STEIM

STEIM (the STudio for Electro-Instrumental Music) is an independent electronic music centre in Amsterdam unique in its dedication to live performance. The foundation’s artistic and technical departments support an international community of performers, musicians, and visual artists, to develop unique instruments for their work. STEIM maintains a residency program whereby artists are provided with an artistic and technical environment in which concepts can be given concrete form.

STEIM has formed ongoing partnerships locally with the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, the Conservatory of Amsterdam, TU/Eindhoven, and the Royal Conservatory in the Hague through the Instruments & Interfaces masters program.

Produced BigEye and Image/ine software.

Artistic/managing director: Dick Rijken (since 2009); past: Takuro Mizuta Lippit (2008-2013), Michel Waisvisz (1981-2008), Peter Schat (1971-1973).

Early years

STEIM started as a "modest initiative of a handful of Dutch composers. Out of a kind of political and cultural rebellion, a workgroup was established in the autumn of 1967 by a few of the Netherlands' most prominent and progressive composers: Peter Schat, Konrad Boehmer, Jan van Vlijmen, Misha Mengelberg, Louis Andriessen, Reinbert de Leeuw, and Dick Raaymakers. STEIM was created out of a dissatisfaction amongst composers and orchestral musicians with the fact that the products of the 'isolated' electronic music studio could only be heard in the concert hall via the static combination of magnetic tape and loudspeakers. What the group had in mind was an electro-instrumental musical practice based on real-time processes. STEIM was created as a research laboratory and development workplace for live electronic music.

The opera 'Reconstructie' ('Reconstruction') by Andriessen, Mengelberg, De Leeuw, Schat, and Van Vlijmen, together with the librettists Harry Mulisch and Hugo Claus, provided a minor revolution. This became the impetus for STEIM's foundation. Though STEIM initially played a supporting role as a bastion where the political relevance and significance of electro-instrumental music were discussed, the group managed to acquire an independent position via technological innovation. They constructed metal consoles with removable units that could be used both centrally as well as decentrally, together with a large mixing board that allowed for the quick patching of studio equipment. These developments resulted in an extensive modular system, also known as the 'black box system', in which the principles of voltage-control were applied as fully as possible.

Despite STEIM's contribution to many concerts and manifestations, it was only with the arrival of Michel Waisvisz in 1973 that the emphasis came to focus on STEIM as a laboratory/workplace in addition to its functions of research and education. Waisvisz introduced a completely new musical-electronic principle: the Cracklebox. He made use of a property of electronic circuits that was usually considered undesirable: instability. This phenomenon is typically combated against, but Waisvisz instead wanted to advance it by connecting the appropriate points in an electronic circuit with touchable surfaces. This principle formed the basis of many of the instruments and objects he designed and built in collaboration with STEIM technicians until 1980, and which he's used in countless concerts and music theater productions. This technique was also used for a number of art exhibitions. The 'crackle' instruments were different than the usual set of instruments because of the directness and sensitivity with which they could be played (for example, the use of many different presets meant that there was no time delay). They were also able to create complex sounds with relatively few actions." [http://web.archive.org/web/20050424185500/http://www.steim.org:80/steim/texts.php?id=1 Spekle & Waisvisz)

Writings

• Nicolas Collins, "Exploded View: The Musical Instrument at Twilight", STEIM festival, Oct 1993. Catalogue essay.
• Roland Spekle, Michel Waisvisz, "STEIM, a reconstruction", [1990s].
• Sally Jane Norman, Michel Waisvisz, Joel Ryan, "Touchstone", 1998. Written on the occasion of the first STEIM Touch manifestation in 1998. http://www.crackle.org/touch.htm]
• Michel Waisvisz, "Gestural Round Table", 1999. Response to questions formulated by the gestural controllers group at the IRCAM. The same questions were also sent to: Max Mathews, Jean-Claude Risset, Chris Chafe, William Buxton, Tod Machover, Don Buchla, Robert Moog and Laetitia Sonami.
• Netochka Nezvanova, "leaves+petalz", Bern, 2001.
• Michel Waisvisz, "Composing the now - notes for a lecture - on engagement with sonic time through sensors, electronica, loudspeakers and ears", 2003. Written on the occasion of 40 years IPEM symposium in Gent, October 2003.
• Takuro Lippit, Kristina Andersen, "STEIM", Interactions 19:4, Jul-Aug 2012, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), p 90. Interview.
• Joel Ryan, "Some Remarks on Musical Instrument Design at STEIM", n.d.

Links

• Official website
• Wikipedia