Theremidi Orchestra (TO) wants to learn how to make gadgets on their own, to move far away from existing interfaces and images. In a time of television user packages, it brings obsolete antennas back to life. The radio frequency is still out there, and sometimes the orchestra gets lucky and catches a glimpse of its scratchy hum. TO are absolutely fascinated by the development of the newest gadgets, not for their intended purpose, but to explore their potential to produce the humming, glissandos and squeaks of the theremin and electromagnetic pulses. DIY theremins are unpredictable and basic. Nevertheless, they offer a multitude of sounds if they are connected to the most unexpected antennas, from conductive ink to umbrellas, wire ducklings, air tubes, flowers, and scrap metal. TO is combined by participants of TEREMINI in TEREMIDI physical interface workshop, which took place on Ljudmila in May 2011, under the mentorship of Borut Savski, who after a while also joined the Orchestra.

TO are generating sounds and images live with the help of theremidi interfaces and are connected to open-source technologies and free-software.

The Theremini Orchestra are: Tina Dolinšek, Luka Frelih, Ida Hiršenfelder, Dare Pejić, Borut Savski, Tilen Sepič, Saša Spačal, Robertina Šebjanič, Matic Urbanija, Dušan Zidar.

Audiovisual Performances

• First Performance on the ending of exhibition Powered by Ljudmila, Ljubljana City Art Gallery, in the collaboration with Platform RADAR, Radio Student, Ljubljana, 22nd June 2011
• Public Rehearsal, M3C Festival, Murska Sobota, 10th October 2011
• Second Attempt, Festival KIBLIX, Kino Udarnik, Maribor, 20th November 2011
• Antennas For All! on the ending of exhibition REAL TIME SETTINGS FOR NER[D/V]ES, ŠKUC Gallery, Ljubljana, 19th April 2012
• Sound Intervention on Megawhat show, Radio Student, Ljubljana, 21st May 2012
• Draht Orchestra on LiWoLi Festival - Art Meets Radical Openness, Linz, 24th May 2012
• Score No.1 – Organism Chaos - Score for an ongoing workshop on CoFestival at PTL, Ljubljana, 4th June 2012
• Performance on Slobodni festival 6/Free Festival 6 at Mursko Središće, Croatia, 8th July 2012

Workshops

• TEREMINI in TEREMIDI physical interface, mentor Borut Savski. From 15th till 17th June 2011.

• Teremini Workshop and Teremidi Orchestra in Zagreb, mentors Borut Savski, Luka Frelih and TO. Organised by Media Lab I'MM_ (http://immmedialab.wordpress.com/), Zagreb (HR). From 16th till 17th December 2011

• TouchTone Workshop: live performance touch sound synthesizer, mentors Borut Savski, Luka Frelih and TO. As a part of exhibition Real Time Settings for Ner[d/v]es and with cooperation of Gallery ŠKUC. On April 18th 2012.

• Small electronics noise gadgets workshop in Linz - Make a Theremidi Orchestra, mentors Borut Savski, Luka Frelih and TO. On May 25th 2012. http://www.liwoli.at/programm/2012/make-theremidi-orchestra

• Make a Theremidi Orchestra on Slobodni festival (Free festival 6), mentors Borut Savski, Luka Frelih and TO. On July 8th 2012. http://2012.slobodnifestival.info/make-a-theremidi-orchestra/

• Technology Workshop on Sajeta 2012, with Cirkulacija 2. Between 24th and 29th July 2012. http://www.cirkulacija2.org/?p=1374&lang_pref=en

Gadgets and Devices <3

Make your own Theremid: http://wiki.ljudmila.org/images/5/5a/Theremidi_kit_manual.pdf

Score No.1 – Organism Chaos

Score for an ongoing workshop at CoFestival in Dance Theater Ljubljana (PTL)

Monday June 4, 2012 at 7pm

Duration 26min

SCORE DESCRIPTION

After a number of ear cutting noise audiovisual outbreaks at the live public presentations of an ongoing workshop at LiWoLi Festival (May 2012, Linz), ŠKUC Gallery (April 2012, Ljubljana), Kiblix Festival (November 2011, Maribor) and elsewhere, Theremidi Orchestra has decided to open up a gentler noisy landscape at CoFestival. In accordance with the festival that nurtures cooperation, we are going to enable a better communication of the participants with a set of instructions to use as a guide through the unpredictable behavior and electromagnetic eruptions of home-soldered free electronic theremins connected to midi controllers and audio amplifiers.

The ongoing workshop is going to be enacted by 9 participants (Tina Dolinšek, Luka Frelih, Ida Hiršenfelder, Dare Pejić, Borut Savski, Saša Spačal, Robertina Šebjanič, Matic Urbanija, and Dušan Zidar) following 12 instructions (silence, loop, squeak, drone, rhythm, improvise, tone up, tone down, cut, quiet, loud). Maximum number of participants playing in one grouping at the same time is 5; duration of one time slop is 30 seconds. There are 40 time slops, 3 of them are mandatory silences at 4:33, 9:06 and 13:39 (a tribute to a guy who programmed his music), and two-times two slops are a free improvisation. A mandatory instruction for all participants for all 40-time slops is “Look at each other! Observe and listen carefully at other participants and be very attentive of the public.” The score matrix was generated using Composer Tools – Matrix Calculator kindly provided by Isac Petruzzi (http://composertools.com/ Tools/matrix/MatrixCalc.html).

In order to follow a horizontal association between the members of Theremidi Orchestra there cannot be a conductor or a single person to control the behavior of the group. Likewise it cannot continue to perpetrate an arbitrary disorder and the audio chaos made by the orchestra in the past. The mathematic instructions are an experiment in organizing disorder into an organic chaos. It takes upon a history of process music in which the material is not determined directly by the composer, but through a system he or she creates. It is an aim to make space in the soundscape, to seek reduction and silence, since even silence itself is never silent.

LiWoLi - Art Meets Radical Openness (2012)

On Liwoli the Orchestra performed as DRAHT ORCHESTRA.

Draht = žica = drat = wire.

http://www.liwoli.at/

You can check some photos here: http://www.liwoli.at/gallery/liwoli-2012-night

Video: https://www.dorftv.at/videos/liwoli2012/4381

And for desert, interview with Saša: http://cba.fro.at/59764

Megawhat: Urban Dadaism (2012)

We occupied Radio Student studio on Monday 21th of May, during the Megawhat show. All that noise was excruciating! Probably the listeners didn't preferred it as much as we did. Some photos here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.439890799357129.108388.225132000833011&type=3

Exhibition Closing: Real Time Settings for Ner[d/v]es: Antennas For All! (2012)

Theremidi Orchestra wants to learn how to make gadgets on their own, to move far away from existing interfaces and images. In a time of television user packages, it brings obsolete antennas back to life. The radio frequency is still out there, and sometimes the orchestra gets lucky and catches a glimpse of its scratchy hum. TO are absolutely fascinated by the development of the newest gadgets, not for their intended purpose, but to explore their potential to produce the humming, glissandos and squeaks of the theremin and electromagnetic pulses. DIY theremins are unpredictable and basic. Nevertheless, they offer a multitude of sounds if they are connected to the most unexpected antennas, from conductive ink to umbrellas, wire ducklings, air tubes, flowers, and scrap metal.

Festival KIBLIX (2011)

To make: 10x theremidi units and 15x sajice units you need:

• 10x microchips 4011
• 15x microchips 4093
• 23x led diodes
• 23x piezo buzzers
• 10x resistors 1K ohm
• 10x cheramic capacitators 1n0
• 10x 9V battery holders
• 10x 3.5 mm plug-in panels

http://www.kiblix.org/kiblix11/?en/soundscape-sunday-afternoon/theremidi-orchestra-second-attempt-si.html

Photos by Boštjan Lah:

http://www.kiblix.org/kiblix11/?en/pictures/sound-performance.html

M3C Festival in Murska Sobota (2011)

As a part of Ljudmila we presented our noise gadgets on M3C festival of multimedia centres.

First performance in City Gallery Ljubljana (2011)

TO performed on the closing event of the exhibition Powered by Ljudmila and broadcasted live on Radio Student as a part of Radar Platform.

Photos by Helena Božič:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.242119515800926.72192.225132000833011&type=3

R A D A R, open radio investigative platform of Radio Student (http://www.radiostudent.si/).