COINCIDENT
COINCIDENT is a telematic, multi-episode, audiovisual collaboration between Zeitgeist, composer Scott L. Miller, visual artist Carole Kim, and an evolving list of artists. Each artist performs from their home studio, and they connect to each other through specialized software that facilitates real-time performance with greatly reduced latency issues (lag in time due to internet connection). Because latency is reduced, but not gone, the music embraces a certain amount of asynchronicity; individual events can occur at different times without compromising the musical idea. The music is paired with a projection world created by Carole Kim that is derived from micro-installations (located under her kitchen table) and projections performed in real-time with the music.
COINCIDENT is the first work produced as part of DECADE FIVE, a set of major new works Zeitgeist is commissioning and presenting throughout its fifth decade. Each project features work by composers who challenge the boundaries of the music of our time, and each will reach audiences in innovative ways.
Read the artist statements below for a deeper look into COINCIDENT.
COINCIDENT is the first work produced as part of DECADE FIVE, a set of major new works Zeitgeist is commissioning and presenting throughout its fifth decade. Each project features work by composers who challenge the boundaries of the music of our time, and each will reach audiences in innovative ways.
Read the artist statements below for a deeper look into COINCIDENT.
Album
COINCIDENT album now available from New Focus Recordings!
Zeitgeist and composer Scott L. Miller release COINCIDENT, a collection of works exploring the potential of telematic collaboration (musicians playing together via remote technology) and graphic score notation. Featuring performances by the Zeitgeist and No Exit ensembles, spoken word poet and performer Joseph Horton, and Miller himself on electronics, Coincident is a continuation of Miller's restless creativity in mining the possibilities afforded by innovations in technology in music.
LISTEN / BUY
Zeitgeist and composer Scott L. Miller release COINCIDENT, a collection of works exploring the potential of telematic collaboration (musicians playing together via remote technology) and graphic score notation. Featuring performances by the Zeitgeist and No Exit ensembles, spoken word poet and performer Joseph Horton, and Miller himself on electronics, Coincident is a continuation of Miller's restless creativity in mining the possibilities afforded by innovations in technology in music.
LISTEN / BUY
Episodes
COINCIDENT Episode 4 from Zeitgeist on Vimeo.
ARTIST Statements
HEATHER BARRINGER, ZEITGEIST
COINCIDENT is a telematic, multi-episode, audio-visual collaboration between composer Scott L. Miller, Zeitgeist, visual artist Carole Kim, and an evolving list of artists. Episodes of COINCIDENT will be released throughout the 2021 calendar year and will be available to audiences online in perpetuity.
We began work on COINCIDENT a couple of months after the COVID-19 pandemic became a reality. Zeitgeist and Scott Miller have created an impressive body of work over the past two decades, and we had recently determined that a collaboration with him would be one of our DECADE FIVE projects (see below). To meet the challenge of these times, Zeitgeist wanted to create work that would be possible for artists and audiences, and that would also create new possibilities for music production and artistic collaboration moving forward. Of all of the composers we know, Scott Miller is best poised to meet that challenge with us. We had just finished creating a work for virtual reality together (THE BLUE IN THE DISTANCE), and Scott was already exploring telematic collaborations (real-time artistic interaction/performance happening virtually). Scott had been creating stunning work with installation artist Carole Kim as members of the collaborative audio-visual group Dilate Ensemble. We invited her to come on board to create a projection world for COINCIDENT.
Our artistic team creates each episode of COINCIDENT using a process that differs considerably from the way Zeitgeist has developed other chamber work. Each artist performs from their home studio, and we connect to each other through both Zoom (for video) and Netty-McNetface (for audio), software created by Miller Puckette for the program Pd, that facilitates real-time performance and recording using home internet connections. Netty enables all of us to hear each other with terrific audio quality and play together with greatly reduced latency issues*. Because latency is reduced, but not gone, the music that we create needed to embrace a certain amount of asynchronicity (individual events can occur at different times without compromising the musical idea). Scores created for COINCIDENT include traditionally notated parts, outlines or descriptions of musical processes, and graphic scores. In each case, musicians determine how to realize their parts, and we rehearse together with the usual give and take present in any chamber music situation. Kyma, the sound design system Scott uses, may process our sound or may respond to us in another way. We begin recording sessions once our realizations are refined, and Scott creates a final mix of the best recording. Carole's visualizations of the music emanate from a combination of deep listening during rehearsals and improvisational real-time interaction utilizing audio-reactive programming. It does take a long time to create each episode, but it is blissful to make music with one another, gratifying to witness the results of our work, and exciting to imagine the possibilities for telematic creation moving forward.
COINCIDENT is the first work produced as part of DECADE FIVE, a set of major new works Zeitgeist is commissioning and presenting throughout its fifth decade. Each project features work by composers who challenge the boundaries of the music of our time, and each will reach new audiences in innovative ways. Through DECADE FIVE, Zeitgeist will make a powerful contribution to our 50-year artistic legacy and contribute meaningfully to the American Experimental tradition.
* Latency is the lag in time for electronic signals to reach people over distance; it isn't very noticeable in conversation, but it makes traditional chamber music performance less effective or impossible to do in the virtual world.
--Heather Barringer, Zeitgeist Executive Director and percussionist
We began work on COINCIDENT a couple of months after the COVID-19 pandemic became a reality. Zeitgeist and Scott Miller have created an impressive body of work over the past two decades, and we had recently determined that a collaboration with him would be one of our DECADE FIVE projects (see below). To meet the challenge of these times, Zeitgeist wanted to create work that would be possible for artists and audiences, and that would also create new possibilities for music production and artistic collaboration moving forward. Of all of the composers we know, Scott Miller is best poised to meet that challenge with us. We had just finished creating a work for virtual reality together (THE BLUE IN THE DISTANCE), and Scott was already exploring telematic collaborations (real-time artistic interaction/performance happening virtually). Scott had been creating stunning work with installation artist Carole Kim as members of the collaborative audio-visual group Dilate Ensemble. We invited her to come on board to create a projection world for COINCIDENT.
Our artistic team creates each episode of COINCIDENT using a process that differs considerably from the way Zeitgeist has developed other chamber work. Each artist performs from their home studio, and we connect to each other through both Zoom (for video) and Netty-McNetface (for audio), software created by Miller Puckette for the program Pd, that facilitates real-time performance and recording using home internet connections. Netty enables all of us to hear each other with terrific audio quality and play together with greatly reduced latency issues*. Because latency is reduced, but not gone, the music that we create needed to embrace a certain amount of asynchronicity (individual events can occur at different times without compromising the musical idea). Scores created for COINCIDENT include traditionally notated parts, outlines or descriptions of musical processes, and graphic scores. In each case, musicians determine how to realize their parts, and we rehearse together with the usual give and take present in any chamber music situation. Kyma, the sound design system Scott uses, may process our sound or may respond to us in another way. We begin recording sessions once our realizations are refined, and Scott creates a final mix of the best recording. Carole's visualizations of the music emanate from a combination of deep listening during rehearsals and improvisational real-time interaction utilizing audio-reactive programming. It does take a long time to create each episode, but it is blissful to make music with one another, gratifying to witness the results of our work, and exciting to imagine the possibilities for telematic creation moving forward.
COINCIDENT is the first work produced as part of DECADE FIVE, a set of major new works Zeitgeist is commissioning and presenting throughout its fifth decade. Each project features work by composers who challenge the boundaries of the music of our time, and each will reach new audiences in innovative ways. Through DECADE FIVE, Zeitgeist will make a powerful contribution to our 50-year artistic legacy and contribute meaningfully to the American Experimental tradition.
* Latency is the lag in time for electronic signals to reach people over distance; it isn't very noticeable in conversation, but it makes traditional chamber music performance less effective or impossible to do in the virtual world.
--Heather Barringer, Zeitgeist Executive Director and percussionist
Scott L. Miller
The development process that began in May 2020 has led me down different paths, forks along a trail of artistic inquiry informed by some central themes. It is with some hindsight that I now realize the themes of COMMUNICATION, ISOLATION, and DISTANCE have been ever present and directing my thoughts. In light of the world’s collective experiences the past year, these aren’t particularly surprising. They have provided a solid foundation for my latest collaborative experiment with Zeitgeist, a relationship that dates back to 2003, with the original development of “Shape Shifting,” in collaboration with poet Felip Costaglioli.
For this collaboration, COINCIDENT, we are working with video/installation artist Carole Kim, who I met as part of the NowNet Arts Lab Ensemble, a pandemic motivated gathering of artists from around the world, under the direction of Sarah Weaver (Exec. Dir. of NowNet Arts, Inc.). The Lab Ensemble explores telematic audio-visual art making from our homes (rather than research institutions with Internet 2 level connections and teams of technical support staff). I wanted to bring Carole into the collaboration to establish the tone of the entire COINCIDENT production as well as the immersive visual worlds of individual webisodes. Her micro-installations (located under her kitchen table) and projections create visions of great depth and motion that is organic and feels terribly alive, and the fact that Carole’s work is performed in real-time with the music creates a sympathy between the media that is difficult to produce under the best of circumstances.
The themes of communication, isolation, and distance were the starting points with collaborating with Carole, and from there we shared books, images, and ideas. Some of our ideas seemed to me at the time to be concrete and well-defined, while in some ways a departure from the original concept. But I keep returning to the point of origin as I work on each webisode and especially as I address the very real technical challenges of producing the work; the reality of 2020-21 is that we are working in physical isolation, connected by internet, using tech that is sometimes old and sometimes so new as to still be in beta. But the fundamental enterprise of discussing ideas for artistic creation, retreating to our isolated work environments, distributing directions for the creation of the work, synchronizing the rehearsals, performance, and realization of the works-in-progress — all these things happen at a physical remove that is asynchronous, out of time, mediated by communication technology, and subject to a tremendous latitude of interpretation.
Part of the "process" has been figuring out the process. How do we come together and collaborate to produce the work in an environment (pandemic induced isolation) that is new to us and which is itself undergoing transformation. I know that my perspective of the process, and thematic concerns, is not only different than others', but may even be at odds with theirs. (Maybe I should have opened with this.) It's important, although I think it is just another manifestation of the central themes that have come to occupy my thoughts surrounding all of my creative/artistic endeavors since March 2020.
--Scott Miller
For this collaboration, COINCIDENT, we are working with video/installation artist Carole Kim, who I met as part of the NowNet Arts Lab Ensemble, a pandemic motivated gathering of artists from around the world, under the direction of Sarah Weaver (Exec. Dir. of NowNet Arts, Inc.). The Lab Ensemble explores telematic audio-visual art making from our homes (rather than research institutions with Internet 2 level connections and teams of technical support staff). I wanted to bring Carole into the collaboration to establish the tone of the entire COINCIDENT production as well as the immersive visual worlds of individual webisodes. Her micro-installations (located under her kitchen table) and projections create visions of great depth and motion that is organic and feels terribly alive, and the fact that Carole’s work is performed in real-time with the music creates a sympathy between the media that is difficult to produce under the best of circumstances.
The themes of communication, isolation, and distance were the starting points with collaborating with Carole, and from there we shared books, images, and ideas. Some of our ideas seemed to me at the time to be concrete and well-defined, while in some ways a departure from the original concept. But I keep returning to the point of origin as I work on each webisode and especially as I address the very real technical challenges of producing the work; the reality of 2020-21 is that we are working in physical isolation, connected by internet, using tech that is sometimes old and sometimes so new as to still be in beta. But the fundamental enterprise of discussing ideas for artistic creation, retreating to our isolated work environments, distributing directions for the creation of the work, synchronizing the rehearsals, performance, and realization of the works-in-progress — all these things happen at a physical remove that is asynchronous, out of time, mediated by communication technology, and subject to a tremendous latitude of interpretation.
Part of the "process" has been figuring out the process. How do we come together and collaborate to produce the work in an environment (pandemic induced isolation) that is new to us and which is itself undergoing transformation. I know that my perspective of the process, and thematic concerns, is not only different than others', but may even be at odds with theirs. (Maybe I should have opened with this.) It's important, although I think it is just another manifestation of the central themes that have come to occupy my thoughts surrounding all of my creative/artistic endeavors since March 2020.
--Scott Miller
Carole Kim
By directing the Zeitgeist musicians to explore and restrict their palette to mechanical sounds on their instruments, composer Scott Miller was already steering his compositions in the direction of the unexpected. This diet of whups, whines, metallic flourishes and klangs triggers an intricate series of calculations within Scott's electronic realm setting off disruptive moments that he refers to as "events" or "bells." The very spoons that feed this electronic system are signaled to navigate further down the score. The chain reaction is not linearly evident as in a Rube Goldberg contraption, but one has the impression that an organism with a developing nervous system is under the microscope of our attention.
It is from this observational point of view, peppered by imagery from shared books read (China Mieville, Susanna Clarke), that I conjured the visuals for this soundscape. Through frequency analysis, I connect the aural impulses to an equally reactive visual nervous system that floats and spasms to the very sounds that animate the organism. The smallest change in variable produces markedly different behaviors. With a deeply rooted fascination by the way video projection behaves with different physical materials, I created two micro installations, one of dried plant matter and the other of glass and wax paper. The view from live cameras are composited in real time to give this organism space to move and breathe. A fine-tuned interaction of close observation and response allow for this world to bloom and unfold.
--Carole Kim
Notes from Carole Kim on COINCIDENT Episode 2:
"The preceding episode #1 at times suggests an internal world or organism full of excitable nerves and vessels. For Coincident #2, I was looking to create more of a sense of spaciousness. These odd hollow parasols descend and ascend on long tethers and ultimately exert territorial behavior. They sway from the weather pattern of kickback winds of explosions that are sometimes met by complete indifference like a meteor that narrowly avoids a collision on its course." - Carole Kim, visual artist
It is from this observational point of view, peppered by imagery from shared books read (China Mieville, Susanna Clarke), that I conjured the visuals for this soundscape. Through frequency analysis, I connect the aural impulses to an equally reactive visual nervous system that floats and spasms to the very sounds that animate the organism. The smallest change in variable produces markedly different behaviors. With a deeply rooted fascination by the way video projection behaves with different physical materials, I created two micro installations, one of dried plant matter and the other of glass and wax paper. The view from live cameras are composited in real time to give this organism space to move and breathe. A fine-tuned interaction of close observation and response allow for this world to bloom and unfold.
--Carole Kim
Notes from Carole Kim on COINCIDENT Episode 2:
"The preceding episode #1 at times suggests an internal world or organism full of excitable nerves and vessels. For Coincident #2, I was looking to create more of a sense of spaciousness. These odd hollow parasols descend and ascend on long tethers and ultimately exert territorial behavior. They sway from the weather pattern of kickback winds of explosions that are sometimes met by complete indifference like a meteor that narrowly avoids a collision on its course." - Carole Kim, visual artist
About the Artists
Scott L. Miller
Scott L. Miller is an American composer described as ‘a true force on the avant-ambient scene’ of ‘high adventure avant garde music of the best sort’ (Classical-Modern Music Review). Best known for his electroacoustic chamber music and ecosystemic performance pieces, his music is characterized by collaborative approaches to composition, exploring performer/computer improvisation, and re-imagining ancient compositional processes through the lens of 21st century technology. Inspired by the inner-workings of sound and the microscopic in the natural and mechanical worlds, his music is the product of hands-on experimentation and collaboration with musicians and performers from across the spectrum of styles. His recent work experiments with Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality applications in live performance.
Three time McKnight Composer Fellow, Fulbright scholar, and recipient of the Hellervik Prize, his work is frequently performed by soloists, ensembles, and at festivals throughout North America and Europe. Recordings of his music are available on New Focus Recordings, Innova, and other labels, many featuring his long-time collaborators, the new music ensemble Zeitgeist. His music is published by the American Composers Alliance, Tetractys, and Jeanné. Miller is a Professor of Music at St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, where he teaches composition, electroacoustic music and theory. He is Past-President (2014—18) of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the U.S. (SEAMUS) and presently serves as Director of SEAMUS Records.
Three time McKnight Composer Fellow, Fulbright scholar, and recipient of the Hellervik Prize, his work is frequently performed by soloists, ensembles, and at festivals throughout North America and Europe. Recordings of his music are available on New Focus Recordings, Innova, and other labels, many featuring his long-time collaborators, the new music ensemble Zeitgeist. His music is published by the American Composers Alliance, Tetractys, and Jeanné. Miller is a Professor of Music at St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, where he teaches composition, electroacoustic music and theory. He is Past-President (2014—18) of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the U.S. (SEAMUS) and presently serves as Director of SEAMUS Records.
Carole Kim
Carole Kim is a media artist with a focus on video projection for multi-media installation, performance and photography. She has presented her work in diverse contexts including experimental art, music, dance, theater and site-specific installation. As someone who works extensively with technology, it is where technology meets up with the human, physical, tangible world that interests her most. She is fascinated by the merging of physical space, the body and the illusionistic world of the moving image. Through this juxtaposition she plays with relative scale, dimensionality and how matter can appear to commingle. New composite worlds unfold where one is left to contemplate, “What is this new world I am observing?” “How does it make me think differently about my relationship to the physical world?”
At the onset of the pandemic, Carole Kim compressed her installations to fit beneath her kitchen table. This intimate “venue” has proven to be an ideal site for invention and accommodation of online presence, collaboration and live performance. Live performances within these micro-projection installations have been presented by NowNet Arts Lab, Montalvo Art Center, echoreaume-Vienna and Optosonic [e] Lab.
Her work has been supported by the Irvine Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Center for Cultural Innovation, MAP fund, City of Los Angeles, Pasadena Arts Council, The Music Center, Durfee Foundation, REDCAT, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA), The Getty Center, Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS) ,Dublab, Newtown, Turbulence.org, CalArts, and The Center for Experiments in Art, Information, and Technology. She was selected as a recipient of a 2013 COLA Fellowship, 2014 CCI Investing in Artists Grant, 2015 Metabolic Studio Chora Council Grant and a 2015 CHIME Grant. In 2019, she was awarded a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts. She was also the first artist-in-residence (March 2018- October 2019) at Descanso Gardens working on a year-long project that culminated in a solo exhibition and site-specific performances in the gardens from July-October 2019.
At the onset of the pandemic, Carole Kim compressed her installations to fit beneath her kitchen table. This intimate “venue” has proven to be an ideal site for invention and accommodation of online presence, collaboration and live performance. Live performances within these micro-projection installations have been presented by NowNet Arts Lab, Montalvo Art Center, echoreaume-Vienna and Optosonic [e] Lab.
Her work has been supported by the Irvine Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Center for Cultural Innovation, MAP fund, City of Los Angeles, Pasadena Arts Council, The Music Center, Durfee Foundation, REDCAT, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA), The Getty Center, Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS) ,Dublab, Newtown, Turbulence.org, CalArts, and The Center for Experiments in Art, Information, and Technology. She was selected as a recipient of a 2013 COLA Fellowship, 2014 CCI Investing in Artists Grant, 2015 Metabolic Studio Chora Council Grant and a 2015 CHIME Grant. In 2019, she was awarded a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts. She was also the first artist-in-residence (March 2018- October 2019) at Descanso Gardens working on a year-long project that culminated in a solo exhibition and site-specific performances in the gardens from July-October 2019.
Thank you to our donors!
COINCIDENT is made possible by contributions from Philip Blackburn, Debo Hysack, Paul Chavez, LouAnne Greenwald, Adam Rosenkranz, Bruce Abbott and Jane Sevald, Linda Daly, Joyce Thomas, James Holdman, Kelly Fitz, John Minczeski, Eri Isomura, Monica Allen, Michele Lewis, Steven Crane, Paul Elwood, Deborah Pile, Rosemary Good, Lisa Arends, the Minnesota State Arts Board, a Saint Paul Cultural STAR Grant, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.
COINCIDENT is made possible by contributions from Philip Blackburn, Debo Hysack, Paul Chavez, LouAnne Greenwald, Adam Rosenkranz, Bruce Abbott and Jane Sevald, Linda Daly, Joyce Thomas, James Holdman, Kelly Fitz, John Minczeski, Eri Isomura, Monica Allen, Michele Lewis, Steven Crane, Paul Elwood, Deborah Pile, Rosemary Good, Lisa Arends, the Minnesota State Arts Board, a Saint Paul Cultural STAR Grant, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.