XANADRuuL's First Rehearsals...

Here is my official promo-photo for that May 10th Voice++ concert at Open Space gallery in Victoria. I will not actually be using these speakers but I thought I would look good next to them in the promo photo since I want to at least portray the same glamourous aura of Modern Genius that Karlheinz Stockhausen himself possessed....



...I am composing an elegy for him, since he died just last year...

Hey there Karlheinz 57s, Serial(ist) Killers, Iron Kürtens and choir-caseloads of angelic audiophiles!

I may as well post all the early archives of my first reheasals for my new Stockhausen tribute composition now since it is starting to roll into full swing dress-rehearsal mode very soon and this primitive process will soon be forgotten lest I archive it straight away!

For this Voice ++ concert on May 10th (a Saturday), I will be premiering my 3rd major opus called "XANADRuuL" and is dedicated entirely to the immortal memory of our favourite alien ambassador, Karlheinz Stockhausen (yes, I like to namedrop him as much as possible). For all those who are not yet in the know about Stockhausen and his work, my advice is to not bother trying to understand what he was all about since he was from another star-system anyway... Lets just say that mere Earthly humanoids with some minor exceptions never quite understood him nor his musical output. Since I am also an alien (and a SLemale), I fully understand where he is coming from and I actually like some of his compositions (especially Kontakte, for example).

Anyways, I am not sure what Stockhausen's ghost will think about my tribute from beyond the grave but regardless of his opinion, I am very excited about this gig because I am being double billed with an eqaully important Modernist Genius Composer (MGC is the acronym if you are ever in an office administration job) named Pauline Oliveros (Free Noyes in SL). This is her very first SL composition for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, and is an adaptation of a composition she wrote for Trombones and Oscillator in 1999 called "The Heart of Tones (THoT)". Well, you will hear more about Oliveros' composition very shortly since I will also be hyping that one to death but in the meantime, I already have prepared some hype for you about my newest large-scale music composition to date:

XANADRuuL = Stockhausen's Pleasuredome 4 Sirius Business" (2007/2008)
Composed by Wirxli Flimflam aka. Jeremy Owen Turner.

XANADRuuL is a Second Life composition in 3 sections created for the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse. One can see this composition as an official elegy/tribute to the Modernist music pioneer, Karlheinz Stockhausen. XANADRuuL was created from samples that were solely derived from the Composer's (Wirxli's) own digitally manipulated voice. This composition was inspired by Stockhausen's claim of being an alien from Sirius and so the 3 sections of this composition correspond to Sirius A, B and C stars. In addition, there are also many references to Xanadu (including the movie with Olivia Newton John). The Opening Ceremonies take place on Sirius A where angels sing along with the selected voice samples from heavenly heights on the ceiling of a pentagonal geodesic dome and also on Sirius B where meandering avatars vainly attempt to communicate with these alien angelic muses using only pre-recorded samples. Sirius C is a "meta-composition" and is perfomed by the public throughout Second Life.

Anyways, I hope this hype will make the program notes for this RL Voice Festival.

In the meantime, check out these photos from some of the earliest days of performing XANADRuuL (including earlier today)...

This is the only pic I have that was taken earlier this morning and was the Orchestra's very first "full ensemble" rehearsal...This is also the first rehearsal to take place on a Saturday in order to accomodate the North American members of the Orchestra. I hope there will at least be a couple more of these saturday rehearsals before the big day on May 10th. For this cross-continental breakfast, you will see that I had to use a temporary rehearsal dome while waiting for the official one to be built by the Orchestra's Architect, Dethomas Dibou. Considering I have full VIP access as a SLebrity, I managed to score the Avastar's Star Lounge Dome which was good enough since it came with a swimming pool and some couches. Since the swimming pool was about the same size as the performance area I had in mind for the HUD performers, I had them walk around waist deep in that pool while the angelic choir had to compromise a little bit by singing beside the pool rather than being suspended from the dome's ceiling. Once the official dome has been built, the angelic choir should be able to hover from the dome's celing without any hassle or throbbing back pain. I am glad this was not a dress rehearsal, because everyone forgot to wear white (including me) and one of the choir members named Fernsing Llewellyn seemed more comfortable singing in the pool than keeping her critical (and divine) distance... sigh! Oh, before I forget, the HUD was designed once again by Bingo Onomatopoeia. You can see the HUD interface on the screen. The HUD has 23 differently coloured pentagonal buttons which makes perfect sense since the official dome will also be pentagonal. Bingo is also working on the halos for the HUD performers but I will blog about that feature when the performers have tested it out during the next rehearsal...

This slightly earlier picture shows the very first time that I managed to score the Avastar's Star Lounge dome. In this case, just the two of us were able to rehearse. Humming (the curator) is playing the part of the singing angel whereas I was playing the Devil...er...I mean the HUD performer ;-) Humming tried to approximate the angelic suspension by hovering near the ceiling. I recommended that until we get proper places for the angelic choirmembers to be suspended from, they might have to resort to sitting on the couches during our rehearsals.... OH, THE HARDSHIP OF A STRUGGLING SLEBRITY MUSICIAN!!!! ;-)

A little later that evening, my colleague in Second Front, Bibbe Oh popped by the Star Lounge to hang out for a bit. I really like her Terrorist T-Shirt...She told me it is part of an art-series she is working on...VERY KEWL! I forgot to mention that in that large-scale rehearsal shown above, other co-performers in Second Front are also moonlighting as Orchestra performers. Liz Solo is going to be singer, Tran Spire offered to be the camera-avatar and Fau Ferdinand was also there for (im)moral support :-D

This pic was taken quite some time ago...Like, maybe a month ago (gasp!). SL Historians, please take note that one month ago does not qualify as being Pre-History, ok?? Anyways, we were on top of a gallery on Odyssey Island. The whole gang included Weave Noyes and Fernsing Llewellyn. As you can see from the text, we were talking about Pauline's piece but we also had a choir pre-sectional rehearsal meet'n'greet for XANADRuuL. For example, this was the first time, I had actually met Fernsing and Weave for the first time in the SLesh.

Ok, this is probably the very first pic relating directly to XANADRuuL in any way. This pic is so old, it was taken sometime in the Winter (it is Spring now, right? So, it is old now, right?). This pic was also taken on Odyssey Island and illustrated the very first choir tests for XANADRuuL. Humming was even dressed up for the occasion but I think she forgot that it was no longer Remembrance Day as her Poppy Dress looked slightly out of context...heheheheh... Just kidding, Humming! Anyways, Aurel Miles was testing her voice with us and her GF Yvette Tzara was akso hanging out...it was a very nice time!

Anyways, the piece is coming along just...er... Swimmingly...and unless I get some ghostly advice from Stockhausen before the next Saturday rehearsal (might be next week), things should go along the same linear path that I had originally put into place...phew! Please scroll down for some more blogging (including more composer gossip)...

planning for LIVE...

Here I am coordinating the LIVE performance schedule for October 19th with Bea Box and Fau Ferdinand on Fau's personal property on...uh...what is the name of her island again? Celedon? I will have to ask her..sigh!

Hey there LIVE Performance Art Biennial ticket-holders,


"Yesterday" (well, a few hours ago in my time zone) has been a productive day in SL for me.
Not only did I have my weekly Avatar Orchestra Metaverse rehearsal earlier in the day (RL was too distracting for me to take photos of this event but I am sure I will link to some) but I also managed to schedule the remainder of the LIVE performances for October 19th and 20th...yaay!

Oh, I should clarify here...the orchestra rehearsal was not merely a rehearsal...we also recorded our HUD demo for Evo Szuyuan's upcoming presentation at V2 in Holland. Evo will be using the same footage as part of her future documentary about the AOM...yaaaay! I cannot wait to watch the final product!!!

The excitement did not end with the Orchestra's rehearsal and the LIVE meeting though... Once I left Second Life for the day, I also managed to maintain some off-world communication with the Orchestra about my upcoming Riesenrad composition for Wien Modern in Vienna.

Now, before I show you my second and final photo of this posting, I have some breaking news for you.... PAULINE OLIVEROS HAS COMPOSED A RE-ADAPTATION OF ONE OF HER CLASSIC COMPOSITIONS FOR THE AVATAR ORCHESTRA METAVERSE! DETAILS TO FOLLOW!

Ok, now that I have gotten that breaking news off of my chest, here is my other photo...

At this point, Second Front member Tran Spire joined us as well as Bibbe Oh, iixlii (my drug dealing butler), and Spinster Voom (sporting a new look)...

Ok, I should go to bed now as I have to meet up with some of the LIVE participants tomorrow to test out their gear. Good night for now :-)

Pauline Oliveros in Second Life!

This is probably the first ever photo-document of Pauline Oliveros (Free Noyes) in Second Life unless of course, Miulew Takahe took a quickie snapshot first...sigh! For this pic, I literally just gave Pauline my Rue Blanche gear (including the backpack) so Miulew could guide Pauline through the process of testing out the orchestra's inflatable backpack. For the record, Miulew got a compliment from Pauline about his zany SLippers! She must have been envious of these SLippers because she was definitely acting like a classic shoegazer with all the times she was bending down to check out her own plain-jane pair ;-)

Hey there 20th century and contemporary classical new music legends and musicworking mythmakers!

I know I promised in my last blog posting that I was taking a mini blog-break for the rest of September in order to focus on composing my new orchestral piece called Riesenrad but I could not help myself because due to recent developments, there was just a little bit more to blog...

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of giving the electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros (Free Noyes in SL) a tour of the hip art scene on Odyssey Island and also with the help of Miulew Takahe, a demonstration of the performance gear we use in our Avatar Orchestra Metaverse group. It is our hope that Pauline/Free takes up our offer to join the Orchestra and maybe even compose a new piece for the ensemble!

Well, no promises yet since Pauline had some server problems and was unable to hear the HUD-generated sounds properly. I am guessing this is because Second Life's active-user population has actually (not just virtually) doubled in the past couple of weeks alone! When the sounds were playing fine, the metaverse averaged about 20,000 simultaneous avatars and now it is pushing the envelope beyond the 40,000 mark!

Well, I am hoping Pauline/Free returns again to give Second Life a Second Chance.

At the very least, I managed to invite some friends over to take a few more snapshots of with her to celebrate her in-world debut...

A few minutes later, my friend Bibbe Oh dropped by to say hello. This was at the point that we were trying to impress Pauline (Free) with our sensuous sine tones but for some reason, those sine bits never seemed to transmit that afternoon...sigh!

For awhile, we thought that maybe the lack of transmitted sound had to do with the lagginess of the room so we moved to a more open area known us locals as Virtual Haidplatz. Sugar Seville, the curator of Odyssey Island, joined us there to also say hello and to try and help us figure out the situation that was blocking us from giving a flawless demo of our orchestral instrument(s). Unfortunately, the sound situation did not improve...sigh!

Eventually, we simply gave up on the whole sound check idea and decided to give Pauline a quick tour of some other landmarks on Odyssey Island such as....of course, my own PR office! ;-) Since I was in full-throttle PR mode, I invited my glamorous German art-blogger friend Olga Wunderlich to drop by since she happened to be in-world at the time. My glass of red-wine started to get a bit cold (maybe I am just cold-blooded or something) so I warmed it up by standing in the middle of my fire which by the way, is still successfully burning a bunch of negative reviews written by disgruntled and jaded critics....heheheheh! Oh, I forgot to mention that I am proud of this pic because I think I successfully captured the stylish aloofness that is second-nature to all those involved in the SL art world ;-)

I guess it was just a matter of time before we had to show Pauline the blight (not a typo, I really mean "blight" and not "bright") side of life on Odyssey Island. I think the fact that Ian Ah sleeps in a squat directly underneath my PR office is proof that virtual worlds are not always the Utopias they pretend to be. Yes my friends, there is a digital divide in Second Life and it is deepening...er...widening ;-)

I hope you like this photo. I managed to get everyone to line up for an official group shot in front of the main gallery on Odyssey Island called Exhibit A. By the way, I have a solo show there next month..stay tuned!

...and here is one additional angle of us doing one more group pose before saying our mutual farewells....

OSLOspace AUDIOspace and BIBBEspace...

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse at Susanne Jaschko's Urban Interface in Oslo (RL) and in Amsterdam (SL)...

***BREAKING NEWS FROM THE NEAR FUTURE!***

The curator Susanne Jaschko has blogged about this event.

Here we are in Amsterdam waiting to score some.....er... well....actually....waiting for our orchestral colleagues Gumnosphistai Nurmi (Norway) and Nnoiz Papp (Germany) to find us. This sort of hide and seek theme seems to be deja vu for me as I did something very similar as an avatar in my past life... Anyways, it turns out that Susanne Jaschko and her audience was on the hunt with them to find us "spontaneously" performing Miulew Takahe's composition, Fragula. I was unsure if Dr. Jaschko had her own avatar lurking in the alleyways of Amsterdam but one can always hold conspiracy theories and daydream...I mean, trying to make Amsterdam look like Oslo is indeed some sort of Artworld conspiracy!

Ok, this pic was taken at the point where Gumno and Nnoiz finaly found us...All it took was one blast of Nnoiz's fog horn and he was able to locate their position in relation to the Orchestra and of course, using sonar in an "orchestral" context is nothing new ;-) Once they found us, Gumno and Nnoiz quickly joined in the Fragulan fray and began performing with us as if they had actually rehearsed with us ;-) Speaking of Fragula, I made a big boo-boo when criticizing Bingo Onomatopoeia's new Fragula version number as being non-linear...I thought he accidentally "upgraded" from v12.0 to v9.0...I did not read between the lines, because there was actually a decimal in front so it makes sense that v0.9 is newer than v.12...For the record, Bingo forgave me by saying that "even Einstein failed at Math"....sigh! Bingo at least gave me the official link for understanding the software versioning conventions... Maybe I had better cut back on that decimalized Dutch Hash and learn to leave the red-light district, eh? ;-)

Hey there OSLOspace, AUDIOspace and BIBBEspace cadets!

First of all, I want to officially announce that this posting is actually my 100th posting for this blog! I would like to thank all my readers for providing me with the necessary delusion(s) to believe that this blog is something worth writing...thanks a zillion! ;-)

Saturday the 15th was quite exhausting yet productive. The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse had two intense gigs and even my relaxation session with Bibbe Oh felt intense....can I ever relax? Hmmmm..maybe I can...

Since I do not think I have any more gigs lined up for the rest of September, I think I am going to use this precious "spare" time to get off my pixellated ass and continue composing my next official AOM composition to be premiered at Wien Modern in Vienna called Riesenrad.

Anyway, I just thought I would share those tidbits with you...If you do not see many blog postings from now until October, that is probably why...

I have just shown you the OSLO event in Amsterdam and now, I will show you some pix of the Audiospace concert before concluding this posting with my post-orchestral personal reception and gratuitous photo-shoot with Bibbe Oh...

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse's performance at the Audiospace Festival at Open Space...

Here are a few of us having a seat and doing a bit of a meditation blitzkrieg before some of the audience members arrive... Gumno is disclosing a few RL details that most of us share behind the scenes...many of us SLebrities in RL are stay-at-home parents...sigh! If you have a close zoom towards this pic, you will notice tiny voice-chat icons above Miulew Takahe and Humming Perra (Audiospace Curator)...Yes, Second Life now has embedded voice chat capabilities. Miulew's silky smooth voice was a perfect compliment to Humming's hushed adminisrative tones. You will also notice that the score for Miulew's official Audiospace submission, Rue Blanche is available for all to see...Miulew later gave the Open Space gallery a demo of the process behind the 3 performed compositions...

As you can see, some more audience members are gradually arriving on the scene. It was great to see so many avatars at this event....alot of these people are good friends and important artists in RL so the whole experience was quite encouraging. Oh, I forgot to mention a minor detail for you...Yes, it is true... Since previous blog postings, my coffee cup has increasingly super-sized itself. For this event, I was in a generous mood so I shared the wealth since the refills are virtually endless anyway.... I am desperately trying to remember the name of the person who gave me this coffee at the earlier event in Oslo...sigh! Miulew has recently informed me that Merak Ur was the one who have me the new coffee but my mind is so foggy, I can barely absorb that information. I think I need another sip of steamy coffee!

This pix shows a little more clearly the size of the in-world audience... Yes, it is true, my new buddy Blued Food arrived at the exact moment this pic was taken...I guess I am getting too SLeepy these days to spend quality time in Photoshop censoring out my private life...a celebrity's life is public property anyways, right? ;-)

Here we are playing our classic Fadheit that was composed by the Orchestra's founder, Maximillian Nakamura. I should point out that those squares you see on the screen are usually only for the eyes of the Orchestral performers but this time, Miulew gave the Open Space audience a behind-the-scenes demo of the mechanics of this particular telepathic user-interface...

Here is a great close-up of myself and Gog Mannonen. I actually know Gog in RL but due to privacy issues, I cannot disclose Gog's RL identity. I really hope Gog joins the Orchestra as I am sure some very unique compositions would begin to take shape in our repetoire...

So, after two consecutive concerts, I was feeling rather burned out so I decided to wind down a bit with my new friend (not so new in RL) Bibbe Oh...

My post-orchestral personal reception with Bibbe Oh at the Third Rail Gallery of Current Art...

Here I am enjoying some red-wine and refined gallery art with Bibbe Oh. I did not realize how much shorter she is than me! I tried my best not to accidentally nudge her into the sculpture next to her...I was worried it might tip over and shatter...yikes! Bibbe was telling me that she does some hosting here sometimes with Channing Oh but officially, the gallery (a tribute to Al Hansen of Fluxus fame) is owned by her friends (who also happen to be siblings), Cleo and Demara Hultcrantz.

We eventually went over to Bibbe's personal studio and sat underneath a sandwich...well, a photo of one, anyway! All the photos on the wall were taken by Bibbe herself...there are more to show you if you persist with me a sec and continue to scroll down...

My colleague in Second Front, Man Michinaga eventually dropped by to hang out with us....yaaaay!

In this pic, you get a better sense of what Bibbe's own photography work looks like. She takes found pix of murders and suicides (and yes, sandwiches) and actually embroiders them onto paper in RL....whoa! Sounds eerie, zany and creepy-crawly to me!!! Hmmm...what do you think of the premeditated murder wound on that guy's forehead? Man is pointing to something much more abstract yet in a sense, just as extreme...lets just say it kinda looks like a starfish (use your imagination!)...

Ok, that was my day in a nutshell! Good thing I scored some of that red wine at Bibbe's place because I could sure use some extra time in "R&RL" (RL + R&R = R&RL)...

SLippery Magical Mystery Rehearsal Tour...

If you cannot see this embedded video, click on the direct YouTube link here. Here are some of the Odyssey Island scenesters hanging out on the party bus known as the gr00ver m00ver over East of Odyssey at the Ultramarine Column - Unsong Song #17.

Ultramarine Column by Adam Ramona. gr00ver m00ver by Fau Ferdinand and Zodial Semple.

Foghorn & Arabic Flair by Nnoiz Papp.

On the bus:
Fau Ferdinand, Adam Ramona, Nnoiz Papp, Wirxli Flimflam, Miulew Takahe,Evo Szuyuan, Bingo Onomatopoeia

This pic was actually taken moments after the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse's rehearsal du jour but it seems that visually speaking, this pic seemed the most appropriate to begin this blog posting with...

Hey there Audiospace addicts, SLippery sorcerors and double decker dronemongers...

On the afternoon of September 11th (see the blog posting below), the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse rehearsed yet again for saturday's performance at Open Space in Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) as part of the Audiospace festival.

This rehearsal was also a chance to finally meet 3 of my new friends in person: Bibbe Oh, Faust Saenz and Cleo Hultcrantz. It was great to meet them all finally. I did actually take a pic of Bibbe Oh in addition to the other two but for some reason, I cannot locate the pic to blog her on this posting..sigh! However, Evo Szuyuan took a great pic of her. I guess I will have to ask for a photo-shoot with her soon enough.

Well anyways, we spent some time rehearsing 3 of AOM's classics from the immortal repetoire before going on a Magical Mystery Bus Tour across East (of) Odyssey Island with Fau Ferdinand at the helm. During most of that journey, I was (almost literally) "asleep at the wheel" but eventually, we ended up at Ian's screening lounge to give everyone a sneak peek at Evo Szuyuan's new and improved machinima of my composition SLippery SLope that has recently been tweaked by AOM's prime-mover, Miulew Takahe...

Well, with out further faffing around, here are some pix to help illustrate the more notable events of this very memorable day...

Ok ok, I am not blogging my photos in a linear chronologial order as this whole bus tour began at the end of the rehearsal but hey...at least with two consecutive bus pix in a row, there is the illusion of historical continuity due to the visual proximity of the bus images one after the other...uh....right? ;-) To see additional photos of this bus tour, check out Evo's pic and/or Nnoiz Papp's photo page.

So, here is the first pic from the actual rehearsal. We are sitting down in das kleine field recordings festival's space on Odyssey Island. We have decided to play Miulew's seminal piece Rue Blanche while sitting down on our pixellated yet poofy cushions...it was a good thing that this sine-tone soundscape was ambient enough to relax our tushies and drink endless refills of coffee...aaaahhhhh!

Here is what the revised version of Miulew's compositon Fragula now looks like from the orchestra performer's perspective. Apparently, this version 9.0 of the interface is actually NEWER than the version 12.0 that we were previously using(????) Such downgrading usually belongs solely within the (il)logical domain of Linden Labs ;-). Regardless, the new sounds and player-HUD has evolved from the original version in a very exciting way....check it out on saturday to see what I mean. In general, Bingo Onomatopoeia is the mastermind behind the construction of this musical performance HUDs and we are ever grateful for his willingness to design such wonderful interfaces...

Ok, I am glad this pic was taken at the very end of this rehearsal session because it works well visually since it fulfills the "end credits" motif that every blog posting should conform to ;-)
Here are a bunch of us (including my new friend, Blued Food) checking out the SLippery SLope video. If you zoom closer to the pic, you will notice that Gog Mannonen signed online at this time...Gog soon joined us and could not stop giggling during the screening and had difficulty containing all the "lol"s bubbling inside...maybe Gog was in performance mode? One will never know for sure but that is the default mannerism on Odyssey Island :-)