Roger Mills

Eth­er­net Orches­tra: Case Stud­ies of Net­worked Inter­cul­tural Improvisation

Roger Mills

Abstract: This paper eval­u­ates two inter­cul­tural impro­visatory per­for­mances by the net­worked music ensem­ble Eth­er­net Orches­tra. It exam­ines the cre­ative and cog­ni­tive chal­lenges faced by musi­cians col­lab­o­rat­ing across dis­tance, and cul­tural and musi­cal tra­di­tions. The mul­ti­modal analy­sis inves­ti­gates the strate­gies that musi­cians develop in action, as they are “think­ing of what they are doing, and, in the process, evolv­ing their way of doing it [1]. Viewed through a semi­otic frame­work, the analy­sis focuses on “aural per­spec­tive” [2], rep­re­sen­ta­tion and cross-cultural inter­pre­ta­tion in impro­visatory dia­logues, and the ways in which they inter­sect dur­ing syn­chro­nous telem­atic performance.

[1] SHÖN, D. 1995. The Reflec­tive Prac­ti­tioner: How Pro­fes­sion­als Think in Action, Alder­shot, Aldgate Pub­lish­ing.
[2] LEEUWEN, T. V. 1999. Speech, music, sound, Bas­ingstoke, Macmillan.


Bio: Roger Mills is a musi­cian, sound artist and writer whose prac­tice and research focuses on net­worked music per­for­mance, sound instal­la­tion and exper­i­men­tal radio. Inter­na­tional per­for­mance and pro­duc­tion cred­its includes a Golden Eye award for con­tra­pun­tal radio per­for­mance Idea of South (Syd­ney), score for BAFTA award win­ning dance per­for­mance At Swim Two Boys by Earth­fall, UK, and album pro­duc­tion and per­for­mances with Turk­ish singer Mir­can Kaya (UCM). Roger is cur­rently under­tak­ing a doc­tor­ate at the Uni­ver­sity of Tech­nol­ogy, Syd­ney, where he also lec­tures in media arts pro­duc­tion and sound and music design.
http://www.eartrumpet.org
http://ethernetorchestra.netpraxis.net

Addi­tional materials::


http://www.eartrumpet.org/eo/ethernetorchestra_distantpresences_10_05_10.mov


Ethernet Orchestra live at NIME2010, University of Technology, Sydney


Ethernet Orchestra Live Improvisation 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWdHnM4InFk


Ethernet Orchestra Live Improvisation 4 http://youtu.be/mUEF8cIdqNE