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To Graphic Notation Today from Xenakis’S Upic to Graphic Notation Today FROM XENAKIS’S UPIC TO GRAPHIC NOTATION TODAY FROM XENAKIS’S UPIC TO GRAPHIC NOTATION TODAY FROM XENAKIS’S UPIC TO GRAPHIC NOTATION TODAY PREFACES 18 PETER WEIBEL 24 LUDGER BRÜMMER 36 SHARON KANACH THE UPIC: 94 ANDREY SMIRNOV HISTORY, UPIC’S PRECURSORS INSTITUTIONS, AND 118 GUY MÉDIGUE IMPLICATIONS THE EARLY DAYS OF THE UPIC 142 ALAIN DESPRÉS THE UPIC: TOWARDS A PEDAGOGY OF CREATIVITY 160 RUDOLF FRISIUS THE UPIC―EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC PEDAGOGY― IANNIS XENAKIS 184 GERARD PAPE COMPOSING WITH SOUND AT LES ATELIERS UPIC/CCMIX 200 HUGUES GENEVOIS ONE MACHINE— TWO NON-PROFIT STRUCTURES 216 CYRILLE DELHAYE CENTRE IANNIS XENAKIS: MILESTONES AND CHALLENGES 232 KATERINA TSIOUKRA ESTABLISHING A XENAKIS CENTER IN GREECE: THE UPIC AT KSYME-CMRC 246 DIMITRIS KAMAROTOS THE UPIC IN GREECE: TEN YEARS OF LIVING AND CREATING WITH THE UPIC AT KSYME 290 RODOLPHE BOUROTTE PROBABILITIES, DRAWING, AND SOUND TABLE SYNTHESIS: THE MISSING LINK OF CONTENTS COMPOSERS 312 JULIO ESTRADA THE UPIC 528 KIYOSHI FURUKAWA EXPERIENCING THE LISTENING HAND AND THE UPIC AND UTOPIA THE UPIC UTOPIA 336 RICHARD BARRETT 540 CHIKASHI MIYAMA MEMORIES OF THE UPIC: 1989–2019 THE UPIC 2019 354 FRANÇOIS-BERNARD MÂCHE 562 VICTORIA SIMON THE UPIC UPSIDE DOWN UNFLATTERING SOUNDS: PARADIGMS OF INTERACTIVITY IN TACTILE INTERFACES FOR 380 TAKEHITO SHIMAZU SOUND PRODUCTION THE UPIC FOR A JAPANESE COMPOSER 574 JULIAN SCORDATO 396 BRIGITTE CONDORCET (ROBINDORÉ) NOVEL PERSPECTIVES FOR GRAPHIC BEYOND THE CONTINUUM: NOTATION IN IANNIX THE UNDISCOVERED TERRAINS OF THE UPIC 590 KOSMAS GIANNOUTAKIS EXPLORING VISUALIZATION METHODS OF THE DYNAMIC BEHAVIORS IN COMPUTER-BASED XENAKIS 416 RONALD SQUIBBS MUSICAL WORKS AND MYCÈNES ALPHA: A LISTENER’S GUIDE THE UPIC 434 PIERRE COUPRIE ANALYTICAL APPROACHES TO REFLECTIONS 610 MARCIN PIETRUSZEWSKI TAURHIPHANIE AND VOYAGE ABSOLU DES THE DIGITAL INSTRUMENT AS AN ARTIFACT UNARI VERS ANDROMÈDE 628 JULIA JASMIN ROMMEL 460 HENNING LOHNER ZWISCHENRAUM (INTERSPACE) IANNIS XENAKIS, ROBOTS, AND THE UPIC― “THE GREATEST ROBOT SHOW THE WORLD 646 LUKAS NOWOK NEVER SAW” FROM THE SYMBOLIC TO THE REAL: GRAPHIC NOTATION AS SYMBOLIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL MEDIUM THE ROAD 486 PETER WEIBEL TO THE UPIC THE ROAD TO THE UPIC. FROM GRAPHIC NOTATION TO GRAPHIC USER INTERFACE APPENDIX 660 BIOGRAPHIES 668 SUPPLEMENTARY CREDITS 670 COLOPHON Full publication available for download WWW.ZKM.DE/UPIC PREFACES PETER WEIBEL LUDGER BRÜMMER SHARON KANACH 19 INTRODUCTION 1. Viewed from certain perspectives, Iannis Xenakis is Francis Bacon, “There is no excellent beauty that hath not only a singular figure in twentieth-century music not some strangeness in the history, he is probably the most revolutionary, for he proportion,” F. Bacon, “Of was not only a composer of grandiose works of a Beauty,” in Essays (1625). [1] “strangeness in the proportion”, which is how Francis 2. Bacon defined beauty. But like Arnold Schoenberg, G.W. Leibniz in a letter to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, and John Cage, Christian Goldbach, April 27 1712: “Musica est exercitium he was also the author of theoretical music writings arithmeticae occultum of the highest order. He was an independent architect nescientis se numerare for many years and worked for Le Corbusier from 1947 animi,” in Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife to 1959. He created an extensive architectural oeuvre, for a Hat (New York: Summit also manifested in many texts on architecture. In Books, 1985). addition, Xenakis was a mathematician, inventor, and 3. engineer. G.W. Leibniz defined music in 1712 as “an See Xenakis’s collection of unconscious exercise in arithmetic in which the mind essays “Musiques formelles,” does not know it is counting,”[2] and there is probably in La Revue musicale 253, 254 (1963); Formalized Music no other composer as close to this understanding of (Bloomington, IN: Indiana music as Xenakis.[3] University Press, 1971). FIG. 1 Iannis Xenakis, Philips Pavilion, 1958, drawing PETER WEIBEL © Iannis Xenakis Family CHAIRMAN AND CEO ZKM | KARLSRUHE 20 21 Let us consider, for example, his critique of serial music in 1955 “La crise de la musique serielle” (The Crisis of Serial Music),[4] his text “Theory of Probability and Music” (Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie und Musik)[5] of 1956, his work on stochastic music from 1958, and his compositions from 1957 to 1962 in the electroacoustic music studio of the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales) directed by Pierre Schaeffer from 1960– 1974 as part of the French broadcasting agency ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française). FIG. 2 Iannis Xenakis, Mycènes Alpha, 1978, The development of New Music made the search UPIC score page for a new kind of notation necessary in the 1950s— © 1978 Editions Salabert— from Darmstadt to Donaueschingen, from New York to Paris, France, reproduced 4. by kind permission of Hal [6] Gravesano. A well-known example of this is Xenakis’s Iannis Xenakis, “La Leonard Europe S.r.l.—Italy sketch for Metastasis of 1954.[7] It is typical of Xenakis crise de la musique serielle,” in Hermann that he varies these musical figures and uses them as Scherchen’s Gravesaner the basis for the hyperbolic forms of his architecture Blätter. Musikalische, of the Philips Pavilion for Expo 1958 in Brussels, in elektroakustische und schallwissen schaftliche which Edgard Varèse’s Poème électronique for tape, Le Grenzprobleme, 1, 1 Corbusier’s multimedia projections, and Xenakis’s own (1955): 2–4. tape piece Concret PH could be heard and seen. 5. The glissando curves of the strings become bold Iannis Xenakis, architectural curves that anticipate deconstructivist “Wahr scheinlichk eitstheorie architectural forms à la Zaha Hadid. Sound curves und Musik,” in Hermann Scherchen’s Gravesaner transform into building curves. Blätter. Musikalische, With his novel compositional ideas Xenakis paved elektro akustische und the way for computer music. He began to research the schallwissen schaftliche Grenzprobleme, 2, 6 relationship between music and computers already (1956): 28–34. in 1956 at the laboratory of IBM France. From 1956 to 1962, Xenakis wrote compositions whose score 6. See Earle Brown, Morton data had been calculated using IBM computers. In the Feldman, Mauricio Kagel, beginning, it was computer programs whose results Anestis Logothetis, Roman the composer transcribed for traditional instruments. Haubenstock-Ramati, and others. Later, Xenakis produced synthetic sounds with the computer. His passion for mathematics eventually 7. led him to the UPIC. In 1966, Xenakis founded See Fig. 1 in Robindoré, this volume: Iannis Xenakis, EMAMu, better known since 1972 as CEMAMu (Centre Metastasis, 1954, graphic d’Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales). sketch. 22 23 With the UPIC, he combined two important artists and staff. With its symposia and publications, revolutions of twentieth-century music, namely, a ZKM conducts scientific research and contributes revolutionary notation with a revolutionary instrument: to a multidisciplinary discourse on art, science, and graphic notation produced with the computer. The technology. composer no longer needed to write complicated Music is the mother of all time-based arts and programs, but was able to fix the sounds graphically therefore plays a special role at the ZKM. Music and render the graphics audible with the help of the provides an excellent example for recognizing and computer. The UPIC is a revolutionary composition understanding the transformations of art through device; a music machine that enables sounds to be technological innovations. Music is the scene of generated directly via self-designed graphic structures. perhaps the most daring artistic and technical The idea of a graphic input mode, “drawn” music, revolution of the twentieth century. Xenakis is a after the end of the conventional notation system, master of twentieth-century music. Hardly any other had already been developed technically by many composer has worked as universally and ahead of pioneers — from Rudolf Pfenninger to Daphne Oram. his time as Xenakis: as a theorist, musician, and With the UPIC, musical ideas are drawn on paper with architect. With his pavilions for music, from the Philips pencils, and then redrawn on a graphics tablet with an Pavilion in Brussels (1958) to Diatope (1978) in front electromagnetic pen-like stylus. The drawn music is of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, he paved the way stored page by page. These drawings and the graphic to spatial music, sound spaces, and spatial sounds. input are played back simultaneously on two screens. With his computer-based music, Xenakis has thought One screen is used for graphic (analog) representation, beyond the boundaries of music, beyond traditions the other for alphanumeric (digital) representation. and schools. He has revolutionized the traditional This information is sent to a 16-bit minicomputer, tonal orders. He is one of the most radical musical analog-to-digital sound converter (ADC), and RAM innovators as a thinker, composer, architect, engineer, storage devices. The digitally captured information of and inventor. With the UPIC, his reflections and visions the graphic coordinate system is read at high speed by culminated in an incunabulum. For this reason Xenakis a computer via ADC on the drawing tablet, converted and the UPIC are of seminal interest to the ZKM. into numerical information, and processed into sound To all participants of the symposium, authors material by the computer. The sound leaves the of this publication, and my two coeditors Ludger computer via digital-to-analog sound converter (DAC) Brümmer and Sharon Kanach, as well as the graphic and is made audible via amplifier and loudspeaker.[8] designer Uta Kopp and the editor Lisa Bensel, I would The ZKM | Center for Art and Media is a museum like to express my deepest thanks for the fact that a with the usual remit of collecting works of art and long cherished desideratum, the scientific processing presenting them in exhibitions. It is a museum of of the UPIC project, could, at the highest level, finally 8. all genres and media, both spatial and time-based See Fig.
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