With Flying Colors Presents: “Room Service” Performance (2023)
Music production and performance by Timothy “ill poetic” Gmeiner. Lighting and visual performance by Ben Guerrette
About: “Room SERVICE” builds on the system design, fabrication and light programming of Ben Guerrette’s 2023 “SERVICE - Room” installation by introducing live musical performance in dialog with lighting. This performance leveraged sonic properties from live vocals, electronic drums, synths, samples and keys that were mapped to LED lighting elements through real-time amplitude analysis or MIDI protocol via Ableton Live and Touch Designer. Other aspects of this performance engaged with fixed lighting composition.
This performance took place in 10’ x 10’ room located inside Connect San Diego in North Park, San Diego, CA. Below are three selections from the performance, including a technical and creative statement on each.
“Pretzel Logic”
I originally created the music for this piece in 2018 as my mom was suffering severe health issues, ultimately passing away in 2020. I re-imainged a pre-existing song of mine, “Pretzel Logic”, that I’d written some years earlier as a means of coping with my mom’s ongoing health issues and applied it to this production. I added an improvisational performance on synthesizer + keys to bookend the song. Amplitude from the microphone, capturing both my vocals and the music output from the room’s stereo-field speakers, triggers LED lighting parameters - color and distance, akin to a VU meter via Ben and TouchDesigner.
Additional guitar by Nick Costa, additional flute by Gabriel Sundy. Originally produced for artist B. Shields
“Tree Tones (Variation I)”
"Tree Tones” is a generative improvisational electronic piece that is composed and performed as one-take in real-time. Every sonic element is shaped, built, modulated, layered and played during the captured performance. This approach employs nonlinear compositional methods - the idea that these sounds are always randomly happening, whether I'm here to shape them or not. This mode of performing contributes to my interests in nonlinear composition and narrative as inspired by the interweaving of hip-hop, dub, free-jazz, avant-garde and musique concrète. Of particular interest, borrowed from dub and African-derived music in general, is that of melting time, both past and future, into one cyclical present. I don't know if it's good, I just know that it's happening, and that's immensely inspiring to me.
This piece is also inspired by sounds built from the Max4Live devices Tree Tones by Dillon Bastan, OPAL by Fors and my own sounds sculpted over the past couple years via Ableton Operator and NI Massive. Sample launches and live percussion captures are integrated in as well. Synthetic drums are created in real-time through FM techniques and layered sequencing. LED lighting visuals are fixed and controlled through Ben and Touch Designer. Newer versions of this piece involve live audiovisual reactivity.
“The Places You’ll Go”
“The Places You’ll Go” was originally conceived 14 years ago as an archival recording of my son reading the Dr. Seuss book “Oh! The Places You’ll Go!” (one of my wife’s favorite books). Nearly 12 years later, I’d yet to do anything meaningful with the recording except not accidentally delete it (an accomplishment!). As my son was preparing to graduate, and my wife simultaneously preparing to pursue a life-long dream of teaching abroad in Madrid, Spain, I produced a piece around the vocal recordings as a gift to both of them. The music behind the piece mashes together Marvin Gaye and Pink Floyd (an unused relic from this project) with Radiohead (a favorite song of our whole family) and The Beatles…and of course, Dr. Seuss being read by a six-year old.
This piece debuted musically at the Neofonía Festival in Ensenada, BC, Mexico in Fall 2023 and was re-presented with visual accompaniment as part of the Room SERVICE performance a few months later. LED lighting shape and color are mapped to the keyboard portion of the performance through MIDI protocol via Ableton and TouchDesigner. Original audio recording by Dean Hummons, Jr. & Timothy Gmeiner.
Contact: Timothy Gmeiner: tgmeiner@ucsd.edu | Ben Guerrette: ben.guerrette@gmail.com