SI25 Broadcast 4: Protocols to Freestyle

Concept

We came together for only 1 meeting before the show were we discussed wanting to make a live show through and through. We all wanted to make something that was fun for us to make and not stick to a certain script religiously. We chose Generous Practises by Femke Snelting to 'perform' live and read aloud since it already had the right structure.

Roles

• Wyn/Claudio
• Sevgi
• Kim
• Feline

Pre-production

After learning VCV Rack in the course, we wanted to make a sound jamming. VCV Rack is an open-source software, imitating the working process of synthesis modules. We decided to use live jamming as the main protocol and work on live-jamming instruments that we can use on our computers to then connect to the radio stream.

Lukas turned on the stream prematurely so we can get into the spirit of LIVE radio. It was controversial but helpful.

Kim suggested reading one of the texts from the course out loud on the radio. We chose to perform Generous Practises by Femke Snelting with 3 hosts as the contributors. We divided the names into 3 groups and read accordingly. We stopped every chapter and turned the live music show on.

Feline decided she wants to use a program to make beats. She worked on this the whole weekend, Wyn also created a MIDI board on VCV Rack to use during the show. We also decided to use the MIDI board to type out the messages sent through Radio WORM's chatbot. At the end, VCV racks barely worked. We had to put on Sevgi's radio playlist which worked out fine.

Protocol

1.Live Jam Felines bits + KiM Soundboards

2.Live jingle Proto + Cols + For + Collective + Proformance

3.Read Text ·everyone picks a role ·someone else is typing the text

3.Radio Chat Type messages on VCV Rack (Sevgi / Kims Device)

Post-production

The studio space felt a bit limiting. A missing aux cable made us switch to the DJ booth last minute. Having another laptop input would've helped. Feline had Sonic PI ready but couldn't get it working right to mix live audio with effects. The microphone setup failed and broke supercollider. Sonic PI is good for live sound coding with live loops, but we couldn't use it today. We ran three versions of VCV rack, mostly taking keyboard input. It connected to chat messages and text readings. Funny moment when someone asked for silence to use Shazaam - it just led to more typing as people followed the chat rules. Lukas teased us from the corner about wanting to go live. New things we tried: live camera through Jitsi, fixed ways of doing things, and tools like VCV Rack. For next time, we should share the Jitsi link and maybe use voting. The Jitsi chat disappears when we close it - unlike Radio WORM's chat that stays. Looking back, we needed one more mic to hear Wyn typing and another aux cable. The text started strong with just reading but got weaker near the end. Making things live worked well though. The text gave us rules for being present without much practice, which made it less scary. It felt like theater, playing out these rules live. We wanted no silence, and when typing didn't work well, we made it work with music instead.

Claudio as a VJ and message reader

Finally, we played tunes! here is a link

Kim in front of Micophone

Feedback

It reminded listeners of movie credits and those kids' CDs where each character has their own instrument, like Peter and the Wolf and Truffaut's 451 credits