Presence and Pattern

Presence and Pattern is part of the Artistic Research Project "Semiotics of Virtuality", in which Robert Seaback explores the material and immaterial dimensions of digital music with the goal of composing dramatic forms oscillating between ‘sound as acoustic phenomenon’ and ‘sound as informational entity’. This research originated from the collision of posthuman scholarship with the composer's own practice of electronic music composition. In this cross-disciplinary context, the interplay of physical and informational realities causes ruptures in acoustic patterns while simultaneously linking them to disparate reconfigurations only possible in the digital domain.

• Sense Field (2021), for High Order Ambisonics (HOA)
• Still Life (2021), HOA
• Lightness in Transit (2021), HOA
• Improvisation, by Robert Seaback and Marika Schultze, live electronics

• Robert Seaback (composer and electronics)
• Marika Schultze (mezzo-soprano)

Robert Seaback about the project

While often taking deconstructed, incomplete, or modified forms, the sounds of Sense Field carry traces of my immigration from Florida to Norway through the fall and winter of 2020. The work embraces discovery and unexpected change as it moves between states of abstraction and tangibility—similar to the sense of wonder one may experience as a traveller navigating unknown territory in a new environment.

Still Life presents an integrated texture of hi and lo-fi, distant and proximate, interior and exterior sound images. The primary materials for the work consist of soundscape recordings from Gainesville, FL and Oslo, NO, vocal improvisations by mezzo-soprano Marika Schultze, and synthetic sounds made with standard methods. Time unfolds in Still Life in polarised formal alternations, where delicate, subtle incursions on an otherwise static landscape give way to dramatic articulations and noise in artificial space.

Lightness in Transit derives sound archetypes from subway and commuter train recordings. The sonic residue of metal, wind, engines, and movement contribute to the sensual, corporeal experience of the music. Against this backdrop, a voice continually emerges and recedes, oscillating between song-like utterance and digital stasis. Sources recorded from Nationaltheatret Station, Holstein, and Marika Schultze.

Robert Seaback

Robert Seaback is a composer and sound artist from the US currently based in Oslo, Norway. His music and research explore the tensions between digital-informational structures and the material dimensions underlying their formulation and reception. He has composed mixed electroacoustic works for chamber ensembles, immersive acousmatic music, and sound installations. His current project at the Norwegian Academy of Music combines sound field techniques and signal decomposition to trace continuums between physical presences and informational patterns. His writing on anacoustic modes of composition was published in the journal Organised Sound in 2020.

Robert has a PhD in composition from the University of Florida and degrees in music from Mills College (MA) and Northeastern University (BS). He is currently an Artistic Research Fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Music, studying with Natasha Barrett.

His work has been presented at international events such as ICMC, NYCEMF, Sonorities, CEMI Circles, Sound Junction, MA/IN, and the ISCM World New Music Days, and has been recognised with awards from ASCAP/SEAMUS, Xenakis International Electronic Music Competition, University of Florida, and Mills College.

Marika Schultze

Mezzo-soprano Marika Schultze (SWE) has her master from Oslo Academy of the Arts (KHiO), and a bachelor from the Norwegian Academy of Music. She has also studied Performance art at the Academy of Music and Drama (Sweden), and theatre at the Nordic Theater School (Sweden).

In 2019 Marika made her professional debut as Hansel in Hansel and Gretel at Opera Nordfjord, a role she has also performed with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra KORK and KHiO at the Norwegian National Opera. Other roles include Nancy (Albert Herring), Anna (The Seven Deadly Sins/K. Weill), Dorabella and Sesto (Giulio Césare).

Marika has performed several contemporary/new written pieces, for instance, at the Ultima Festival and in Switzerland, with ensemble Texte und Töne. She is touring with the circus group Acting for Climate, in Denmark/Norway/Sweden in the autumn/winter of 21/22. The collaboration with electro composer Robert Seaback premiered in 2021 at the Tiny Performance Festival (SWE) with the video performance piece "Periphery Vol. 1".

Marika is part of Det Norske Damekor, the improvisation ensemble Oslo14, and has participated in several Oscarsborg opera productions. In March 2020, she founded Quarantine Opera, the world's first completely digital opera house.