The DK Projection

SAH sobre Bodegas Ysios

thedk1234 — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:18:25 +0000

Esta semana hablaremos sobre la tercera pieza de la serie, SAH, basada en la arquitectura de Bodegas Ysios por Santiago Calatrava. Este edificio es realmente especial. Lo visitamos un lluvioso día durante la primavera del año pasado, y fuimos caminando por un valle maravilloso a las afueras de la pequeña ciudad amurallada de Laguardia, en la Rioja Alavesa [ES].

Desde el momento en que nos íbamos acercando, el efecto sobre el valle con los riscos de fondo es impresionante. Se trata de un edificio todo él sinusoidal, tanto en la fachada como en la cubierta. Sample and Hold [SAH] es tanto un procedimiento de la música electrónica como el aparato analógico que sirve para realizar tal tarea. Se trata de muestrear una onda o flujo de voltaje determinados, de manera que en cada punto que se toma como muestra, el valor queda mantenido o “congelado” en este punto hasta que aparece un valor nuevo. Wikipedia lo explica bastante mejor. El efecto que se consigue es el de formas de ondas de apariencia cortante, como si estuvieran formadas por bloques. Esto es lo que la estructura exterior de la bodega me sugirió de inmediato. El efecto visual de los elementos naturales de fondo junto con una estructura brillante, cálida y artificial es de una increíble virtualidad mágica.

El edificio por otro lado está repleto de referencias a la mitología egipcia y al vino; inspira una especie de paz, y no sé por qué, la imagen recuerda a la de un órgano de iglesia. Una especie de atrio central más prominente y abombado reparte en perfecta simetría los 155 bloques de madera de la cubierta recubiertos de aluminio. Estos elementos, los cuales crean estructuras curvas a partir de líneas rectas, no son un recurso nuevo, por cierto; Xenakis ya los usó en su Philips Pavilion. El arquitecto parece que se sintió muy inspirado por la obra de Félix Candela, arquitecto que también utiliza este tipo de estructuras curvas.

Extrusion, pieza electrónica sobre Marqués de Riscal

thedk1234 — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:09:47 +0000

Extrusion, la segunda pieza del ciclo [d]espacio, será interpretada los días 6 y 8 de marzo respectivamente en Salamanca y La Haya dentro de sendos estrenos del ciclo completo. Posteriormente el día 23 Extrusion formará parte de un programa de música octofónica organizado por el Instituto Phonos en la Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona.

Sobre esta pieza escribimos hace un tiempo, así que os invitamos aquí a explorarla un poquito en cinco minutos [solamente inglés]. En la página de Beatriz encontraréis un comentario sintético sobre Extrusion.

Extrusion, inspired on Marqués de Riscal

thedk1234 — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:56:44 +0000

Extrusion, the second piece of [d]espacio series will be performed March 6th and 8th respectively in Salamanca [ES] and The Hague within the world-wide premieres of the complete series. Later on, the 23rd, Extrusion will take part in a octofonic music session organized by Instituto Phonos of the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona.

We wrote about this piece time ago, so we would like to invite you here to explore it a bit in few minutes. In Beatriz’ website also you could find a summarized remark on Extrusion.

Extrusion inspired by Marqués de Riscal

thedk1234 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:19:53 +0000

This week is the turn of Extrusion, the second electronic piece of our series [d]espacio. Extrusion is a piece inspired by the building Bodegas Marqués de Riscal, which is located in the Rioja alavesa, a northern region of Spain.

Frank Gehry, the Canadian architect living in the States, author of emblematic works such as Museo Guggenheim of Bilbao, created an incredible building for Bodegas Marqués de Riscal. The building we took as inspiration and compositional model is a paradigmatic hotel situated within the winery´s facilities, and transmits an overwhelming vibration, formal beauty and communication power.

Extrusion inspirada en Marqués de Riscal

thedk1234 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:41:36 +0000

Toca el turno esta semana a Extrusion, la segunda pieza electrónica de nuestra serie d[espacio]. Extrusion es una pieza que está inspirada en el edificio de la bodega riojana-alavesa Bodegas Marqués de Riscal.

Frank Gehry, arquitecto canadiense asentado en Estados Unidos, autor de obras tan emblemáticas como Museo Guggenheim de Bilbao, levanta una obra inigualable para Marqués de Riscal. El edificio tomado como modelo compositivo es un paradigmático hotel dentro de las propias instalaciones, y transmite una vibración, belleza formal y poder de comunicación que sobrecogen.

Drawing music

thedk1234 — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:47:21 +0000

>> Versión en español

[d]espacio is a series of electronic pieces composed by Angel Arranz and visualized by Beatriz del Saz. The series is inspired on the buildings of four Spanish avant-garde wineries: Bodegas Protos, Bodegas Marqués de Riscal, Bodegas Ysios end Bodegas Qumrán. There is exactly one month left for its premiere in Salamanca and in the dutch city of The Hague, so we would like to speak about the first piece of the series, entitled Electronic Study. This piece has been composed by drawing… wait, by drawing?

HighC is an intuitive program implemented by the French ingeneer Thomas Baudel, This program is based in an invention in 1977 by Iannis Xenakis, a greek composer and architect, considered one of the most outstanding composers of the second half of the 20th century. This invention was named UPIC ( Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu). UPIC was a computer device which allowed you to literally draw a series of gestures on a panel by means of a light pen. A computer registered such gestures digitally and transformed them analogically in sounds. The horizontal dimension of the plane represented Time -the sounds´ duration and location- while the vertical dimension represented the frequency of such sounds (higher or lower in pitch). The user could choose in a sound bank different timbres and wave types, as well as the envelope, that is, the amount of volume and how a sound starts and ends.

Arranz used HighC to create this piece in 2009, inspired in the building of Bodegas Protos by Richard Rogers. To that end, he takes as reference the paraboloid shapes of each of the building´s five vaults.

From these shapes, the composer developes a personal gesture which oscillates in time starting from small strokes [drawn in green in the picture above]; the gesture changes gradually and becomes thicker, adquiring a delta-shape in its beginning and ending. This delta represents the building´s triangular plan.

The set of oscillations ending in a “cloud” has been named by the composer as “seed / anti-rythm”. In this sense, Arranz represents Protos´ building as a anti-rythm, but in a very personal way.

Si dentro del dibujo original hiciésemos zoom en la zona de la nube, nos daríamos cuenta que, cada uno de los diminutos elementos que aparecen dentro de la nube están hechos a imagen y semejanza de la semilla/anti-ritmo:

The piece dedicated to Protos is the first of the [d]espacio series, as protos (in greek, πρῶτος) means “first”. In addition, Electronic Study is the “generator” of the three following pieces, based on the buildings Marqués de Riscal, Ysios y Qumrán, and entitled, respectively, Extrusion, SAH y De la luz y del espacio. Many of the gestures used in Electronic Study come back in an evolutioned, transformed shape, in the three following pieces.

Electronic Study was presented separately in April 2009 in the Discussion Concert Series of the Institute of Sonology of The Hague.

Dibujar la música

thedk1234 — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:47:21 +0000

>> English version

[d]espacio es un ciclo de composiciones electrónicas compuestas por Ángel Arranz y visualizadas por Beatriz del Saz. El ciclo está inspirado en los edificios de cuatro bodegas vanguardistas españolas: Bodegas Protos, Bodegas Marqués de Riscal, Bodegas Ysios y Bodegas Qumrán. Queda exactamente un mes para su estreno en Salamanca y en la ciudad holandesa de La Haya, así que nos gustaría hablar sobre la primera de las piezas del ciclo, titulada Electronic Study. Esta pieza se ha compuesto literalmente dibujando ¿Dibujando?

HighC es un intuitivo programa implementado por el ingeniero francés Thomas Baudel. Este programa está basado en una invención de 1977 de Iannis Xenakis, compositor y arquitecto griego, considerado uno de los compositores más sobresalientes de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. El invento se llamó UPIC (siglas de Unidad Poliagógica Informática del CEMAMu). El UPIC era un ingenio informático que te permitía literalmente dibujar una serie de gestos sobre un panel con un lápiz electrónico. Un ordenador recogía tales gestos digitales y los transformaba en sonidos analógicos. La dimensión horizontal del plano representaba el tiempo -la duración de tales sonidos y su ubicación-, y la dimensión vertical es la frecuencia de tales sonidos (más graves o más agudos). Mediante un banco dentro del programa, el usuario podía además elegir diferentes timbres o tipos de ondas, y además de ello su envolvente, es decir, con cuánto volumen y de qué manera el sonido comienza, se mantiene y acaba.

Arranz usa HighC para realizar esta pieza en 2009, inspirada en el edificio obra de Richard Rogers, Bodegas Protos. Para ello, toma como referencia la forma de parábola que presentan cada uno de las cinco bóvedas del edificio.

A partir de esta forma, el compositor desarrolla un gesto personal que va oscilando en el tiempo a partir de pequeños trazos [en verde en el dibujo de más arriba]; el gesto poco a poco se va haciendo más denso, y además empieza y acaba en una especie de delta. Este delta representa la planta triangular del edificio.

El conjunto de la serie de oscilaciones que finaliza en una nube es denominado por el compositor semilla/anti-ritmo. Así que Arranz representa el edificio Protos como si fuera una semilla/anti-ritmo, pero esta vez realmente de manera muy particular.

La pieza dedicada a Protos es la primera de la serie [d]espacio, puesto que protos (en griego πρῶτος) significa primero. Electronic Study sirve además de “generadora” para las siguientes tres piezas, basadas en los edificios Marqués de Riscal, Ysios y Qumrán, tituladas respectivamente Extrusion, SAH y De la luz y del espacio. Muchos de los gestos y materiales usados en Electronic Study aparecen evolucionados y transformados en las tres piezas siguientes.

Electronic Study fue presentada separadamente en abril de 2009 en las Discussion Concert Series del Institute of Sonology de La Haya.

Electronic Study inspired on Bodegas Protos building

thedk1234 — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:03:55 +0000

>> Versión en español

While preparing the premiere of the cicle of compositions [d]espacio next month in Salamanca [ES] and The Hague [NL], we are collecting some pictures we did time ago. These are from Bodegas Protos, the building that inspired our first electronic piece, Electronic Study. The piece was composed during the spring of 2009.

The piece was composed with HighC, a recreation of Xenakis’ UPIC by our dear friend, the engineer Thomas Baudel.

You can watch and listen to the piece here

Electronic Study inspirado en el edificio Bodegas Protos

thedk1234 — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:36:56 +0000

>> English version

Mientras preparamos el estreno del ciclo de composiciones [d]espacio el próximo mes en Salamanca [ES] y La Haya [NL], vamos recogiendo algunas de las imágenes que hicimos hace un tiempo. Estas son de Bodegas Protos, el edificio que inspiró nuestra primera pieza electrónica, Electronic Study. La pieza fue compuesta durante la primavera de 2009.

La pieza fue compuesta con HighC, una recreación del UPIC de Xenakis implementada por nuestro querido amigo, el ingeniero Thomas Baudel.

Puedes ver y escuchar la pieza aquí.

[d]espacio

thedk1234 — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:17:37 +0000

>> Versión en español

Next 6th of March there will take place the absolute premiere of [d]espacio: acousmatic series on four Spanish buildings. The event will take place in the XXI Festival de Primavera – Músicas de los siglos XX y XXI organized by the University of Salamanca [ES]. Two days later, on the 8th of March, we will travel to the Insitute of Sonology in The Hague to carry out the Dutch premiere of the series in a monographic concert, anc closing this activities with a lecture on this subject on the morning of the 9th of March.

Music on four wineries

The recital [d]espacio consists of four acousmatic pieces for tape composed by Ángel Arranz between 2009 and 2012 by Ángel Arranz, visualized by the videoartist Beatriz del Saz. Each of the four pieces is inspired and take its compositional modem from one of the four Spanish avant-garde wineries: Bodegas Protos, Bodegas Marqués de Riscal, Bodegas Yisios y Bodegas Qumrán. These four wineries have been built by four great contemporary architects, respectively: the British architect born in Florencia, Sir Richard Rogers; the canadian living in the United States Frank Gehry; the Spanish Santiago Calatrava, and also the Spanish Barcelona-based architects Solís/Hernández. Arranz selects these four works to compose the pieces integrating the [d]espacio series: Electronic Study, inspired on Bodegas Protos in Peñafiel; Extrusion, inspired on Bodegas Marqués de Riscal in Elciego; SAH, inspired on Bodegas Ysios in Laguardia, and lastly De la luz y del espacio inspired on Bodegas Qumrán, in Padilla de Duero. The pieces are played through a set of speakers distributed in the room and the video is projected on a screen.

Sound as space and as organized time

[d]espacio means two thinks equally: firstly, de espacio (“on space”) understood as something dealing about space. More specifically, something which examines the action on space, that is, the re-creation of an imaginary space. Each of the four pieces aims to explore the scenic space attending to different strategies based in the virtual re-design of the number of elements – speakers – participating in the sound diffusion, as well as in the functionality self of such elements. In a second sense, de espacio is understood as an adverb, despacio (in Spanish, “slowly”): time as an action. In this sense, in a temporal domain, it becomes evident the progressive and dilated character of the composition process, which has been gestated for a time lapse of about three years. This second sense emphasize a gradual and organic development, expressed as the idea of time extended within the sound composition, as well as in agreement with its generative character.

This particular philosophy on time aims to establish a balance between composed Time – abstract matter as such, and Time bound to its own temporal inertias, generally autonomous of ‘thought’ or ‘abstracted’ time. Also, the evolution of the materials contributes to stablish an organic relationship inside the conception of the series. The whole of the four pieces develops as a large seed/anti-rythm, mirroring the behaviors present in the first piece, Electronic Study.

Music, image, architecture

In the sound as well as in the visual level, each of the four pieces establishes a different relationship with its compositional model. In its musical part, Electronic Study takes the building’s vaulted profile as a graphic element of sound genesis by means of the UPIC system; in Extrusion, the building’s complex curvilinear design is suggested in a continuous duality of sound, which aims to reveal the plasticity of the constructive material and its industrial nature; in the case of SAH, the model’s sinusoidal formal characteristics constitute the sonologic approach by using shapes undergoing differential processes on Time – sample and hold, voltage control strategies-; finally, De la luz y del espacio restores the original physical resonances of the building’s interiors, recorded in situ, and used as main materials for the composition of the piece.

As for the visuals, the video takes different strategies as well, whic range between a more predominant relationship with architecture in some occasions, and a more predominant relationship with music in others. The fact that Electronic Study was created using a graphic interface similar to UPIC, results in the authors’ decision to choose for its exact opposite during the execution: that is, the absence of visualization. The piece is played in absolute darkness, in order to erase any trace of visuality or “graphicity” previous to the execution, and enhancing exclusively the musical/sound aspects. In some way, Electronic Study acts as a musical introitus, since this piece is the “generator” of most of the materials and the evolution processes of the following three pieces.

The video Extrusion refers to images of Gehry’s building’s main facade, from the level of plastic suggestion -textures, shaping of the visual objects -; however, at the same time it represents its own relationship with the sound universe. In SAH, the video undergoes similar processes, though in a much freer manner, inasmuch as there is not a direct coincidence between the sound and the visual phenomenons.
In De la luz y del espacio, the visual references to the model are absolutely direct, since the images used throughout the visualization are directly derived from the building´s 3D plans. This images, together with the original resonances of the building played through 4 channels, re-create a sort of sensory immersion in space, but at the same time they do not resign their own poetic expressiveness.

The interaction created between music and video establishes an unhurried itinerary starting from the visual “silence” [Electronic Study], then traveling through a subordination of the visual to the musical discourse [Extrusion], which later on begins to disconnect and juxtapose to the building’s model through an abstract architectural node, generating in a subliminal sense close to the “tragical” the splitted sensorial [SAH] and then finally culminating in the evident union of the three elements in one [De la luz y del espacio].

A tradition that emerges in the Renaissance

This meeting between architecture and music proposed by the DK aims to continue an universal interdisciplinary artistic tradition, barely explored in History. This path begins in Florencia in 1436, with the collaboration between the architect Brunelleschi and the chapel master Dufay, and is not materialized again until the XX and XXI centuries: 1958, Le Corbusier/Xenakis/Varèse [Pabellón Philips, Bruselas]; 1964, Roche/Dinkeloo [ IBM Pabilion, New Work]; 1978, Xenakis [Diatope, Paris-Bonn]; 1984, Nono/Piano [Prometeus' Ark, Venice-Milan]; 1995, Nono/Isozaki [Akiyoshiday, Shuho-cho, Japan]; 2000, Zumthor/Ott [Swiss Pabilion, Hannover]; 2004 Spuybroek/van der Heide [Son-O-House, Son-e-Breugel, The Netherlands].

The festival’s organization has decided to name its XXI edition as De la luz y del espacio, in honor to The DK, the foreign invited group this year. De la luz y del espacio is the title of one of the four pieces conforming the [d]espacio series. We want to thank them deeply for that.

Mor info on this project on our web.