16 Channel Amp building pix

This is an amp I built will be used for the "audio hallway" installation of The (unfinished) Ballad.... It has 16 independent audio channels going to 16 little speakers hanging in a hallway. This amp (which has an attached 5V power source not seen here and can be expanded to 24 or even 32 channels!) will hopefully serve as a good project amp for use in installations or other applications in which control over a large group of discreet audio channels is needed (extreme spatialization!).   Special thanks to Charlie Vickers at the Joint Engineering Physics Instrument Shop for helping me bend and cut the metal for the amp housing.








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(unfinished) Ballad...In-Progress Demo Show Scheduled for May 18th

I've scheduled an in-progress/demo presentation for The (unfinished) Ballad of Adam and Elena Emery.
It will be:

Friday, May 18th, 4-7pm
Mathewson St. Methodist Church
134 Mathewson Street Providence, RI
(between Westminster and Washington sts)

It will be on the 4th floor in an amazing children's blackbox theater, put in by a now extinct theater group.  I'll be using a number of rooms and the presentation will be mostly a tech demo of the moving curtains, multi-little speaker hallway, and the 3-screen Sgt. Zarrella/Rescue dog installation.  I will have some audio/video content in these installations, but the main goal is to make sure these "instruments" work and see how they sit with each other in different rooms.  All comments/criticisms/responses are welcome.

The presentation will be informal and on-going 4-7pm, so come when you can!






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(unfinished) Ballad...Curtain/Motor Demo Video May1st

So I settled on servo motors instead of steppers.  They are lighter, cheaper (I have a bunch from a previous piece anyway), robust, and easy to wire (no driver chips needed, just ground, power and pwm control signal) and stronger than they look.  They don't turn more than 180degress, but it doesn't seem to matter yet.  I had trouble getting the steppers to work with their drivers being controlled by the Arduino.  Although I didn't give it a true "college try"-- the other drawbacks (weight, cost, complexity) was more important to my decision.   In this demo I've set up a Wii-remote to control their position.  This will be a tool used by a performer (mezzo-soprano, singing a solo, channeling Elena Emery).  When the "curtain room" is not in use by performers, it will be a installation, controlled by sensors (passive infrared and or ultrasonic pulse) monitoring  audience members and randomly reorienting while it plays back the audio/video content.






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Unfinished Ballad...interview w/Sgt. Zarrella

[UPDATE 5/12/12: I removed the interview of Sgt. Zarrella from public viewing for now.  It will be part of a 3-channel video installation that will be on view during the in-progress show May 18 described above]

RI State Police Sgt. Matthew Zarrell is the head seach and rescue dog trainer for the RI Troopers, and he was the one who searched for the Emerys under the Newport Bridge with his dog Hannibal.

In the interview he talks about the history of rescue dog training in RI, his first training dog Hannibal (check him out!), and his work with Hannibal on the Emery case.

This footage will be used with other old footage of Hannibal and of Sgt. Z training dogs now in an installation setting used as part of the performance piece "The (unfinished) Ballad of Adam and Elena Emery."

Thanks to Sgt. Zarrella, and to filmmaker Mary Healey Jamiel for getting us in touch. Please check out her amazing documentary "Reliance" about Sgt. Zarrella's work HERE.

Attn dog lovers: Footage I took of Sgt. Z training search and rescue dogs this week will be up soon!






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Pretty Ok Week!

Pretty productive week. Reached out to a few more possible performers/collaborators. Nailed down an interview with Sgt. Matthew Zarrella, rescue dog trainer extraordinaire, to talk about his work with his dog HANNIBAL (thanks Mary Healy Jamiel) who searched for the Emerys' bodies underneath the Newport Bridge.

Worked on electronics/programming for the CURTAIN ROOM: an installation room with multiple curtains hooked to motors which turn to reconfigure the room as people move through it. Think a changing Red Room from Twin Peaks, but instead of it being red, are projections on the curtains as they move and change the space.

Servo vs Stepper motors, that is the eternal question. I managed to fail in my last attempt a few years back building this room with Servos (weird false triggers and VERY SPOOKY curtains spinning for no reason), though I never really knew what I was doing. Went back to basics this week and had a lot of luck getting the Servos to do what I wanted them to. Now I got this big beautiful Stepper Motor, but couldn't get it to work before busing-home-time today, only managed to over-heat the H-bridge ...the diagram below is the bane of my existence. At least I wrote some music this week (crappy MIDI realization samples up soon).




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Creative Arts Council Grant Award

Thanks so much to the Creative Arts Council for awarding me their maximum $1000 to help realize The (unfinished) Ballad...!







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Castle Theater Pictures

Some pictures of the Castle Theater including main screening room, bar room, some connecting halls and basement stuff.






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Update on Castle Theater

Last Friday spent an hour with Joe Warzycha from Rhode Island SPCA and 7 firemen (including a captain) in the catacomb basement of the Castle Theater as well as all the other rooms in this amazing building. I coordinated this time for the inspectors to meet with Joe and me there to get their take on whether it will be kosher from their end to perform in this beautiful building. It was a very cool visit: what an incredible building. One of the firemen told me about going to see 99 cent movies there as a kid. Despite the fact that the building is decaying, the prognosis could have been worse. I can perform there if there are a few replaced exit/emergency lights, 3 borrowed/rented fire extinguishers, if I clear out a couple blocked exit doors, and if I clearly cordon off the rooms in the theater that are not being used.

However, the sprinkler system still needs to be checked, and if it works (unlikely) that's fine. If it doesn't work (much more likely), that would also be fine since I will have a fire marshal on premises, but the problem is that it is against code to have a sprinkler system visible if it isn't working...Something about how it gives a false sense of security...The RISPCA would have to cap all the visible sprinkler heads (not gonna happen).

I fear I'm living on borrowed time as far as this location is concerned. The next step is to see the results of the sprinkler test, which the RISPCA needs to get done anyway, but probably won't be for a while.

So I'm in a bit of a holding pattern for now as far as locations. But hey! They sure is a lot more of the actual piece i need to make...so get back to work, you!

Super duper thanks to Joe at the RISPCA, who spent a lot of time working with me on this, for free even.






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The (unfinished) Ballad of Adam and Elena Emery

I've chosen to revisit the story of Adam and Elena Emery and Jason Bass for my dissertation piece. I've been sitting around with this story banging around in my head, and I figure I'll try to do something about it.

It's been a long time since my last post, but I felt it is worth it to start keeping a blog-diary of my progress, and as always comments/suggestions are always welcome.

Here is a blurb from a recent grant proposal that tells what I am up to in 500 words or less:

The (unfinished) Ballad of Adam and Elena Emery is a multimedia performance piece loosely based on a murder story that occurred in Rhode Island in the early 1990s. It will serve as my dissertation piece for the completion of my doctorate in the MEME program at Brown. The story is that of Adam and Elena Emery who, in a case of mistaken identity, murdered innocent 16-year-old Jason Bass in 1990. In 1993 Adam Emery was convicted of this second degree murder and while out on bail prior to sentencing, he and his wife Elena allegedly jumped to their deaths off of the Newport Bridge. However Adam Emery's body was never found.

I wish to set the story of this case as a multi-tiered performance piece in which small details, rather than big picture judgments, are presented as both performance scenes and mixed media installations all occurring within a single performance venue. I am approaching this story obliquely, through fragmented details known about the case: the Emery's last meal at Burger King, the remembrances of Jason Bass's niece, a story from the rescue dog trainer, etc.

The (unfinished) Ballad is a roving performance, in which the audience does not sit and view the performance on a stage from a fixed location, but travels around with groups of performers who perform scenes in various rooms within one structure. The piece will last about one hour and will consist of six short (7-10min) performance scenes and three audio/video installations in connecting rooms and hallways. I am writing the music, making the electronics, and developing the audio/video processing tools for this piece. There will be ten performers (dancers and musicians), most of whom are locals and students, though two will be coming from New York City.

The piece will take place off campus at the Castle Theater (http://wiki.ppsri.org/tiki-index.php?page=Castle+Theater), which is a closed-down movie theater in Providence. I have chosen this location both because of its historical past and the blank slate quality of this location. It is the perfect place into which to build a roving piece such as this from the ground up. I have received positive initial responses from the owners of the theater as well as the Providence Fire Inspector. I will hear whether I can definitely perform here or not within a few weeks. If it does not work out for me to perform here, I am looking into similar locations, both on and off campus.

The costs associated with this project will mainly include electronics, building supplies, and props used in the performance as well as a modest per diem and travel expenses for visiting performers. I will also need to pay a fire marshal to be present at the performances. I am planning on an in-progress performance on May 10 and between two and four final performances occurring over weekends this September or October.






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Awesome Collective on the move...

working on another collaboration with Awesome Collective, a super neat group of Providence-area artists. we had a successful show in Dec at Firehouse 13 and are gearing up for a medium size show this summer, and a large show this early fall. everything's still in development, but as a hint we're working on a mash-up of the Mercy Brown story and the Devil's Footprint story. maybe at waterfire...

deep in to Rhode Island macabre right now. if you are too, or want to be, look up Dr. Michael Bell. He's the man.

->NB! we are recruiting artists and performers, so if you're in the PVD area and interested, send a note to info@awesome-collective

and btw, check out fellow Awesome members:
Caroline Doherty
Adara Myers
Joe Waechter
Rachel Jendrzejewski
Kirsten Volness



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The (unfinished) Ballad of Adam and Elena Emery

for about a year now i've been obsessed with this story of a sensational Rhode Island murder case.
i did a performance version of it for two singers, percussionist, and live processed and edited video. it was performed last summer at the Tank in NYC by the extraordinary singers/performers Seth Gilman and Kamala Sankaram along with percussionist Bill Solomon. (i have a video of it i am keeping locked for the moment, but if you're interested in viewing it please contact me on vimeo).

through investigating this amazing and horrible story i've learned a lot about Rhode Island, my home for almost 3 years. though i've had trouble translating it, both in the instance above and in other performance settings of this story since. the weird humor, cast of RI characters, as well as the senseless tragedy of Jason Bass' murder are there, it's just hard to take a story with so much information about such a crazy place as the Ocean State and know which ins-and-outs to cut and which to keep, and how to express that info without bogging down. all the while keeping in mind that this horrible thing actually happened and that i want to focus not on answers (since there are none) but our obsession with the mystery of it, which drives us to these ridiculous re-enactments.

well i'll get another crack at it. probably at a rare for me "solo opera" performance at the RISD Tap Room on May 20th. i'll confirm soon.




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in progress...

so i've designated this place to put works in progress (media samples) along with a (hopefully) few (hopefully) choice selections of half-baked thoughts, schemes, questions, etc. everything here is unfinished or unstarted and open to develop or die as the fates allow. comments are welcome and appreciated. thanks, jr