Workshops

During this workshop we will develop strategies, interactive tools and instruments for a collective sound art improvisation. This improvisation will use a time-based, graphical score where each player is either in a state of sender, receiver or listener. This concept is inspired by Michael Ammann`s “Quadrophonia” concert series. Each day we will also listen to selected sound art pieces providing us with ideas and inspiration. The final result of the workshop will be presented during a concert using a quadrophonic loudspeaker setup.
This workshop is open to anyone with an artistic sensitivity and passion for sound. A high degree of openness and curiosity is warmly welcome. Basic knowledge in music software like Max/MSP or PureData, arduino microprocessors or experience in live performances is a big plus, but not a must. Please bring any tool or sound instrument that you might use during the workshop and final concert.

Marko Timlin is a sound artist and media artist educated in Music Technology at Sibelius Academy Helsinki and McGill University Montréal. His artistic work encompasses the creation of large kinetic sound installations, performances with self-made experimental sound machines, physical computing, the artistic use of obsolete technology and interactive multimedia theatre plays.

In recent years his works were presented worldwide including at Whitebox New York (US), Kiasma Helsinki (FI), Sight & Sound Festival Montréal (CA), E:vent gallery London (UK), EMMA (FI), Mal au Pixel Paris (FR), RIXC Riga (LV), Fylkingen Stockholm (SE), Neues Museum Nürnberg (DE), Digital Media Festival Valencia (ES) & Pori Art Museum (FI).

In addition to his artistic activities Marko Timlin loves teaching and has been teaching at New York University (USA), Royal Conservatory “Victoria Eugenia” Granada (ES), Music University Trossingen (DE), Sibelius Academy Helsinki (FI), University of Arts and Design Karlsruhe (DE), Metropolia University of Applied Science (FI) and in Heureka the Finnish Science Centre (FI).

Website: https://www.timlin.de/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markotimlin

Each participant builds a eurorack compatible board that comprises three oscillators: one for setting a basic reference beat, one that can drive a motor or trigger sounds on a modular synthesizer and one slow running oscillator for modulation. Each circuit board is designed to be wired up with the circuits boards from the other participants. Once the soldering is done participants are invited to explore together the magic of emergent polyrhythm by connecting their individual circuits to form a huge network.

Additionally we will develop face plate designs for the developed modules in collaboration with Fricis Kalvelis using FabLab Liepāja prototyping tools.

The workshop will take place in ZIIC FabLab Liepaja.

Christian Faubel is an interdisciplinary scholar working in the differing fields of neuroscience, autonomous systems research and media art & design. He holds a phd in electrical engineering and has completed research on autonomous systems at the institute for neural computation from 2002–2012. from 2012-2018 he was working as artist, researcher and teacher at the academy of media arts cologne. In his work, Christian Faubel is interested in what enables complex behavior, and how this may result from the interaction of very simple units and their interrelations. in his artworks, installations, workshops & performances he tries to convey insights about theoretical concepts such as self-organisation, emergence or embodiment along an aesthetic dimension. he considers his artworks, workshops and performances to be in the tradition of philosophical toys as they combine the mediation of scientific concepts with pleasure and amusement.
https://christian.faubel.derstrudel.org/

They will experiment with graphic scores, how to create and interpret them. A score could be done in many different ways – on paper, a video score and so on. Fantasy is the limit. Which sound source can you use to produce a certain sound? Can we use objects from our homes, from nature or our bodies? The participants will work together in small groups, creating a sound work based on a graphic score. The goal is that these works should be performed during the festival. The participants are not expected to play traditional instruments, but if they insist, it is of course allowed.

Lise-Lotte Norelius is a percussionist since 25 years, with a background in trad. african music, experimental rock, world music and free improvisation. She played with various groups a.o. Bitter Funeral Beer Band and Anitas Livs where she developed a personal sound with percussion and sampled sounds. The wish to go further into electroacoustic music grew during a project about acoustics 1996, where she composed her first 8-channel piece. LLN studied electroacoustic composition at Royal College in Stockholm 1998-2002 and is, since then, developing her work with live-electronics and realtime processing of various sound sources. Her penchant for rhythmic structures, layers, sound character, and long lines characterize her music. The last few years she has composed music for tape, musicians and live-electronics, theatre, poetry, sound/video works and dance performances. She is performing as solo-artist and with different constellations, consisting of musicians, dancers/choreographers and intermedia artists, in the fields of eam, sound art, noise, free improvised electronica, dance and performance.
https://www.lise-lottenorelius.se/

This workshop will explore the creative use of sound diffusion as performed on a mixing desk for the live presentation of electroacoustic music and sound art over an eight-channel (or more) sound system. Participants will gain insight into the use of sound diffusion to structure, articulate and add impact to the presentation of fixed media works. There will be a discussion of the historical context, technical aspects related to speaker configurations and types, preferred mixing configurations and setups, and diffusion techniques for projecting stereo mixes into many speakers into a concert hall. The workshop will allow participants practical hands-on experience to explore this dynamic audio practice.

Shawn Pinchbeck is an Edmonton, Alberta, Canada based electroacoustic music composer and media artist. Since 1984, he’s been actively performing, composing, releasing recordings, curating festivals and concerts; and for many years now teaching studio engineering, electroacoustic composition, film sound design, Max/MSP/Jitter, computer interactivity and basic electronics.

The participants will explore and learn a different way of approaching audio-visual creation. This workshop aims to put a base for artists to explore these new concepts by themself in future works.
No prior knowledge needed, just a desire to create and to play with abstract ideas. A basic knowledge of creating music and using a digital audio workstation is prefered but not completely necessary. Every participant needs something to capture sound and images (sound devices, mics, camera and/or just a cellphone). They will also need a computer able to run editing softwares.

Émile Gingras-Therrien is a Montréal-based author, composer and performer working in various spheres of the Montréal scene. His compositional projects revolve around Musique Visuelle, mixed music, improvisation and collective creation. In his llAMKAll project, his friend and colleague José-Gabriel Bazán-Gauthier and he work on experimental, spontaneous and socially engaged audiovisual art, both in terms of subject matter and sound and visual aesthetics. After graduating from the Université de Montréal in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in mixed composition, Émile’s goal is to multiply his artistic projects and carve out a place for himself in the Montréal art scene.

We will see how to design a soundscape by creating variations on pre-existing sonic materials, reaction mechanisms, and by exploring various strategies to create virtual spaces. The workshop will also be an opportunity to explore non-linear music making, as well as spatialization in various setups.
No coding or audiovisual experience necessary; a background in sound design and/or music is a nice-to have. Participants should come with their laptop with Wwise installed (link below).
Related Links Wwise (Audiokinetic): http://www.audiokinetic.com/en/products/wwise
Download the Audiokinetic launcher http://www.audiokinetic.com/en/download

Julie Delisle (CA) is a composer, a multidisciplinary researcher specialized in digital audio, and a flutist. She graduated from the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, and participated in several international festivals, among them the Montreal Contemporary Lab (Canada), the Impuls Academy (Graz, Austria) and the Improcon Festival (Desinić, Croatia), both as a flutist and as a live electronics musician.

Julie Delisle studied acoustics, computer music and musicology at the Université de Montréal. Researching instrumental timbre from diversified perspectives (instrumental, historical, perceptual, and computational) profoundly transformed the way she conceives, listens to, modulates, and arranges sounds, and continues to have an impact on her creative processes, which are also influenced by their strong interest for Chinese martial arts and mathematics.

After completing a Ph.D. in musicology (Université de Montréal) and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory (Schulich School of Music, McGill University) as part of the ACTOR Project (for “Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration”), she is collaborating to the research-creation project Sheng! (Collegium Musicae, Sorbonne Université), focusing on the study of Asian mouth organs and their music, and is part of the scientific committee for the online journal “Analyses” (IRCAM), which aim is to document the mixed music repertoire.

As a Wwise Certified Trainer, Julie Delisle is currently active in the field of digital audio technology development, for game audio, interactive audio, and virtual and augmented reality. She studies electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal (Canada) with Louis Dufort.

The aim of the workshop is to introduce participants to VJ (video jockey) culture, visualisation tools and software and to create the visual design of the event.
Participants will have the opportunity to create visualisations digitally and immerse themselves in handicrafts by creating event decorations. The event will be designed using a variety of materials – reflective glass prisms, servo motors, as well as the most democratic materials available to people – air and plastic bags to create moving sculptures.
A computer is required for the workshop. Comfortable work clothes.

Mārtiņš Zutis (LV) (b.1988) is one of the new generation of illustrators who has worked in book and graphic design, animation and video art, creating music videos for local musicians and concert visualisations for the music association Dirty Deal Audio.
He holds a Master’s degree in Visual Communication from the Art Academy of Latvia, has collaborated with local publishers and has been published for a long time in the prestigious comics magazine “Kuš!”. Mārtiņš is currently
is continuing his studies at the Professional Doctoral Programme of the Latvian Art Academy, researching the ability of image sequences to create meaning both in interaction with and without text. In his comics he often uses word games and cleverly solves mathematical problems. His work has been published in “Kush!” and “Popper”.
https://martinszutis.lv/page/4

In the workshop participants will make their own MOCI modules, which have to be designed according to predefined parameters to be successfully connected. The MOCI workshop invites participants to think creatively while learning the basic principles of mechanical and technical design.
MOCI base is made of simple materials – plastic pipes, connectors and wood. The rest of the instrument can be made from any materials depending on what do you want to achieve – in the workshop you will learn about various prototyping and CAD design techiques such as laser-cutting, 3D printing. Or you can use plastic, wood, found materials or ready-made objects, or a combination of everything. The main goal is to have fun while
developing new skills and methods, exploring and thinking of different solutions to create your own unique movement or sound, as well as technical and visual solutions for objects. The MOCI development process encourages participants to think creatively while learning the principles of mechanical and technical design.
The workshop will take place in ZIIC FabLab.
https://moci.aste.gallery/

Rogier Jupijn (NL) is a creative engineer and designer. Rogier has received several degrees in the fields of Interactive Media Arts and Technological Education. One of Rogier’s main professional activities is informal education in design, electronics and prototyping. Combining these fields Rogier has been developing and leading workshops for children, youth, students and young artists since 2014.
Paula Vītola (LV) is a sound and media artist who is also interested in mechanical design and prototyping, DIY culture and the materiality of technology. She regularly collaborates with Rogier in the production of various interfaces and the development of workshop methods.
Fricis Kalvelis (LV) artist, designer Gamechanger Audio, formerly – RTU Science and Innovation Centre.
Artist’s website: https://neviensne.tumblr.com/

Synthesiser module used: https://www.ericasynths.lv/shop/diy-kits-1/edu-diy-vco/
A versatile DIY prototyping workstation has been developed in collaboration with Columbia University. It will be used to allow each participant to build their own synthesiser module, and at the end of the workshop all the workstations can be combined into a single synthesiser and the participants can give an experimental improvised performance.

Ģirts Ozoliņš founded Erica Synths, a Riga-based company that has become one of the world’s largest and most admired manufacturers of electronic music equipment and modular synthesizers, supplying hardware to Depeche Mode, The Chemical Brothers and other stars. The Erica Synths team is made up of visionaries, engineers and musicians. They have worked hard to create Eurorack modules and desktop hardware that transform the workflow, whether for production in the studio, live performance on stage or educational purposes in the classroom. They strive to offer the highest possible quality in the way the tools look, sound and perform. All instruments are designed and manufactured in Latvia.