New Memories

The Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics left its old work-place in Jakoministraße in autumn 2000 and has now moved into the new building in Inffeldgasse.
During this time I was the last guest composer at the old IEM and, at the same time, the first one at the new Institute.
Accordingly, I knew that my acoustic expression had to create a link between these two places. "New Memories" is a documentary game.
"New Memories" has documentary and compositional features. It transfers the acoustic spaces of the former IEM to the multi-channel loudspeaker system in the CUBE at the new IEM. Each room of the old IEM is assigned loudspeakers in this system (see table).


The documentary part

1.) I set up a small drum set, consisting of bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat and cymbals, in the studio of the old Institute. On these drums I played individual beats and complex figures, both on the individual components and on the whole set. Note: the Klammer / Gründler Duo also used the studio sporadically as an experimentation room, and my drums were always set up there.

2.) The empty, deserted IEM: one stereo microphone each was installed in the middle of the production studio, the Institute Director's office, the lecturers' office, the computer studio, the corridor, the assistant's office, and the WC.

3.) The acoustic emissions that were (still) to be heard in these seven rooms were recorded simultaneously on seven stereo tracks and document the spatial characteristics. Once with the doors open and once with them closed.


The compositional part

In the computer (Creamware MasterBoard) I fragmented these acoustic "memories" at a metre of 60 bpm and arranged, shifted or composed them in a pattern of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and triplets, taking the different delay times - due to the distance of the source of the emission (drums in the studio) - and the specific acoustic characteristics of the individual rooms as typical parameters for a tonal interpretation. E.g.: dynamics, filters, panorama, rhythmics, etc.


Premiered on 23 May 2001 in the CUBE of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics of Graz University of Art, as part of the 3rd V:NM festival.

Each room has the inherent property - physical, physiological and psychological - of having an effect on a product created in it, manifesting itself as an acoustic fingerprint and "New Memory".



Example for listening New Memories


Josef Klammer