NoiseFloor Festival - Proposal for Live Performance
Jeff Cloke is a sound artist, composer and improviser living in London. He has been active on the experimental music scene since the 1960s. He is currently performing with his unique 'Reson8' setup, either as a solo performer or collaborating with other musicians, poets, dancers or painters.
Reson8 is a laptop-hosted software setup using Ableton Live! and some spectral plugins, controlled in real-time with a MIDI controller. In simple terms, input sounds are transformed into output sounds: the input sounds may be live (microphone) or pre-recorded (Jeff only uses spoken words for his pre-recorded samples). These input sounds (live or recorded) may themselves be sampled, split and looped on the fly, and the output spectrum, texture, volume and spatial position are 'composed' as the performance progresses. The resulting soundscape is generally dream-like, complex, and slow-moving: often described as 'ambient' or 'drone', but in fact unique.
Two examples of ensemble performances are here and here
For the NoiseFloor performance Jeff is proposing a solo, surround-sound piece lasting between 20 – 40 minutes (to be agreed).
An example of a solo piece is here
The text to be used will be a lecture by Roland Barthes, chosen as it was given on 12th January (the date of NoiseFloor), albeit in 1977. (Note that the words will be transformed into the Reson8 soundscape, and not even recognisable as speech).
Jeff will provide the laptop, controller and audio interface, with himself as performer. The surround-sound setup (to be provided by the Festival) could be 5.1, 7.1, 6-channel or 8-channel, to be agreed. [No external input or video output is envisaged.]
