Keith Fullerton Whitman - STS
April 28, 2019, 12 pm - 4 pm
STS (2019) is an 8-channel installation work comprised of recordings made over a 15-year period on differing Serge Modular systems recorded at the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, the Columbia Computer Music Center, Elektron Musik Studion, the Groupe de Recherches Musicales, Harvard University Studio for Electro-Acoustic Composition, and Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio convolved with fragments of speech, recitation, and extra-textual verbal communication.
Partly an homage to formative speech-transformation works such as Herbert Eimert’s “Epitaph für Aikichi Kuboyama (1960-1962)”, the mapping of the frequency spectra of time-aligned formants to a catalog of full-range synthesizer signals yields a warm, attenuated field of sustained sound that ebbs through each space at a modest volume, inviting the listener to dwell on individual timbres, phrases, and conversations while assessing the overall sound-field. Utilizing a sliding, modular structure to diffuse linked stereo pairs of convolutions into 4 discrete chambers, the individual parts become groups of voices heard distinctly, overheard from the next room, or made subliminally aware of via bleed-through from each adjoining space.
Keith Fullerton Whitman is a Composer & Performer currently based in Brooklyn. He is in the process of realizing geographically & thematically relevant Live Electronic Music under the "Redactions" banner, as well as performing contemporary revisions of his classic "Generators" and "Playthroughs" frameworks. Recently he has performed at the GRM's Immersion festival in Paris, Documenta 14 in Athens, The Labyrinth in Niigata, MaerzMusik's The Long Now in Berlin, Semibreve in Braga, Send + Receive in Winnipeg, The Geometry of Now in Moscow, and at the Don Buchla Memorial Concerts in San Francisco.
Active from the early 90's on while working towards completing a Bachelor's Degree in Music Synthesis at Boston's Berklee College of Music, Keith began exploring electronic music's many facets, yielding dozens of recordings for influential labels such as Kranky, Planet µ, Editions Mego, PAN, Carpark, Room40, Amethyst Sunset, Amish, Dekorder, Melted Mailbox, NNA Tapes, No Fun Productions, Agents of Chaos, Arbor, Digitalis Limited, Ekhein, Heavy Tapes, Rare Youth, and Root Strata, as well as his own Reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge , Entschuldigen, Protracted View, and Industrial Abbotsford imprints.
Over the past 20+ years, Keith has given over 500 performances - everything from solemn held-tones to pointillist reckless-abandon - at venues ranging from "Punk" basements to some of the most celebrated European & North-American art & music festival stages, such as Adventures in Modern Music, Akousma, Berliner Festspiele, Boston Cyberarts, Brainwaves, Cable, Cicle OUT.SIDE, CTM, DEAF, Dissonanze, Documenta 14, Electronica En Abril, Elevate, Festival SOY, Geometry of Now, High Zero, Hopscotch, Immersion, Impakt, Kontraste, Labyrinth, Lanaudière, LUFF, MaerzMusik, Mutek, Neon Marshmallow, No Fun Fest, Novas Frequencias, On Land, Présences Électroniques, Propensity of Sound, Sampler Series, Semibreve. Send + Receive, Skanu Mesz, Sonic Acts, Sonic Circuits, Sound Summit, Suoni Per Il Popolo, TEDx, Terraforma, Ultrahang (UH Fest), Unsound, Werkleitz, WFMU Record Fair, ZKM, etc. In addition, he has given dozens of workshop, artist talks, & lectures at prestigious institutions including the Banff Centre, Casa Rolão, the Columbia University Computer Music Center, Dartmouth, the Echo Nest, Harvard University, Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, Johns Hopkins, Kunstquartier Bethanien, La Casa Encendida, MIT Media Lab, and Videopool & has taken part in Colloquia, acted as Guest Faculty, co-curated music festivals & organized concerts & film events in the Boston, Melbourne, and New York City areas & beyond.
From 2003 to 2015, he helmed a highly specialized experimental-music distribution company named "Mimaroglu Music," charged with helping labels & artists all over the world with the preparation & dispersion of their tangible music artifacts. Prior to this he was the Sales-Manager of noted New England distributor Forced Exposure, for whom he personally penned hundreds of "capsule" descriptions of catalogue new-arrivals. After Mimaroglu Music’s dissolution & his relocation to Melbourne in late 2015, Keith started “Broken-Music” in mid-2016. In 2019 he will launch a similar service based in Brooklyn.