Since I tagged myself as an aspiring magician, I thought I should reflect on things I find magical. So here goes, in no particular order:
double sided tape
tape in general (often contributes to magic in all sorts of situation)
John Cage's focused determination in Water Walk 
babies' unbashful way of smiling at strangers
rainbows (aw)
unobsessive fascination with modular synths
earnest enthusiasm
circular breathing
sense8 dreaming
copper wire
robot pianos

I'm sure there is more but for now I'm happy to reflect on this 

It has been a year since I entered a blog...which makes me think that I'm really bad at something like keeping a blog. Regardless though, I have kept up with my area of research and have since finished my thesis for Master's programme in Live Electronics at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam titled Making Abstract Real: Live Electronics, Embodiment and Physicality. Since then I was accepted into a PhD programme at the University of Huddersfield, where I am currently pursuing a degree in research and composition.

I am investigating gesture as means for composition and as part of composition in interdisciplinary collaborations involving live electronics. I will try to keep my blog active for the part of my research and the work that I'm creating.

Right now I'm working on a piece for the members of the Ensemble Apparat, Samuel Stoll (horn) and Matthew Conley (trumpet) with live electronics. I'm investigating the interdisciplinary aspects of gesture through references to Brecht's critique of modern theatre in pieces like Three Penny Opera as well as memory dependence through gestures and references as means of forming an identity.  At the core of the piece I hope to include research on disembodiment of sound and restructuring of instrumental behaviour. 

As physical performance demands a different approach to score making, I'm curious myself how I will communicate the piece through notation, be it traditional or graphical very prescriptive or descriptive, visual, aural or even video. It helps to think about current CeReNeM seminars which have been focusing on notation lately. 

As my topic itself calls into action aspects of interactivity, I thought a good and more fun way to approach it would be by starting to test my research elements, questions and conclusions in this blog as I go along. Of course in the blog I will include materials of interest to web users such as videos and external links, so I will try my best to make it less academic sounding and more pragmatic(fingers crossed). However as it is my first crack at this, please bear with me. Also it would be interesting to see what additional sources of information I could come across through a free call to friends and colleagues in this so called worldwide internet community. What is the topic of my research, you may ask - “Making the abstract real” - evolving role of the musician with live electronics - composer, performer, inter-disciplinary artist, collaborator, technician, magician, etc." I thought this would start an interesting beginning for a definition of a genre that I am now confronted with while studying Live Electronics at the Amsterdam Conservatorium, as well as I would like to shed some light on the potential of expanded musicianship with live electronics. 


I have come across many articles exposing the idea of embodiment of sound in live electronics music due to performances with gestural controllers which I address as well however others challenge the idea that live electronics a priori opens new instances for composing or improvising with the body as once the sound becomes transmitted into electricity one can recompose the physical aspect of what is seen and heard (Van Eck 2010). This aspect undoubtedly opens the way for inter-disciplinarity...Personally as I am becoming more interested in the aspects of inter-disciplinarity with live electronics, so does my research shifts into this direction. I feel like I am entering a new territory where I am both slightly frightened and excited! More to come soon but I will leave you with a link to what started it for me in examining the relationship of body to live electronics: