OPEN CALL: Graphical Notation

Extended Deadline: July 1, 2018

»Rotating Scores« (2016), interactive sound installation

Until July 1, 2018, the ZKM calls on artists to submit new composition ideas and proposals for electroacoustic compositions resulting from the digital real-time interpretation of graphics and graphic notation. With the composition proposals, artists apply for a one-month residency at the ZKM.

In the late 1970s, composer Iannis Xenakis developed UPIC (Unité Polyagogique Informatique de CEMAMu, Centre d'Études de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales), a computer program that digitally translates graphic notation into sound. Using the tablet interface, composers can draw the waveforms and envelopes directly on an electronic tablet and let the computer convert them into sound in real time. The revolution in graphic composition triggered by Xenakis and supported by other established computer musicians such as Jean-Claude Risset or Curtis Roads continued forty years later thanks to modern computer programs, such as the graphic open source sequencer Iannix.

Four scholarships, each worth €1500, will be awarded. As part of an Artist Residency at the ZKM, the selected artists will create new graphic compositions over a period of one month.

Over the one-month scholarship period, the artists are obliged to reside in Karlsruhe for at least two weeks. Travel and accommodation costs incurred can be borne by ZKM up to a maximum amount of 500€. The period of stay at the ZKM begins at the same time as the artistic-scientific »UPIC –Graphic Interfaces for Notation Conference« on September 28, 2018. The residency has to be completed by the end of 2018.

The compositions resulting from the residency will be premiered at a concert at the ZKM at the end of 2018 and presented via the loudspeaker instrument ZKM_Klangdom. The ZKM_Klangdom, consisting of 51 loudspeakers with dome shaped set-up, is an ideal place for the development and reproduction of electroacoustic and acousmatic room music.

Furthermore, it is possible that the resulting works will be the subject of a musicological discussion as part of an upcoming book publication at the ZKM.

The residency is connected to the Hertz-Lab of the ZKM. Since 2017, the Hertz-Lab has operated as a transdisciplinary research and development platform at the interface of media arts, science and society. The newly established Hertz Laboratory unites the Institute for Visual Media and the Institute for Music and Acoustics in order to expand the existing fields of action in close transcultural exchange with international institutes and research centers and to explore the artistic-medial possibilities of expression and design in the age of rapidly accelerated technological progress and digitization.

Submissions for artistic project ideas can be made until July 1, 2018. 
Please send your project idea in due time and exclusively via e-mail to music@zkm.de stating the subject »Residency Graphical Notation«.

The following components are mandatory for a complete submission:

  • Short summary of the project idea (max. 1000 characters incl. spaces)
  • Project description (max. 5000 characters incl. spaces)
  • Short biography (max. 800 characters incl. spaces)
  • Portrait photo (min. 300 dpi, indication of the picture credits)

Please upload accompanying audio, image and video material online to a file hosting service of your choice and let us know the non-expiring download link in your submission email.

The Artist-in-Residence program is part of the »INTERFACES« project and is co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union.