[microsound] steim and improvising techno

[Damian Stewart <damian@xxxxxxxxxx>]

hey everyone, apologies for the cross-post

I wonder if anyone has any information, opinions, ideas, rants relating 
to STEIM in The Netherlands (www.steim.nl). As well as holding 
workshops, lectures, concerts, and having an artist's hotel, they build 
instruments that promise to allow a much more expressive interface 
between computers and humans - complex, delicate, and sensitive devices 
with hundreds of sensors that fire off midi control messages.

One of my continuing interests is in taking the rudiments of techno 
music and turning it into an improv performance. (I passionately believe 
that techno in the experimental/Detroit senses of the word has been one 
of the most interesting developments in electroacoustic music in the 
last 15 years, and its relative neglect in the world of 'art' and 
'academic' music upsets me greatly.) At the moment I improvise using a 
laptop and a mouse and the sounds of the environment I'm performing in, 
but I feel I'm approaching the expressive limits of having only one 
two-dimensional analog input (the mouse). (I could try to work within 
those limits, I suppose, but playing with new toys is potentially more 
fun.)

More importantly, other musicians can have difficulty communicating with 
me an in improv jam - I can't really look them in the eye because I'm 
hunched over my laptop. I play crosslegged on the floor because it frees 
up my body to move more than sitting at a desk but it's still not ideal.

As an impoverished electroacoustic music student, I'm applying for a 
Creative New Zealand grant to get me over there for a little while on a 
professional development trip. The grant pool is hotly competitive so 
any help I can get would be greatly appreciated.

love,
d

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