Presenter: Shahrokh Yadegari

Monday, February 22
1:00 - 1:45 pm
Calit2 Auditorium

Lila is a computer music instrument and “lila” is an old Sanskrit word signifying divine play, the play of destruction and creation, or the play of presence in the moment. This instrument is modeled on analog processes (e.g., loop, delay, ring modulation, and feedback) whose parameters are controlled by performative actions of the Lila improviser.

Developed by musician and composer Shahrokh Yadegari, Lila is operated by an improviser who controls the sampling and transformation of material captured in real time from acoustic performers, who in turn can improvise more material from this newly created sound. This becomes a continual and circular process.

The precise real-time control of the parameters allows the Lila improviser to participate in both micro and macro level of musical formations. Thus, the computer not only can act as agent of form in macro structure of time (such as it is in music involving tape music) and lead the acoustic performer, but also provides a musical context in which a human improviser, using the computer as an instrument, can accompany and respond to the acoustic material. In this way, the acoustic performer can have the same form of musical freedom which he or she enjoys in a traditional setting in an augmented expressive language.

Yadegari has added network extensions to Lila so that its performer can control multiple instances of the program over the network, while Lila compensates for the actions of the performer based on the intrinsic network delays. He is interested in exploration of the play with space over the network, in the same way that he is able to play with delay in a single location, to turn the physical distance into an ephemeral yet malleable artistic parameter. Lila was made available to students when he taught a course on telematics in Fall 2007 in collaboration with Adriene Jenik (visarts), Mark Dresser (music), and Victoria Petrovich (Theatre and Dance), where students developed various conceptual pieces in telematic spaces.

Lila has been used in collaboration with such artists as Peter Sellars, Steven Schick, Maya Beiser, and Hossein Omoumi among others, on such stages and venues as the Carnegie Hall, Japan America Theatre (Los Angeles), Festival of Arts and Ideas (New Haven), Ravinia Festival (Chicago), American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge), DeSingel (Belgium), MC93 Bobigney (Paris), Vienna Festival, Holland Festival, and Forum Barcelona.