Jessica Argo shares her work leading and commissioning original dance, film and sculpture for a Global Telematic orchestra to respond to, Glasgow Improvisers Orchesra GLOBAL, since March 2020 – recent outputs include a screening of new films produced by and featuring many Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra’s digital global collaborations over the past 12 months including sonic ethnography from Australian sound artists, dance and theatre from Japan, and the spontaneous generation of ideas other global players from Mexico, Spain, New York, California on Thursday 28th November. Following this there was a hybrid telematic orchestra performance with improvising between a zoom orchestra and the room orchestra which was recorded for the BBC Radio 3 New Music Show. These events were part of the three day festival organised by Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra that place between 28–30 November at the Centre for Contemporary Art.”

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra have a fluid and multi-dimensional (perhaps even quantum or multi-versal) approach to filming improvisation and improvising with film.
Film can be a structuring role within the music, or film can explode and implode where and when that music is situated - essentially a band can play Everything, Everywhere, All at Once – using telematic digital video-conferencing technology and/or the physical theatre apparatus – sometimes ALL AT ONCE.

This paper features excerpts from a multi-mic recording of this Hybrid Piece set to a photomontage, as well as a Q+A insights from the featured artists, such as George Lewis, Maria Sappho, Constance Cooper and Maggie Nichols.

A backstage access / a peek behind the curtain of the Hybrid Piece for ZOOM Orchestra and ROOM Orchestra
Composing a piece that at first seemed mere stage directions –
“You play – whatever you want”
now “you play – in response”
“pre-selected duet” –
“now all of you play – whatever you want, as long as you are crescendoing with the light”

I wanted to place the ZOOM orchestra, first on, centre stage – all eyes and ears on them – then ask the ROOM orchestra to honour their launch of the festival as if an answer to their question. A Yes, and…

I needed to spotlit key matriarchal voices in a duet.

And then push the ZOOM Orchestra and ROOM orchestra to “play together” in a shared task -knowing the ROOM orchestra was bathed in the crescendo of light brightness – and knowing the ZOOM orchestra merely saw the stage light as a beam standing in for a face on their computer screen.

So, film is a structuring role within our spontaneous music – the quest to produce an unweildily expanding archive is MOTIVATED by the spotlight – the staging in our physical festival with a theatre audience.
By setting a regular space (that space - actually being time! 2 hours every Tuesday) for our Global Orchestra to perform to camera – in “Diverse Spaces and Places” – means that we frame, prioritise our everyday.

SYMPOSIUM: FILMING IMPROVISATION – IMPROVISING WITH FILM
01.–02.02.2025, exploratorium berlin
The 10th symposium at the exploratorium berlin deals with the relationship between improvisation and film and filmic documentation, as well as with the potential of the medium of film for improvised events and the interaction with them. The focus is on contemporary, free musical improvisation as well as on creative and experimental forms of filmmaking.

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