Giga-Hertz Festival 2023: Jury Statements

Throughout her long and distinguished career, Laurie Spiegel’s extraordinary range of work as composer, performer, software designer, visual and video artist, and theorist has been marked by a unique combination of innovation and humanism. A pioneer in algorithmic music composition, Spiegel’s career straddles successive eras in the digital arts.

In the 1970s, she worked as composer and software engineer alongside fellow computer music pioneer Max Mathews, countering criticism about »dehumanizing the arts« by creating affecting, humanistic music with »GROOVE«, the legendary real-time minicomputer performance system created by Mathews and F. Richard Moore. Spiegel also wrote one of the first drawing/painting programs at Bell Labs, to which she later added interactive video and synchronous audio output capability.

Other important works from this period include her composition »Appalachian Grove I« from the album »New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media: Women in Electronic Music« (1977). Among her most important recordings are »Obsolete Systems« (2001), »Unseen Worlds« (1991) and »The Expanding Universe« (1980/2012).

Spiegel's music, her writings on computer music interface design, and her early advocacy for the centered place of women in music technology include the technical, the social, the aesthetic, and the human in equal measure. Her early understanding of the computer as a new kind of folk instrument has now come to pass, and her own influential foray into this area was the celebrated program »Music Mouse« (1986), now regarded as one of the first »intelligent instruments«.

Automating some aspects of the performance process allowed the program to transform »users« into performers, composers, collaborators and co-creators. Spiegel also designed the »alphaSyntauri« music system for the Apple II microcomputer, and founded New York University’s Computer Music Center.

Spiegel's realization of Johannes Kepler's »Harmonices Mundi« was chosen by astronomer Carl Sagan as the opening track of the Golden Record placed onboard NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, which was launched in 1977. In 2018 this work, along with the music of Chuck Berry, Beethoven, Senegalese percussion and Javanese gamelan, became one of the first and only human-made musical compositions to enter interstellar space.

It is in the light of all these accomplishments and many more that the jury is delighted to award the Giga-Hertz main award for lifetime achievement to Laurie Spiegel.

George Lewis, Juror

For »Of Shadow and Substance«, Lea Bertucci drew inspiration from the 2019 Schuylkill River environmental disaster in Philadelphia. Building on this, she develops a narrative that combines live samples of woodwind instruments with a spatial arrangement of speakers, creating an echoing atmosphere in which fragments of sound reverberate even after the instruments have already fallen silent. The result is a poignant reminder of reverberating echoes of history that challenges perceptions of time and explores the fragility of humanity.

This production award not only acknowledges Bertucci's extraordinary talent, but also emphasises the importance of compositions that challenge us to think, feel, and reflect. »Of Shadow and Substance« is more than just a piece of music. It is a call to contemplation in a world that often moves too quick and is full of distractions. The work is a testament to Lea Bertucci's artistry in creating something that speaks to both the intellect and the heart.

Gosia Plysa, Jurorin

»Manifolds« exemplifies Jessica Ekomane’s ongoing investigation of the perception of rhythmic structures, the interchange of noise and melody, the relationship between individual perception and collective dynamics, and the societal roots of listening. In this work, Ekomane uses a laptop equipped with Max/MSP for the composition and Ableton Live for multichannel live spatialized diffusion using GRM’s acousmonium. While the composer-performer maintains that the tuning in this work is applied to four voices only, the sonic results exhibit far more complexity.

The first section of the work, with its festive, celebratory quality of unpredictable dance, features highly intense layers of folded conversational sound that offer a relentless effect. This texture gradually gives way to a more measured, stately polyphony of orchestral intensity, algorithmically generated within and around a Malawian equiheptatonic tonal system. The third and fourth sections of the piece find a different way to use the Malawian tonal resources.

At one prominent moment, the work’s sonic behavior becomes reminiscent of early analog sample-and-hold synthesizer modules. The conclusion of the piece presents an open-ended invitation rather than closure. For this audacious and intricate work, the jury of the Giga-Hertz Prize 2023 awards Jessica Ekomane a Production Award.

George Lewis, Juror

The deserved winners of the Giga-Hertz Advancement Award PopExperimental are the Finnish-German trio This Machine! And how! The band represents experimental pop culture at its best: catchy but with a strong undertone, at the same time emotionally stirring and wonderfully complex.

Jovanka von Wilsdorf, Jurorin

Dark, majestic night music from a place where the nights are always very long. In the Finnish-German family project This Machine! the massive meets the fragile, edgy electronics meet human sensibility, and soundscapes meet vocals under the sinister glow of the Northern Lights.

Hans Nieswandt, Juror

Nyokabi Kariũki’s »feeling body« (2022) is a remarkable electroacoustic personal narrative that deploys recorded and processed voices (»real« and automated), violin, trumpet, and field recordings to create an affecting, empathetic mediation on the artist’s experience of long COVID.

The work presents a disarmingly homemade quality that belies the complexity of the technology used to create it. Reflecting interiority, isolation, and alienation, an electronically broken voice emerges from the sounds of sniffles and coughs to repeat the foreboding mantra »Come home to the body… But the home is not OK«, in juxtaposition with other voices in English and Kiswahili that combine to interrogate the COVID-sufferer. The sounds of water and its transformations - ice, dripping, flowing - forms the work’s references to Kikuyu (Kariũki's Kenyan community) homeopathic treatments, particularly river sound therapy as prescribed to women.

»feeling body« recalls Anton Wilhelm Amo’s philosophical notion of the power (and vulnerability) of the living and organic body. The piece develops into a lament, led by processed multiple choirs of voices and muted trumpets, with an ambivalence born of indeterminacy, resignation, and quiet determination. For this sensually and intellectually affecting assemblage, the jury of the Giga-Hertz-Award 2023 awards Nyokabi Kariũki an honorable mention.

George Lewis

»Breathing« is a testament to Piotr Kurek's innovation, focus and passion. The piece is an intricate tapestry of sound that seamlessly weaves jazz instruments with polyphonic choral music, surprising and delighting in equal measure. The strength of »Breathing« lies in the way Kurek aligns the ethereal harmonies sung by Komi Togbonou and Martin Weigel with the evocative spoken words of Chinese artist Xiangjie. This fusion creates a soundscape that transcends boundaries and challenges conventional musical norms.

Kurek's exploration of the human voice uncovers unique textures and tones that he masterfully weaves together with instruments such as marimbas, flutes, and reeds. The juxtaposition of these instruments against a backdrop of state-of-the-art digital audio processing highlights Kurek's talent for blending the classical with the contemporary. What adds depth to the piece is its origin as a component of the theatrical performance »Heart Chamber Fragments«, which showcases Kurek's versatility in creating music that can exist both independently and within a theatrical narrative. That is why Piotr Kurek's »Breathing« deserves an honorary mention as part of the Giga-Hertz Award.

Gosia Plysa

Manuel Rocha Iturbides »Urform Piano« (2020) for fixed media is an ingeniously exploration of the Urform concept. Seamlessly merging Schaefferian sound perception phenomenology with the piano forte's diverse sonic landscape, Rocha Iturbide delves into the archetypical forms of individual sounds and the instrument as a whole, unfolding a holistic journey that captures the essence and potential of the piano forte. Moreover, the virtuosic performance by the composer adds an extra layer of distinction, showcasing mastery and elevating the exploration of the instrument's sonic possibilities. The jury awards Manuel Rocha Iturbide an honorable mention for this achievement.

Gosia Plysa, Jurorin

A sound experiment between claustrophobia and liberation that makes you want to run away from it and dance to it even more.

Jovanka von Wilsdorf, Jurorin

Korea has a long and deep tradition of polyrhythmic, percussive folk music rich in sound sensations. In bela's machines, these elements become hard and powerful beats, combined with deafening screams and noises that go to the extreme. This is how you update old styles for the 21st century.  

Hans Nieswandt, Juror

Sophia Mitiku's music is a great example of how true intensity needs neither brutality nor volume, yet can take us on a disturbing sightseeing tour through our own abysses. So much so that it's worth falling in love with her soundscapes.

Jovanka von Wilsdorf, Jurorin

Dreamy future R&B with elegant glitches and pink noises from a Helsinki-based, California-born artist with roots in many cultures and the potential to be a big pop star in all of them! 

Hans Nieswandt, Juror

Rashaad Newsome's creative output breathes desire, queerness and vital empowerment, transforming white male virtual space into a burning multidimensional stage. Brutally good.

Jovanka von Wilsdorf, Jurorin

Rashaad Newsome cooks up a stunning multimedia blend of voguing culture (dance, music, attitude), cyber visualization and critical theory that transcends the boundaries of human kind. It makes you sit down and think and get up and dance at the same time - few can do that.

Hans Nieswandt, Juror