Behaviour Bending
A collaborative concert proposal by sound artists Andy Hayleck, Bonnie Jones and Alessandro Bosetti

Teil I:   Mask/Mirror
           Alessandro Bosetti (Berlin/USA)
           Solo für Stimme und Elektronik
Teil II:  Duet
           Bonnie Jones (Baltimore/USA) - Circuit Bending
           Andy Hayleck (Baltimore/USA) - Analogue/Digital                                                              Patching
Teil III: Trio
           Duet versus Mask/Mirror

Tonight's concert is a collaboration and exchange of two projects (Mask/Mirror and Duet) in order to explore the relationship between sound, communication systems, memory, speech and text. Both projects deal with what lies beyond simple action and reaction, looking closer at the complex interactions of performer / performers in sound and language construction.

The Duet project focuses on unpredictable results that occur in electronic music like circuit bending,SuperCollider/computer music as well as communication systems between man and machine. In this project, feedback is not only aphysical/sound notion (acoustical feedback, circuit bending, circularity between Bonnie's and Andy's analogue and digital patching) but also an exploration of the decision-making processes and social communication systems that occur during improvisation, social and musical interaction.

In Mask/Mirror, Bosetti developed an "intelligent" sampler able to sort through an archive of spoken field recordings and make decisions based on the sound and meaning characteristics of the audio samples. The sampler can be controlled by the performer or act on it's own by reacting to the performers voice inputs. Mask/Mirror is being developed in collaboration with Harvestworks in NYC and STEIM in Amsterdam.

Bosetti writes:
A few months ago I wrote a note to myself :
"Try to create a mask that that doesn't have anything to do with anything"
and kept wondering what that could mean until i started to imagine Mask/Mirror. Mask/Mirror is a sampler to process recordings of spoken language in real time.
The sampler should follow both sound and meaning criteria in sorting, organizing and processing samples.
It will be a software tool based on max/msp designed to develop a fast and flexible database architecture and a speech recognition software in order to interact with my own voice during performances.
Mask / Mirror is a companion piece of the spoken improvisation ensemble piece "The pool and the soup" and is part of a broader attempt to develop musicality of spoken language in improvisation. Eventually I would like to have those scores shared online creating a community of users and developers. I'd be very happy if Mask/Mirror could be able to grow organically and collaboratively as long as other performers/developers would like to apply that to their own sound memories, modifying it and sharing the results.
Mask/Mirror has to do with virtually everything but at the same time it does not have anything special to do with anything special.
As well as being a blank mask I can put on my face - and my voice - it's also a mirror that let me browse and talk to my memory while I am watching into it.
All mirrors are masks and vice versa. Both are tools enabling identity.