[ index | 1970 ]

conspiracy 8

¬ One of the major difficulties with the hybrid performance systems of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s was the sheer size of digital computers. One solution to this problem was presented by Gordon Mumma in his composition Conspiracy 8 (1970). When the piece was presented at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, a remote data-link was established to a computer in Boston which received information about the performance in progress. In turn this computer then issued instructions to the performers and generated sounds which were also transmitted to the performance site through data-link.

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¬ As early as 1960, the ONCE Group had formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Comprised of a diverse group of architects, composers, dancers, filmmakers, sculptors and theater people, the ONCE GROUP presented the annual ONCE FESTIVAL. The principal composers of this group consisted of George Cacioppo, Roger Reynolds, Donald Scavarda, Robert Ashley and Gordon Mumma, most of whom were actively exploring tape music and developing live electronic techniques. In 1966 Ashley and Mumma joined forces with David Behrman and Alvin Lucier to create one of the most influential live electronic performance ensembles, the SONIC ARTS UNION. While its members would collaborate in the realization of compositions by its members, and by other composers, it was not concerned with collaborative composition or improvisation like many other groups that had formed about the same time.

¬ Concurrent with the ONCE Group activities were the concerts and events presented by the participants of the San Francisco Tape Music Center such as Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Ramon Sender and Morton Subotnick. Likewise a powerful center for collaborative activity had developed at the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana where Herbert Brün, Kenneth Gaburo, Lejaren Hiller, Salvatore Martirano, and James Tenney had been working. By the late 1960’s a similarly vital academic scene had formed at the University of California, San Diego where Gaburo, Oliveros, Reynolds and Robert Erickson were now teaching.

-- David Dunn: A HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC PIONEERS, in: Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt, 1992 (p.54-55)

src: http://artscilab.org/eigenwelt/pdf/021-062.pdf

[ index | 1969 ]