Projects SI 28/Writing Machine Ensemble

Public-Event/Writing-Machines-Ensemble

Explorations in Potential Musicality

With the Writing Machines Ensemble, rythm and repetition are experienced in a radically new form. Explorations in Potential Musicality is a musical journey through the sonic qualities of printers—with a strong emphasis on improvisation, yet promising dramatic intensity.

The Writing Machines Ensemble, co-founded by it's current members, is an international group of experimental musicians from around the XPUB Studio. Independent and idealistic, they focus on blending the role of 'instrument' and 'musician' in an assemblage of artistic creation, striving to find the essential musical quality in tools of writing. Since its debut in September 2025, the ensemble has performed on WORM Radio, for the 5th edition of XPUB's Special Issue Radio show, where the group's unique live scoring method was born and then the 19th of November with a public concert at UBIK, Rotterdam.

Emanuele Arrigoni, Daan Princen, Robin de Haan, Thijs van Loenhout, Claudio Castro Chaponan, Monica Olympia, Erika Model, N.E.C. (Dottie) Parson, Taxan X.Y. Plotter, Star LC-10

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INPUT: Finger movements that originate symbols and letters onto electronic and mechanical devices.

OUTPUT[S]: The same text inputs BUT on long continuous sheets of paper, thanks to the use of ink that is both being sprayed onto the paper —thanks to the marvellous technical engineering of a head that moves horizontally— and imprinted, thanks to the mechanical movements of engraved metal rods hitting the paper. The result is print. This action of printing produces noise. Together, noises and symbols on paper, leads people to wander into stuff called semiotics, thoughts and imagination through the use of interpretation.

Intro

The Writing Machines Ensemble was born during the Special Issue 28 by a common interest between the members on working onto sound by going beyond the writing aspect of language. The focus on sound it has not been put on how words are spoken but on how text is printed. During one of Steve's first lessons we felt an attraction to the audible qualities of a typewriter. During prototyping classes we were exposed to the DOT Matrix printer (NEC Pinwriter P60) Babblebash, and the attraction started to feel stronger, so we saw an opportunity to widen our scope. This was even further enhanced when Thijs and Manetta filled the room with vintage penplotters.

We started to gather inspirational content to have a better view on existing materials to better orient our direction. The first key example was the orchestral composition The Typewriter (1953) by Leroy Anderson, in which the sonic qualities of a typewriter –like the hammering of the keys and the bell that indicates the end of the line– takes the focus. This orchestral composition was written and notated in a standard way for an orchestra. The player of the typewriter is rhythmically hammering the buttons, pressing a bell and sliding the platen back to the left of the page.

Other important references for us were the Electronicos Fantasticos, Open Reel and Scratch Orchestra. They experiment with the sonic qualities of tools and electronics originally not made to produce sound. Circuit bending and creating new sorts of sound devices is also a key practice within those ensembles.

Previous XPUB alumni Rosa Schuurmans and Riviera Taylor became also a big inspiration for our project. At HfG Karlsruhe they did an experimental performance with amplifying parts of printers. They programmed parts of printers to adjust the sounds and the rhythm of their printing.

All combined, these sources sketched a beautiful outline to what we wanted our project and performance to be like.

Cognitive Assemblage

While discussing our concept, we came to an understanding that we were dealing with the cognitive assemblage concept by Katherine Hayles [see Glossary]. The trial and error while trying out rhythms on the typewriters, and getting the Dot Matrix to work, gave us the insight that we’re working with more cognitive agents other than ourselves. They needed special use and care. Only working with us if handled in it’s right form. They’re delicate machines. It was clear that we couldn’t just exploit their talents.

The aim is to use the media in a different way than it was intended, to manifest a role that it wasn't programmed to do before.

On Score notation

When speaking about music and performing it, a major topic that comes up it's the notation of it. Since in the SI28 we faced questions regarding language and protocols, we developed our own protocol for music & used language that goes against the standard ways of notation.

The notation being the formal documentation process that encodes sound into a system we have learned to understand and categorize as music.

In our research we came across various examples of non-classical ways of notation. Key examples are Anthony Braxton’s Synaesthetic Ideal and Notations for Improvisers, John Coltrane Coltrane Changes - Circle of Fifths and Giant Steps | Visualized on a Mathematical Space, Daphne Oram Oramics and Jani Christou. During a trip to the Antwerp Art Books Fair 2025, Ema randomly came across MELODY III BOOK II by Jon Gibson (1976) which set a major inspiration for us.

Part of MELODY III BOOK II

Jon Gibson outcome is printed on a continuous sheet of paper, just like the pin-feed paper used for DOT Matrix printers. Thanks to that aspect we then started to read and interpret the scoring of Gibson in new ways. Our output printed on paper falls in between musical notation written before playing the music and the musical notation produced after having recorded music. We have used a continuous feed paper to really expose the material aspect of producing the score live, since it better represents the constant flow of music. As we're making the piece of music, the printed output represents both the documentation of it but it can also become a new musical piece or at least an interpretation. Our notation is always open to all different kinds of interpretations.

The agency in creating the scoring is shifted from a purely human process, to a collaborative one between the printers and human players. From the viewpoint of established music, the notation is part of creating a musical piece, and fixing it on paper before being played. The instrument usually is the tool through which the sound is produced, but in the Writing Machines Ensemble there is the duality of creating the score live —of the sound that is heard and the sound played. Furthermore the contemporaneity of it —the sound from the machines is the actual sound that is produced to print.

We had to work together with the machines in order to understand how every particular machine creates sound and by which parameters they work. If we want to use a machine that is intended for producing text as a tool to make sound, we follow their restrictions as the starting point. Text output has become a documentation of the printers sound production that does not follow the formal system of music, but we still read as having a 'musical' quality. And it is up to the human players to work with each printer's restrictions to learn how to collaborate with them.

Then, we made protocols among us so we could have a way to improvise between human and machine play in a live performance, rather than relying on an established, universal language of music.

DOTTIE

Dottie (NEC Pinwriter P60) offers a wide range of sound possibilities that vary depending on the printed character. During our experimentations we tested all of the different sounds they can produce. We mainly used ! # % . a characters.

[see Writing-Machine-Directory/Interpreting-a-Dotmatrix's-Scoring for more insights]

Robin & Dottie performed together during the event in UBIK

TYPEWRITERS

Protocol: Repeat a sentence or a word over and over in order for the player to delve into the rythmic aspect and variations.

Reference to The Shining (1980): All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Ema came up with ‘Everything is noise. You interpret.’ as an open critique onto how music also commonly falls into highly standardizations and on how humans are always drawn to categorazation and how it’s impossible to run away from it.

Ema & Daan & Monica & Erika performed together during the event in UBIK

All parts of a typewriter

Everything is noise. You interpet.

PEN PLOTTER

Taxan X.Y. pen plotter has the peculiarity of producing very high pitched sounds from its motors when moving. This model of pen plotter can be played manually thanks to its beautiful 3D printed buttons, without the need to launch a script from a computer connected to it. Furthermore, sounds are produced as well by the movements of grabbing a pen and the up&down movement of the pen touching the paper surface's.

Unlike the other machines in the ensemble, Taxan has the special powers of printing in different colors and to draw lines and points.

Thijs & Taxan performed together during the event in UBIK

The Ensemble

First of, the working title for the project was Typewriter Orchestra. This was rapidly Changed into Writing Machines Ensemble when Dottie joined the room. The word orchestra describes a group of instrumentalists, especially one combining string, woodwind, brass, and percussion sections and playing classical music. We ran with ensemble, which refers to a group of musicians, actors, or dancers who perform together. The word lends itself for a more open and general collection of objects and players. Ensemble comes from the Middle French word ensemblée, which means "together, at the same time." Groups of people who perform at the same time are ensembles, so objects that are collected in a group. This tightly connects to the French word Assemblage, meaning "gathering" or "collection," which comes from the French verb assembler meaning "to assemble" or "bring together".

Ensemble then perfectly embodies what this project is.

We used the names of the machines in order to personify them in a way, to highlight the fact we see them as participants of the ensemble operation and co-existing on the same level as the human players. The names of our typewriters are two feminine names Erika Model and Monica Olympia.

These names are not neutrals and it is worth considering this. When the typewriters were made, in their original context, naming the machines with women's names was used to reinforce gender-roles at the time. Subordinating women to the role of women's work to production work, not unlike the machines they used. The men do the thinking, the women are the secretaries. The naming of the machines with women's names suggests their work is equated to each-other.

Our aim for this project is to re-mix these contexts, to call them into question. Choosing the setting of a formal orchestra follows this same line. Taking this setting, but presenting it as an experimental ensemble of typewriters and humans, creates an ironic tone in our performance that questions the validity of that formation. And likewise, by taking the names of the printers out of their original context, inviting them on stage in a collaborative music performance, we give them a new interpretation. Imagining just one other way –among many– to relate to technologies and established relations of power.

Performance structure proposal

Walk in, in line like an orchestra — Align towards the audience and bow — Go to the machines — Load the paper — Theatrical gesture of raising the index finger and start the Dot Matrix script — One after the other, humans start to perform with a machine — At some point Daan goes in front and performs with the body — When Dottie goes silent, the performance ends from there — Humans goes in line at the front, they bow at the audience and then they leave the scene.

Bowties made out of our scoring printed paper