If you'd like to join us on MS Teams on Thursday, 19 November from 11am-noon for John's talk followed by a Q & A, please email music@ucc.ie for the link. 

Abstract: The composer/performer Pauline Oliveros observed that room acoustics have a profound effect not only on the sonority of sounds made within them, but also on the decisions made by musicians that play there. Proceeding from that observation, she developed the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic sound-processing system designed not only to expand the capabilities of her instrument, but also to create challenges to the performer, who must improvise within the capabilities delimited by its behaviour. I will introduce my own EIS, which I have been developing since 2015; describe some of the questions that arise during the design of such a system; and contextualise it within an artistic practice that understands performance as an interaction between performer and environment, where the latter is understood very broadly to include other performers, digital systems and the ‘real world’.