I n t e r a k t i o n s - L a b o r

 

 

Paulo C. Chagas

(Los Angeles and Brazil)

 

 

Paulo C. Chagas, born in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil) is a composer and researcher in music technology. Since 2004 he is Assistant Professor of Compositon at the University of California-Riverside (USA)

He pursued musical studies at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Liège, Belgium (with Henri Pousseur), and at the Musikhochschule Köln (Cologne Academy of Music), Germany (Composition of Electronic Music).

Paulo C. Chagas has composed more than 100 pieces - ballet music, operas, musical theatre, multimedia works, pieces for orchestra, instrumental and vocal ensembles, electronic and computer music, e.g ballet music: Sodoma, Francis Bacon, VisionsMaschine, operas: the award-winning Oddort, Vom Kriege, RAW, musical theatre: Eshu, Peep-Show, The River, multimedia works: The Journey, Projektion, Streaming, pieces for orchestra: La Passion selon Guignol, Eshu: la porte des enfers, Elegba. His works have been performed in Europe, Russia, the USA and Latin America to both public and critical acclaim.

Chagas worked for ten years (1990-99) as Sound Director of the Studio for Electronic Music of the WDR (West German Radio and Television Station) where he conducted extensive research into electronic and computer music, algorithmic composition, interactivity, multimedia and sound spatialization. He wrote music software and special computer applications for musical analysis and composition. As visiting lecturer, he taught at the Conservatory of Music and at the University of Liège. Since 1998, he belongs to the Board of Directors of the CRFMW (Musical Research Center of Wallonie, Liège).

He has been invited to take part in international festivals in Europe and USA. He was a member of composition juries, selection committees, gave lectures and presented papers in conferences in several countries. In 1996, his work Eshu: the Gates of Hell was performed by the American Composer Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York. In 1999, his Techno-opera RAW was premiered by the Opera Bonn.

Over the past years, Chagas was commissioned with compositions by festivals (Ars Musica, MusikTriennale, Witten, Moscow Autumn), theaters (Theaterhaus Stuttgart, National Theater Weimar, Oper Bonn), research institutions (BEC - Bonn Research Centre for Computer Media, CRFMW – Musical Research Center of Wallonie, Liège), ensembles and musicians.
His theoretical work focuses on subjects like media philosophy, musical cybernetics, and the impact of new media and technology on musical composition both related to the music of the past and present. Chagas is presently working on a PhD dissertation at the University of Liège - Polyphony, Media and Form -, and on a research about new musical interfaces and autopoietical music systems.

Statement
"My music is characterized by the relation to the musical traditions of the world and the search for new forms of expression. Music as a ritual and product of technology is no opposition in my work. I think, we are at the beginning of a big change in our aesthetic perception, where the usual sensory impressions like seeing and hearing, will influence each other much more than in former times. Therefore, the scenic aspect and the integration of music into other forms of art and expression marks my works profoundly."

 

 

Project plans for Göttelborn:

 

Fomememória

What is the color of the hunger? What is the sound of the hunger? What is the form of the hunger?

To fight against the hunger is to show the hunger, to recreate the hunger through its memory: transform it into "fomememória" ("hunger-memory")

The well fed child sits in the front of the screen of the computer, plays video game, eats pizza, hamburger, fries potatoes. The famished
child digs over trash or dry earth, eats rests or nothing.

The cyberspace inscribes itself in the mind, paralyzes the body. The hunger inscribes itself in the body, paralyzes the mind. The memory of the hunger has been transmitted genetically through the generations; it is enrolled in the social memory.

Man gave up the hope of a collective utopia and instead of that migrated itself into the narrow limits of the body. To satisfy the hunger is a
process of reconstruction of the body, both physically and virtually.

 

website

http://www.composers21.com/compdocs/chagaspc.htm