Hearing Landscapes

Guest Speaker: Lei Liang, Professor, UC San Diego Music (Composer) and CISA3 Director and Prof. Falko Kuester Date: April 17th, 2015 Time: 5:00pm-8:00pm Location: Calit2 Theater, Atkinson Hall, UC San Diego [registration]

DESCRIPTION/ABSTRACT: Qualcomm Institute Composer in Residence Lei Liang, collaborating with Falko Kuester, Director of the institute’s Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), will present a public performance based on work funded by a 2014 Calit2 Strategic Research Opportunities (CSRO) grant. The performance will feature new musical compositions by Liang and high-resolution, multispectral scans of 12 rare Chinese landscape paintings by 20th-century artist Huang Binhong (1865-1955). The paintings were on loan from Elna Tsao, with the support from the San Francisco-based Mozhai Foundation, for digitization at UC San Diego in late January. Liang, a professor of music at UC San Diego, is developing new concepts of sonic “shadows” and “lights” to craft a musical language for orchestration and sound spatialization. The multispectral imaging led by CISA3’s Kuester will also shed new light on the painter’s creative process by capturing detailed information (big data) about the materials, techniques and artistic processes used by Huang. The April 17 event will end a week of rehearsals, and it will give the campus and broader community an opportunity to experience how composer Liang transforms the big data into new sonic expressions and individualized experiences. He will use QI’s VROOM display system to showcase the never-before-seen multispectral images of the paintings (captured in visible light and at ultraviolet, infrared and other wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum), annotated by music. SPEAKER BIO: Personnel: Lei Liang – Composer (Calit2, UCSD) Falko Kuester – Visual Explorer (CISA3, UCSD) Zachary Seldess – Principal Collaborator / Audio Software Developer Greg Surges – Audio Software Developer Samantha Stout – Cultural Heritage Engineer Chris McFarland – Software Developer Eric Hamdan - Audio System Developer Eric Lo - Robotics Engineer James Strawson - Robotics Engineer MORE INFORMATION: Lecture and performance will take place from 6-7pm, followed by a reception. Image credit: “Landscapes,” album leaves by Huang Binhong (1865-1955), on loan through the courtesy of Elna Tsao with support from the Mozhai Foundation. *Registration is Required