CHIME Studios

Photos by Michael Jenks

The University of Chicago’s CHIME (Chicago Integrated Media Experimental) Studio hosts the annual CHIMEFest on two dates: Friday, February 2, and Friday, April 12, at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. The 2024 electroacoustic festival, curated by David Bird, features guest artists Beyond This Point and lovemusic, along with new music by University of Chicago composers.

Beyond This Point
Friday, February 2
5:30 p.m.

Program:
Simon Løffler – b
Juliana Hodkinson – Lightness
Stefano D’alessio – Longevity of Light Bulbs (and how to make them last longer)
Kaj Duncan David – 4c0st1ctr1g3r
David Bird – Decoder

lovemusic
Friday, February 2
7:30 p.m.

Program:
Finbar Hosie – The Hyacinth Garden
Bára Gísladóttir – Growl Power
Neil Luck – Points to Self
Hanna Eimermacher – Transparenz
David Bird – what glows is fuchsia
Raphaël Languillat – Digital love

The 2024 CHIMEFest is supported by UChicago Arts, the France Chicago Center, the CHIME Studio, and the University of Chicago Department of Music.

Quadraphonic: Kari Watson, Lula Asplund, and Dorothy Carlos
May 24, 2023, 7:30 p.m.
Bond Chapel, The University of Chicago

Join us on Wednesday, 5/24, for Quadraphonic. This event features music and performances for quadraphonic speaker array by Kari Watson, Lula Asplund, and Dorothy Carlos. The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Bond Chapel and is presented by the CHIME Studio in partnership with the Clean Air Club. Free admission. Suggested donation of $10–20.

Stoppages Vol. 1 [∞] is a collection of unedited recordings synthesized by a digital feedback circuit that exposes the material limitations of a computer’s CPU. Every piece of data generated, stored, or received by a computer is physically represented as an electrical charge within a piece of silicon. Like any other physical material, silicon has a finite amount of change it can handle at a given moment. This digital circuit asks a silicon constructed microprocessor to output an audio signal of a size and intensity that this CPU cannot physically reproduce. In turn, the CPU reaches a physical limit, a stoppage. This stoppage allows the computer’s sonic identity to emerge, a state of hysteresis where fractures and discontinuities are amplified and brought to the ear’s attention as a result of the CPU’s physical inability to reproduce this audio data. This music exposes the material collapse of a silicon microprocessor pushed to its limit. The duration of each track is the length of time the code ran before crashing.

Available for purchase at: Party Perfect!!! and Bandcamp

This CHIMEfest 2023 live improvisation features Kari Watson on modular synthesizer and Dana Jessen on bassoon. Underlying this performance is a fixed tape part constructed from processed bassoon recordings.

The University of Chicago’s CHIME (Chicago Integrated Media Experimental) Studio hosts the annual CHIMEFest on Friday, February 3, and Saturday, February 4, 2023 at the Logan Center for the Arts. The annual electroacoustic festival presents four concerts over the two days, featuring special guest artists bassoonist Dana Jessen, vocalist Liz Pearse, and pianist Ning Yu.

CHIMEFest 2023 is titled “Site/Space” and will feature works that explore site or space in technical, conceptual, or poetic ways. The festival will highlight University of Chicago composers as well as other leading figures in electronic and electroacoustic music. Composers use of electronics ranges from amplification and live processing to tape playback, spatial audio, multimedia work, and much more.

Schedule:

Opening Concert, UChicago Composers and Local Musicians
Friday, February 3 / 4:30 PM
Music by Hunter Brown, Ania Vu (featuring Eduard Teregulov), Jack Cramer, Ryan Garvey, and more

Dana Jessen, Bassoon and Electronics
Friday, February 3 / 7:30 PM
Music by George Lewis, Kari Watson, Dana Jessen (with video by Eli Stine), and Ryan Garvey

Liz Pearse, Voice and Electronics
Saturday, February 4 / 4:30 PM
Music by Milton Babbitt, Darlene Castro Ortiz, David Bird, Kari Watson, Elise Roy, and Blaise Ubaldini

Ning Yu, Piano and Electronics
Saturday, February 4 / 7:30 PM
Music by Stefan Prins, Joanna Bailie, David Bird, and Andrew Stock

Tickets:
Admission is free and no tickets are required for CHIMEFest performances.

Location:
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 9th Floor Penthouse, 915 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637

https://cccc.uchicago.edu/chimefest-2023

Hunter Brown will be presenting a piece titled ‘Stoppages Vol. 1’. This is a collection of unedited recordings synthesized by an algorithm that produces streams of numbers that can approach or reach infinity via divide by zero errors. Due to the physical limitations of modern silicon microprocessors, computers cannot produce values of infinite size. With 32-bit processors (the most common as of now), the largest value a CPU can produce is 232. When this maximum value is approached, met, or surpassed, the computer (being the 100% deterministic machine that it is), doesn’t know what to output. It has reached a state of not-knowing and abruptly reaches a stoppage. What you’re hearing is indeterminacy emanating from the CPU’s physical inability to reproduce this audio data, not computer generated pseudo-randomness. This is similar to a record player’s inability to accurately play back a groove in a vinyl record that is impeded by static or dust; to a tape deck’s inability to accurately play back a cassette with mangled magnetic particles; to a CD player’s inability to accurately play back a scratched disc. The failures of vinyl, tape, and CD expose the physical materials that contain the sonic objects we are intended to hear by replacing them with auditory defects and malfunctions. In the case of this music, fractures and discontinuities in the digital medium are amplified and brought to the ear’s forefront. The algorithms executed in this music expose the material collapse of a silicon microprocessor pushed to its limit.

Friday, November 11, 2022
8:00 PM 11:10 PM

Elastic Arts Foundation
3429 W. Diversey #208
Chicago IL, 60647

performed by John Corkill

Mx.Mechanica, for drum set and electronics, explores the drum set as a machine that a player enters into, activating it as an extension of the body, and in turn, causing the performer to become a component of the machine. The performer becomes the intercessor between the music – a sort of algorithm of rhythmic repeated phrases, and the machines sonic output. The fixed setup serves as a foil to the player, bringing out the similarities between humans and machines while also demonstrating the impossibility of the human becoming fully mechanised.

video + stereo audio (2020)

https://vimeo.com/514278225

for string quartet and tape

Commissioned by National Sawdust as part of the Live@NationalSawdust Digital Discovery Festival

​premiered by JACK Quartet