Robert van Heumen Composer Improvisor Laptop-Instrumentalist Sound-Designer
Software Developer
Software Developer
(music player)
SKIF++
The electronic audio-visual trio SKIF++ is a collaboration of Jeff Carey (laptop SuperCollider), Robert van Heumen (laptop LiSa) and Bas van Koolwijk (laptop Max/MSP/Jitter). Sound gets processed into video and back, ranging from sonic bursts to melodic melancholy, using joysticks and selfmade controllers to keep it all in line (most of the time). Every SKIF++ performance is improvised, but based on structures that give each set its distinct character. SKIF++ is part of the N Collective.
The SKIF++ video is generated live with a digital application that was inspired by the workings of the 1972 Rutt/Etra scan. processor The Rutt/Etra scan processor was essentially an analog computer which allowed for electronic real-time manipulation of the deflection signals that generate the television raster. The SKIF++ digital application uses audio signals for input and scans the incoming data to produce its characteristic graphics, delivering a very tight connection between the three players. The SKIF++ audio is generated by SuperCollider3 and LiSa X Ð SC3 delivers highly complex synthesized audio blocks while LiSa takes care of magnifying sampled material into territories unknown - all in a highly responsive environment. While the interaction from audio to video is digital, the counterpart is the musical response of the players to the green thing projected on the screen.
Download SKIF++ promosheet and high resolution image.
After-the-fact (quotes and reviews)
As an example, Rovan points to SKIF++, a Dutch electronic-music group known for performing its own compositions using a combination of playful do-it-yourself instruments and computer-game joysticks.“In electronic-music circles, they’re kind of like rock stars”, Rovan says of the group, which will give a 10 p.m. concert at the Space at Alice gallery on Friday, Oct. 5. “The guys are all associated with the STEIM Institute, which is one of the biggest institutes in the world dedicated to developing new musical instruments.”
Providence Journal
So far, Pixilerations has included openings for gallery shows on Sept. 28, two concerts last weekend and a screening of short films Wednesday at the Cable Car Cinema. Electronic, audio-visual trio SKIF++ will perform tonight at the Space at Alice.
"They’re like rock stars in Amsterdam", Pletcher said. "All around Europe, too."
Brown Daily Herald
CD: .next
SKIF++ CD release on Creative Sources Recordings: .next
Tracks:
1..5 [1.00,1.01,1.02,1.03,1.04]
6 [thinner]
7 [@_]
8 [ffffffffffffff++]
The music on this album is performed by Jeff Carey and Robert van Heumen at STEIM’s Studio 2 in February & September 2008. The interactive visuals by Bas van Koolwijk are an integral part of live performances by SKIF++ and as such are present in this music.
Mixing & mastering byJeff Carey
Cover design by Robert van Heumen
Imagery by Bas van Koolwijk
The CD can be purchased through fridgesound: the label or Creative Sources Recordings.
Reviews
SKIF++, the laptop-handling trio of Jeff Carey, Robert Van Heumen and Bas Van Koolwijk (the latter also in charge of the visual aspects of the live performances), present a difficult-to-approach yet ultimately galvanizing album whose dual nature is manifest from the outset. Framed by the bracing fragmentariness of the first and the last third of the disc, in the form of seven shorter tracks whose sheer quantity of events renders them utterly indescribable, the central nucleus is the longest track on offer, "thinner", whose gradually unfolding static waves, extraterrestrial harmonies and lunar calls, at times reminiscent of the most otherworldly Roland Kayn, are far removed from the sharp, shooting-star schizophrenia of the remaining chapters. The brain reacts unpredictably to these absurdly morphing accumulations of quirky incidents, disconnected rhythms, subsonic throbs and hyper-distorted spirals – I actually fell asleep while listening, twice. With, I'm told, a smile on my face.Massimo Ricci, Paris Atlantic
Ein Improv-Laptop-Trio, welches den Videomann explizit in den Gruppencredits führt, was darauf deutet, dass Bild ein integraler Bestandteil der Arbeit ist. Leider handelt es sich bei der vorleigenden CD um ein reines Audio-Produkt. Einer der Musiker ist ex-83 Central-Macher, so verwundert es nicht, dass es gleich im ersten Track relativ wuchtig und brachial losgeht. Knackend-brüchige, zitternde Klangflächen werden vor unseren Ohren ausgerollt, ohna Anzeichen eines strategischen Herantastens. Auch die zwiete nummer bleibt ruckelig-harsch und entfaltet eine gewisse Virtuosität, was bei Komputermusik ja nicht immer erwartet werden kann. Nur die letzte Nummer schwächelt etwas, da hier ein wenig der rote Faden verloren zu gehen scheint. Trotzdem, gerade auch für das Label creative sources eine überraschende CD.
Zipo, aufabwegen
SKIF++ are a very interesting example of how the whole Austro-German axis of laptop electronic music is continuing to impact in other countries; the trio comprises the American player Jeff Carey (87 Central) and two Dutch artistes, Robert van Heumen and Bas van Koolwijk. Exhibiting little of the control-freakery and clinical approach we might expect from some exponents of the Cologne school, the trio deliver lively and unpredictable digital high-energy bursts by working in a very dynamic and inter-active environment, where one’s merest gesture or thought is transformed instantly into powerful sweeps of crackly texturised beltage. This may be determined to some extent by the visual side of the project, which uses technology to transform sound into patterns across the video screen (as done in the 1990s by ECM 323, to name but one). Most of the ugly and noisy material on .next spews out on the short opening five cuts, but listeners with an ear for delicate and refined minimal pointillism may prefer the 26-minute ‘[thinner]‘. Fine work which transcends many of the clichés and pitfalls of laptop music.
Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector
[ more ]
CD: SK ++ [01,02,03,04,00]
SKIF++ enhanced audio-visual CD release on fridgesound: SK ++ [01,02,03,04,00]
The audio part of the CD can be played in every CD player - for the visual content a computer is needed.
The CD can be purchased through fridgesound: the label.
An older video, SKIF++ in it's early years, can be found here.
Reviews
The electroacoustic trio SKIF++ consist of Jeff Carey and Robert van Heumen, both of whom work on laptops, with Bas van Koolwijk adding a visual component. Van Koolwijk's stated intention is to use video to expose its essential falseness, to reveal the cold machinery behind the "placating curtain" of the visuals it generates. This is a facet of the music also, which has a certain feral, vicious quality to it - as if using machinery as some sort of vengeance upon itself. Using devices such as joysticks to exacerbate the chance, improvised nature of this music, this is musique concrete that has torn away from its formal, academic origins. The openingtrack "SK01" uses conspicuous samples of kitchen implements, battered and smashed into near uselessness, alongside coruscating bursts of voracious noise. "SK02" meanwhile starts out as nothing but the random movement of tiny particles, pinging and colliding, before accruing into a larger, more malevolent shape. Deconstruction and reassembly in nasty extremis.David Stubbs - The Wire magazine
Some weeks ago I reviewed the very first solo CD by Robert van Heumen, and wrote that he's, among the many other things he does, a member of SKIF++. There is now a CD available by this group, which is Van Heumen on a laptop playing LiSa, Jeff Carey (whom you may know as 87 Central, who plays with Super Collidor on his laptop)) and Bas van Koolwijk who plays with Jitter and is responsible for the groups' visual side. The recordings were already made in 2006, but it took some cross-atlantic mixing as Van Heumen lives in Amsterdam and Carey in Washington. This is a typical work of the improvising computer laptoposse. Things beep, scratch, hiss and meow about in a brittle, fast manner, but SKIF++ is all to aware of the trap of unlistenable noise music generated with too many ones and zeroes. Hence the extensive editing process applied to this music makes this so much stronger than your average laptop doodling. SKIF++ knows how to pull back gear and play a piece that is softer, with even a hint of melody such as in '02'. On other occassions things seem to explode and large, extensive clouds fly over, like over the flat Dutch ground. But here too things never become boring or long. SKIF++ knows when to pull back, make a move, a new gesture and offer new insights. Also on the CD is a film by Bas van Koolwijk, which gives us the exact representation, I think, of what SKIF++'s music looks like: academic and in a odd, fresh way, also old fashioned, but then entirely updated to these times. Get my drift? (FdW)
Frans de Waard - Vital Weekly
Bio SKIF++ accomplices
Jeff Carey - http://jeffcarey.foundation-one.orgElectronic music composer Jeff Carey, based in the US and in the Netherlands, has been working with experimental, improvised and composed electronic, electro-acoustic, and acousmatic music since the early 90's. Originally from the suburbs of Washington DC, he has performed a handful of hardcore bands and has played electronic music or presented pieces and installations in the US and Europe at festivals and venues such as Boralis (NO), Gaudeamus Music Week (NL), Chelsea Museum of Art (US), Transmediale (DE), NuMusic(NO), Sonic Acts (NL), Ekko Festival (NO), Cave 12 (CH), DNK-Amsterdam (NL), Trondhiem Matchmaking (NO), MOCADC (US), The Network (BE), and Placard (UK). Having studied Audio Technology at American University (1994), and computer music composition at the Instituut voor Sonologie in the Koningklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag (2002), his work has evolved from an interest in no-input-mixer and field recordings to include a focus on non-standard synthesis, algorithmic composition and digital instrumentalism. Apart from purely acousmatic and electro-acoustic composition, he is focused on performative aspects of computer music and improvisation. He has played in the groups 87 Central, Office-R(6), SKIF++, USA/USB, N-Ensemble, and collaborated or performed with Francis Marie Uitti, Gert-Jan Prins, Cor Fuhler, Oren Ambarchi, Tobias Delius, Jaap Blonk and the numerous members of the N-Collective to name a famous few. Recent compositions include the acousmatic pieces 'Blueshift', 'Music for Broken Flute and Stolen Computer', and 'Point Source 01' for Double Bass and computer. Carey builds custom electronic instruments for musicians (most notably, MoHa!) and teaches courses in the synthesis programming language SuperCollider 3, recently at new media/arts institutions including NoTAM, BEK, TEKS (NO), STEIM (NL), and ITP (US). He is one of many founding members of the N-Collective, a pan-European music collective, and works to promote and present N-Events in the Americas.
Robert van Heumen http://west28.nl
Robert van Heumen is an electronic musician-composer using an extended laptop instrument to perform highly immersive and hyper-dynamic electro-acoustic music. As a musician, live sampling is his main tool. With a joystick and other tactile controllers, live sampled source sounds are gesturally manipulated and reworked within open ended narratives. Van Heumen is constantly searching for new strategies for live sampling and for the perfect balance between free improvisation and structured music. The laptop is used in an instrumental, tactile way, connecting action to sound like any acoustic instrument, and is used live as well as in the studio to generate sonic material for fixed-media works.
Bas van Koolwijk http://www.umatic.nl/info_bas.html
Video and audio artist Bas van Koolwijk analyses the disturbances produced by video, transforming them into numeric code, in order to produce a visual and acoustic sequence in which sounds and images vigorously interact. His video works can be seen as an aggressive attack on the illusion of the medium itself. Through a rigorous and formalistic approach, Van Koolwijk exposes the face of the machine which lives behind the often-placating veil of the televised image.
Distributed by the Netherlands Media Art Institute, his videos are regularly screened at international video art festivals, museums and art galleries. Next to producing single screen works and installations, Van Koolwijk creates performances with realtime audio/video applications, solo as well as with others. His performances have been hosted by numerous festivals and events including MUTEK (Montreal CA), Netmage (Bologna IT), Club Transmediale (Berlin DE), Avanto (Helsinki FI), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam NL), Dissonanze (Rome IT). Recent collaborations include projects as SYNCHRONATOR with Gert-Jan Prins, N-collective's SKIF++ and YOKOMONO/VIDEO with Staalplaat Soundsystem.
