NAME DROPPING: (Some musicians I've performed and/or recorded with)
bruce ackley
• steve adams
• liz albee
• vijay anderson
• paolo angeli
• antimatter
• k.atchley
• ben azarm
• serge baghdassarians
• jen baker
• boris baltschun
• aaron bennett
• john bischoff
• frederic blondy
• jorge boehringer
• myles boisen
• bob boster
• gail brand
• roger brooks
• chris brown
• jerome breyerton
• kyle bruckmann
• tony buck
• wendy burch
• john butcher
• ted byrnes
• murray campbell
• doug carroll
• joe catalano
• eugene chadbourne
• sharon cheslow
• mark chung
• dan clucas
• abbie conant
• george cremaschi
• alvin curran
• tim daisy
• palle dahlstedt
• jorrit dijkstra
• lisa dillan
• thomas dimuzio
• tom djll
• harris eisenstadt
• lisle ellis
• james fei
• john finkbinder
• tara flandreau
• miguel frasconi
• fred frith
• wolfgang fuchs
• cor fuhler
• gianni gebbia
• philip gelb
• lelio gianetto
• jordan glenn
• barbara golden
• vinny golia
• gunda gottschalk
• lance grabmiller
• frank gratkowski
• george graewe
• phillip greenlief
• scot gresham-lancaster
• morgan guberman
• anton hatwich
• ron heglin
• ed hermann
• shoko hikage
• bill horvitz
• luc houtkamp
• carl ludwig hubsch
• yoshimitsu ichiraku
• matt ingalls
• christof irmer
• mark izu
• darren johnson
• joan jeanrenaud
• henry kaiser
• carla kihlstedt
• ronit kirchman
• hans koch
• annette krebs
• henry kuntz
• anne la berge
• adam lane
• joelle leandre
• thomas lehn
• greg lenczycki
• jacob lindsay
• hugh livingston
• scott looney
• marianne macdonald
• toshi makihara
• miya masaoka
• kaffe matthews
• magda mayas
• randy mckean
• ava mendoza
• lisa mezzacappa
• mark e. miller
• roscoe mitchell
• jean-marc montera
• david myers
• per anders nilsson
• le quan ninh
• kanoko nishi
• kjell nordsson
• tom nunn
• larry ochs
• ed osborn
• yasuhiro otani
• mike patten
• jen clare paulson
• phillip perkins
• garth powell
• gert-jan prins
• jon raskin
• brian reinbolt
• gino robair
• donald robinson
• scott rosenberg
• ROVA saxophone quartet
• joe sabella
• kattt sammon
• sara schoenbeck
• sue schlotte
• john schott
• domenico sciajno
• charles sharp
• elliott sharp
• aram shelton
• john shiurba
• dave slusser
• damon smith
• ladonna smith
• wadada leo smith
• matthew sperry
• spirit
• moe! staino
• jason stein
• g e stinson
• ijeoma thomas
• oluyemi thomas
• toyoji tomita
• sebi tramontana
• mark trayle
• hiromi vardy
• biggi vinkeloe
• weasel walter
• scott walton
• stephen wight
• william winant
• georg wissel
• wobbly
• theresa wong
• WRACK
• cory wright
• xu fen xia
• john zorn
In addition, he is a well known performer in the world of improvised music, having performed on his electronic improvisation instruments with hundreds of artists and groups, including Chris Brown, John Butcher, Eugene Chadbourne, Fred Frith, Gianni Gebbia, Frank Gratkowski, Luc Houtkamp, Yoshi Ichiraku, Matt Ingalls, Joelle Leandre, Gino Robair, ROVA saxophone quartet, Elliott Sharp, Leo Wadada Smith and John Zorn. Ongoing groups he has founded or played in include the League of Automatic Music Composers and the Hub -- pioneering live computer network bands -- and Rotodoti, the Natto Quartet, Fuzzybunny, All Tomorrow's Zombies and Wobbly/Perkis/Antimatter.
His occasional critical writings have been published in The Computer Music Journal, Leonardo and Electronic Musician magazine; he has been composer-in-residence at Mills College in Oakland California, artist-in-residence at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center, and designed musical tools and toys at Paul Allen's legendary thinktank, Interval Research.
His checkered career as a researcher and engineer has brought him a variety of interesting projects: designing museum displays for science and music museums in San Francisco, Toronto and Seattle, creating artificial-intelligence based auction tools for business, building scientific experimental apparati, consulting on multimedia art presentation networks for the SF Art Commission and SF Airport, writing software embedded in toys and other consumer products, and creating new tools for sound and video production, research and analysis.
Recordings of his work are available on several labels: Artifact,Limited Sedition, 482, Lucky Garage, Praemedia, Rastascan and Tzadik(USA); EMANEM(UK); Sonore and Meniscus(France); Curva Minore and Snowdonia(Italy); XOR(Netherlands); Creative Sources(Portugal).
He is also producer and director of a feature-length documentary on musicians and sound artists in the San Francisco Bay area called NOISY PEOPLE (2007).
STATEMENT
I
like to consider human-machine interaction as a new form
of social interaction. What's interesting to me about computers is their
ability to serve as a framework for embodying systems offering complexity
and surprise. Unpredictability is what makes social life so interesting,
it is what makes art so interesting, and it's what can make computers,
as partners in art making, interesting. I don't use computers to simply
carry out ideas I may have: I'd rather work in situations that force me
to respond to surprises that are dealt to me by systems whose complexity
and unpredictability are so high that their behavior can not be known in
advance. All of my computer based art work has been concerned with creating
social (or synthetic social) situations, which have enough complexity to
behave like real life: in fact, to be real life of some new kind. The system
in question in almost all of these pieces consists of human beings and
machines in cycles of mutual influence and response.
For
more a more detailed discussion of these issues, see my article Bringing
Digital Music to Life.
TIM PERKIS has been working in the medium of live electronic and computer sound for many years, performing, exhibiting installation works and recording in North America,Europe and Japan. His work has largely been concerned with exploring the emergence of life-like properties in complex systems of interaction.