Forum week 6

In this weeks forum rather than the scheduled topic, Stephen Whittingham decided to wrap up the subject of the previous two forums, (collaborations) by inviting presenters to discuss collaborations from a participants point of view as all the previous presentations were speaking of collaborations made by participants other than themselves.

After a short introduction by Mr. Whittington, Luke Harrald discussed collaborations from his POV, using a short film in which he wrote the score for as an example. He suggested that collaborations can be made not only between people, but also with computers as well as with different spaces. He didn't elaborate much on collaborating with spaces but did discuss his collaborations with computers, ie writing software, finding that it does something unexpected, and developing this unexpected outcome. He also discussed that as well as all the normal considerations, (a lot of which were discussed in previous forums) you have to be aware of commercial considerations, eg. in his score their was no money for live musicians.[1]

David Harris spoke next of a couple of collaborations with visual artist Pamela Rataj, both of which involved 'collaboration' with the space it was to be performed in. He spoke of how he drew inspiration from her art and the space. David also reflected on some of the other collaborations the were also going on in regards to the musicians and with the film maker who recorded the second project.[2]

The next presentation was by Poppi Doser and the person she collaborated with on an animation project, Betty Qian. Poppi spoke of the troubles that they had communicating due to Betty Qian not having very good English language skills (as English is her second language). Due ti this there was a lot of acting out and charades of the scenes as the two were developing the project. Despite of this Poppi Doser stated that she didn't think that this impeded or changed the way she worked on the project.[3]

Stephen Whittington had the final word on the subject and raised the notion of "Collaborating with the Dead." He started by playing part of a piece by Beethoven. He then stated that whilst this was not a collaboration in the normal sense of the word, the performance of somebodies music who was long since passed still has aspects of collaborations in regards to interpreting the piece in the sense that you are working with someone else's ideas.[4] The floor was then opened up for any questions or discussion on what was presented.



[1]Harrald, L. "Forum week 6", at University of Adelaide, 05/04/07
[2]Harris, D. "Forum week 6", at University of Adelaide, 05/04/07
[3]Doser, P. "Forum week 6", at University of Adelaide, 05/04/07
[4]Whittington, S. "Forum week 6", at University of Adelaide, 05/04/07