Project Details: Musical Works
Date of Project Realisation: 2010
Project Dimensions: Musical works (multichannel electro-acoustic compositions)
Project URL: fox2010.anat.org.au
Project Overview: Interior Design: Music for the Bionic Ear is a pioneering project in music composition involving the creation of new musical works tailored specifically for the current implementation of cochlear implant software and hardware. With implications well beyond the making of music just for implant recipients, the project aims to create concert environments where new music can be appreciated by implant users and normally hearing people alike. In pursuing this aim, the project intends to address the sense of alienation experienced by implant users in the community. This alienation is most keenly felt in situations, like concerts, where the appreciation of music is central to a social activity.
Many attempts have been, and continue to be, made to improve the software and hardware components of the cochlear implant. While these have been remarkably successful in increasing speech perception and facilitating communication, the perception of musical qualities like pitch and timbre and proving much more problematic. The Interior Design project reverses the usual research focus examining music itself and modifying it to increase receptivity in the implant. This involves the creation of music with parameters radically outside the accepted modes and models established over centuries in the Western Classical tradition. Not only is the potential tuning system different but also the extent to which polyphony and timbral complexity can be employed is severely restricted. The result is new music in the absolute sense that it will be music that would perhaps never have been composed were it not for these unique parametric constraints.
The project, initiated by composer Robin Fox in collaboration with the Bionic Ear Institute and ANAT constitutes a landmark in research in this area and aims to provoke further research into possible new directions for cochlear implant technologies. In doing this, the project will also produce new music to be enjoyed by everyone interested in the evolution of organized sound.
A concert program of newly commissioned works has just taken place on 13 February 2011 at the Fairfax studio, Melbourne Arts Centre. You can see and hear excerpts from this concert on YouTube: ABC National News piece The concert was a sell-out success and the data gathered from audience members will assist the Bionic Ear Institute with its research well into the future. World premiere compositions from six of Australia’s most interesting new music composers were presented to a diverse audience consisting of implant wearers and naturally hearing people alike. So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. The works ranged from instrumental, through the combination of acoustic and electro-acoustic sources to the purely electro-acoustic. Robin Fox, the artistic director of the project, accompanied his 11-channel work with live video, which presented the listeners with a real time visualization of the sound being heard. It was hoped that the resulting synaesthetic impulse would increase the CI wearer’s appreciation of the work.
THE FUTURE
The project is now ready to move to the next phase of development. Data gathered from the concert will be processed and assessed in order to try and determine which strategies worked best for the transmission of musical information to the cochlear implant wearers. This information can then be used to decide on the best course of action for the future. The musical works themselves exist now as works in their own right but could be revisited and edited in accordance with this new information. The works will also exist as tools for the Bionic Ear Institute to use in testing the efficacy of improvements made in the implant hardware. Further testing and research will be undertaken along the lines of that already begun as part of this project.
Artist Biography: Robin Fox is an artist straddling the often artificial divide between audible and visible arts. As an audio-visual performance artist his work has featured in festivals worldwide. Recent appearances include a commissioned performance for the Henie Onstad Kunstcenter Oslo (March 2010), Mois Multi Festival Quebec City (Feb 2010), Steirischer Herbst Festival Graz (Nov 2009), Musica Genera Festival Warsaw (June 2009) and the Yokohama Triennale (September 2008). His audio visual films for the cathode ray oscilloscope are documented on the DVD release ‘backscatter’ (2004) with more recent works Volta and 5 Creation Myths being exhibited as video works at the RoslynOxley9 gallery in Sydney, The Asian Art Biennale in Taipei and the Miniartextil International exhibition in Como Italy.
His groundbreaking work with Chunky Move has contributed to the recent piece Mortal Engine winning a Helpmann award for Best Visual Production and an Honorary mention at the illustrious Prix Ars Electronica. Recent projects include a photography exhibition called ‘Proof of Concept’ opening at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne July 2010 and a research project with the Bionic Ear Institute composing music for cochlear implant wearers.
Musically he has released 3 albums with composer/performer Anthony Pateras (Editions Mego/Synaesthesia) and one with Double bassist Clayton Thomas (Room 40). He has also performed with the likes of Oren Ambarchi, Lasse Marhaug, Jerome Noetinger, Stephen O’Malley and Erick D’Orion among numerous other encounters. His recent solo LP/Cassette on deMego ‘A Handful of Automation’ is his first full length solo audio release.
Fox also holds a PhD in composition from Monash University and completed a musicological masters dissertation on the history of experimental music in Melbourne
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