mutantrumpet, by Ben Neill (2008)
  • Stone with Nails, by Reyes Oteo (2009)

Software

  • Lick Machine, by Frank Baldé (1989-1995). MIDI Macro-Controlling Software
  • LiSa, by Michel Waisvisz and Frank Baldé. Realtime software instrument for live sampling and realtime audio manipulation (since 1995)[6] LiSa info
  • Big Eye, by Tom Demeyer. Video to MIDI converter (1995-2001)
  • Image/ine, by Steina Vasulka and Tom Demeyer. Software instrument for realtime video manipulation (1996-2001)
  • MIDI Joy, by Frank Baldé. Mapping game controllers to MIDI Code (1997-2002)
  • JunXion, by Michel Waisvisz and Frank Baldé. Mapping game controllers, audio, video and sensor data to MIDI and OSC (since 2003) junXion info

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Kraakdoos

Kraakdoos

A kraakdoos or cracklebox is a custom-made instrument, in the form of a noise-making electronic device. It is a small box with six metal contacts on top, which generate various unusual sounds and tones when pressed by the performer's fingers. The human body becomes a part of the circuit and determines the range of sounds possible, thus different people–or the same person at different times–shall generate different results.

Michel Waisvisz

Michel Waisvisz

Michel Waisvisz was a Dutch composer, performer and inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments. He was the artistic director of STEIM in Amsterdam from 1981, where he collaborated with musicians and artists from all over the world.

Jon Rose

Jon Rose

Jonathan Anthony Rose is an Australian violinist, cellist, composer, and multimedia artist. Rose's work is centered in the experimental music known as free improvisation, where he has created large environmental multimedia works, built experimental musical instruments, and improvised violin concertos with accompanying orchestra. He has been described by Tony Mitchell as "undoubtedly the most exploratory, imaginative and iconoclastic violin player who has lived in Australia".

Laetitia Sonami

Laetitia Sonami

Laetitia Sonami, is a sound artist, performer, and composer of interactive electronic music who has been based in the San Francisco Bay area since 1978. She is known for her electronic compositions and performances with the ‘’Lady’s Glove’’, an instrument she developed for triggering and manipulating sound in live performance. Many of her compositions include live or sampled text. Sonami also creates sound installation work incorporating household objects embedded with mechanical and electronic components. Although some recordings of her works exist, Sonami generally eschews releasing recorded work.

Ben Neill

Ben Neill

Ben Neill is an American composer, trumpeter, producer, and educator. He is the inventor of the "Mutantrumpet", a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument.

STEIM touch philosophy

As a headline for most of STEIM's instrumental developments it can apply that "Touch is crucial in communicating with the new electronic performance art technologies".[7] As in traditional musical instruments, it is believed here that also in contemporary developments the physical touch of a musician contains essential aesthetic factors. These qualities tend to get lost in the non-realtime use of studio technology, in which the process of music production gets rather rational but bodily involved. The Touch philosophy — which can be considered as STEIM's interpretation of the widely used term interactivity — theoretically subsumes several stages of STEIM's developments, from the analogue touchable "Crackle" surfaces in the 1970s[8] to today's experimental Gestural MIDI Interfaces.

Structure and people

STEIM was a foundation whose primary financial support came from the Dutch ministry of Culture. It invited international artists in residence of all different musical and artistic styles and scenes. Aside from offering support in theoretic and practical development of contemporary musical instruments, STEIM also hosted in-house concerts, exhibitions and workshops. The work in progress of supported artists was presented during open studio events.

Artistic/managing directors

Artistic guest directors

Artistic residency

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Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (Netherlands)

Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (Netherlands)

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is the Dutch Ministry responsible for education, culture, science, research, gender equality and communications. The Ministry was created in 1918 as the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences and had several name changes before it became the Education, Culture and Science in 1994. The Ministry is headed by the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, currently Robbert Dijkgraaf

Michel Waisvisz

Michel Waisvisz

Michel Waisvisz was a Dutch composer, performer and inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments. He was the artistic director of STEIM in Amsterdam from 1981, where he collaborated with musicians and artists from all over the world.

George E. Lewis

George E. Lewis

George Emanuel Lewis is an American composer, performer, and scholar of experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, when he joined the organization at the age of 19. He is renowned for his work as an improvising trombonist and considered a pioneer of computer music, which he began pursuing in the late 1970s; in the 1980s he created Voyager, an improvising software he has used in interactive performances. Lewis's many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his book A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music received the American Book Award. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Composition & Historical Musicology at Columbia University.

Clarence Barlow

Clarence Barlow

Clarence Barlow is a composer of classical and electroacoustic works.

Netochka Nezvanova (author)

Netochka Nezvanova (author)

Netochka Nezvanova is the pseudonym used by the author(s) of nato.0+55+3d, a real-time, modular, video and multi-media processing environment. Alternate aliases include "=cw4t7abs", "punktprotokol", "0f0003", "maschinenkunst", "integer", and "antiorp". The name itself is adopted from the main character of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's first novel Netochka Nezvanova (1849) and translates as "nameless nobody."

Mazen Kerbaj

Mazen Kerbaj

Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese jazz and free improvisation trumpeter and comic book artist.

Kasia Glowicka

Kasia Glowicka

Kasia Glowicka, also known as Katarina Glowicka, is a Polish composer and lecturer of computer music at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.

Mark Trayle

Mark Trayle

Mark Trayle, born Mark Evan Garrabrant was a California-based musician and sound artist working in a variety of media including live electronic music, improvisation, installations, and compositions for chamber ensembles. His work has been noted for its use of re-engineered consumer products and cultural artifacts as interfaces for electronic music performances and networked media installations.

Henry Vega

Henry Vega

Henry Vega is a composer and Electroacoustic musician from New York City, currently living in The Hague, Netherlands. He founded The Spycollective in 2006, a now defunct music, theater and dance group, and is a founding director of Artek Foundation. Vega has been composing and performing internationally since 2001 and is also a founding member of The Electronic Hammer trio with Diego Espinosa and Juan Parra Cancino. He is married to Polish composer Kasia Glowicka.

John Richards (musician)

John Richards (musician)

John Stephen Richards is a British musician and composer working in the field of electronic music. Since 1999, he has predominantly explored performing with self-made instruments and creating interactive environments for composition.

Marko Ciciliani

Marko Ciciliani

Marko Ciciliani is a composer, audiovisual artist and performer.

Benton C Bainbridge

Benton C Bainbridge

Benton C Bainbridge is an American artist known for new media art including single channel video, interactive artworks, immersive installations and live visual performances with custom digital, analog and optical systems of his own design.

Source: "STEIM", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, January 29th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEIM.

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See also
References
  1. ^ Whitehead, Kevin (1998). New Dutch Swing. An in-depth examination of Amsterdam's vital and distinctive Jazz Scene. New York.
  2. ^ Davies, Hugh (1996). Elektroakustische Live-Performance. Zur Geschichte und Gegenwart des STEIM.
  3. ^ "The Future of STEIM | STEIM". Retrieved 2021-09-19.
  4. ^ Bes, Nico (1986). STEIM. A summary of important facts and developments. Den Haag. pp. 8–17.
  5. ^ Krefeld, Volker (Summer 1990). A Hand in the Web: An Interview with Michel Waisvisz. pp. 28–33.
  6. ^ Anderton, Craig (1994). STEIM. In the Land of Alternative Controllers. Keyboard Magazine. pp. 54–62.
  7. ^ "S T e I M [ about ]". Archived from the original on 2009-03-30. Retrieved 2009-03-21.
  8. ^ Collins, Nicolas (2006). Collins, Nicolas: Handmade Electronic Music. The Art of Hardware Hacking. New York.
External links

Artist projects realised at STEIM

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