Some strange and beautiful weather pulled me away from my soundcheck on September 21st, 2006. A sun shower, followed by a full rainbow, brought me out the cavernous Open Studio space and held my attention for a while. Although the occurrence of live music is clearly less rare, for me it has a similar power and effect. Ití¢â‚¬â„¢s one of the best ways I know to escape the mundane world and to slip into a place of distended time and suspended attention. Live music demands the participation of an audience. This doesní¢â‚¬â„¢t mean that everyone should clap along or be forced to engage in some sort of call-and-response. It means that everyone has to look and listen in the same direction and to have confidence in the feeling that theyí¢â‚¬â„¢re experiencing something similar. Call it ritual attention.

Generally speaking, laptop performances havení¢â‚¬â„¢t tended to inspire this sort of attention. It has become thoroughly clichíƒ © to dismiss the laptop performance as cold and withdrawn. I caní¢â‚¬â„¢t say I disagree. After having some serious doubts about the possibility of making live music with a computer í¢â‚¬“ music full of risk and serendipity í¢â‚¬“ I made a resolution to either give up performing altogether or to find a way of improvising a performance entirely. What I arrived at was a process of live sampling, of layering sounds recorded during the concert. I use the Ableton Live software to capture phrases and sounds that I play on whatever instruments happen to be lying around. All of this raw material gets layered and processed and pulled and if atmospheric conditions are favourable, something different from the sum of the input comes out.

For my performance at the New Forms Festival, as a part of the Subtle Formations event, I used an electric guitar and some bowls that I found at the Open Studio space that I wired with contact microphones. Ití¢â‚¬â„¢s a set-up that is sort of familiar, a version of what Ií¢â‚¬â„¢ve been calling my household gamelan. When Ií¢â‚¬â„¢m playing away from home I make a point of not taking any of the instruments Ií¢â‚¬â„¢ll use with me. Part of it has to do with an aversion to oversized baggage claims and having í¢â‚¬Ëœfragileí¢â‚¬â„¢ stickers slapped all over my luggage, but ití¢â‚¬â„¢s mainly the thrill that comes from having to negotiate and figure out a new set of possibilities and problems with every performance. The most memorable moment of this particular show for me was a moment when, for reasons beyond me, my computer overloaded and spontaneously started producing a gorgeous, saturated, bassy standing wave. This would have been towards the end of the set. By that point almost everyone was lying on the ground, as though watching stars in a country field but with a ceiling. At that moment my instinct was to let nature and electronics take their course and I gave myself over to my own sort of ritual attention.

Mitchell Akiyama