Welcome

About SLEO

The Symposium on Laptop Ensembles & Orchestras (SLEO) was created to address the critical needs of the burgeoning field of mobile ensembles. Our objective is to consider best practices in the field, create standards for classification and archiving, and to build a community of practitioners who want this unique medium to grow and thrive.

SLEO is not an organization, nor is it professional society. Rather, it is a venue for discussion and community building whose focus is on establishing laptop ensembles as viable performing ensembles at universities and in the public sphere.

Where

April 15-17, 2012

Hosted by:

AVATAR Initiative in Digital Media
Center for Computation & Technology
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA
USA

The tentative schedule for SLEO 2012 includes workshops, paper/panel sessions, poster sessions, and concerts. For more detailed information, click on links where provided.

General Schedule

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Monday, April 16, 2012

  • Paper, Panel and Poster sessions
  • Keynote Address by Ge Wang
  • Concert by the Laptop Orchestra of Louisiana (the LOLs)
    • LSU School of Music Recital Hall, 7:30 PM
  • After SLEO Concert by the Linux Laptop Orchestra (L2Ork)
    • Varsity Theatre, Highland & State St., 10:30 PM

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

  • Paper, Panel and Poster sessions
  • Workshop
  • Concert by Sideband 
    • LSU School of Music Recital Hall, 7:30 PM
  • After SLEO Concert by the European Bridges Ensemble 
    • Varsity Theatre, Highland & State St., 10:30 PM

Individual tickets for SLEO concerts are $10/$5 (students), and will be available at the door. Tickets for all concerts and the reception are included in the conference registration.

Papers

Session 1: Composer Perspectives – Monday 9:15 AM

  • John Gibson – Wind Farm, a Composition for Laptop Ensemble
  • Michael Early – Game Theory: A composer’s perspective on Play, Danger, & Interaction in composing for laptops
  • Nick Hwang – Composer perspective on “What the What: A collection of Laptop Orchestra works for Wii-­motes”

Session 2: Education – Monday 10:30 AM

  • Jason Woolley – Using laptop composition and performance as a pedagogical tool within Higher Education
  • Bruno Ruviaro – From Schaeffer to *LOrks: an expanded definition of musical instrument in the context of laptop orchestras
  • Chris Branton and Stephen Beck – LELA – Laptop Ensemble/Library Archive
  • Nathan Wolek  – Media representations of the laptop as musical instrument

Keynote Address: Ten Past and Future Lessons of Laptop Orchestra, Ge Wang, Stanford University and Smule – Monday 1:00 PM

Panel Session 1: Monday 2:15 PM

  • Can Multi-Computer Music Bring Us Together and Not Apart? The Laptop Orchestra as Social Experiment
  • David Rothenberg, Chair

Session 3: Performance – Monday 3:30 PM

  • Timothy Edwards and Ben Sutherland – Eyes off the Screen! Restoring visual freedom in LEO performance
  • Travis Garrison, Adam Neal, Benjamin O’Brien and Sean Peuquet – Florida League for Indeterminate Performance (FLIP) Panel Discussion
  • Anne Hege – Middle Passage: Reclaiming what is Lost as Performance and Practice

Session 4: Performance – Monday 4:45 PM

  • Ivica Bukvic and Matthew Komelski – Strategies for Structured *Ork Performance Choreography: Integrating Taiji Martial Arts into L2Ork Repertoire
  • David Williams – Composing for and Performing with iPads
  • Sang Won Lee, Jason Freeman, Andrew Collela, Akito Van Troyer and Shannon Yao – Evaluating Collaborative Laptop Improvisation with LOLC

Session 5: Composition – Tuesday 9:00 AM

  • Martin Blain – Issues in instrumental design: the ontological problem (opportunity?) of ‘liveness’ for a laptop ensemble
  • Scott Hewitt – Notational Approaches for Laptop Ensembles
  • Christopher Burns – Adapting Electroacoustic Repertoire for Laptop Ensemble

Session 6: Instruments – Tuesday 10:15 AM

  • Ajay Kapur, Michael Darling and Raakhi Kapur – Don’t forget the machines: Orchestra of Humans, Laptops, and Robots
  • Jesse Allison – Web Based Control of Mobile Ensembles
  • Nathan Bowen – 4Quarters: Real-time Collaborative Music Environment for Mobile Phones

Panel Session 2: Tuesday 1:00 PM

  • Play Something Crazy…Now: Improvisation as a Tool in Composing for Laptop Orchestras
  • Jeff Albert, chair

Session 7: Networking – Tuesday 2:15 PM

  • Roger Dannenberg – Laptop Orchestra Communication Using a Publish-Subscribe Server
  • Konrad Kaczmarek – alskdjalskdjalskdj: Documenting the process involved in writing a timing-accurate networked piece for a Laptop Ensemble.
  • Georg Hajdu – Composing for Networks

Session 8: Next Steps? – Tuesday 3:30 PM

  • Moderated by Stephen David Beck

Workshops

Workshop Schedule

Sunday, April 15, 2012
Sunday workshops will be held at the Cook Conference Center (Anderson and Cook rooms)

  • 1:00 – 4:00 PM
    • Designing Mobile Instruments and Performances in urMus – Georg Essl (Cook room)
    • Introduction to basic electronics and gadget hacking – Ozan Sarier (Anderson room)
  • 4:15 – 6:15 PM
    • GRENDL – a client/server software and resource management system for laptop ensembles – Chris Branton & Stephen David Beck (Cook Room)
    • Choirs of the Future – Perry Cook (Anderson room)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Tuesday workshop will be held at the Energy, Coast and Environment building.

  • 3:30 – 5:30 PM
    • Catork: a CataRT skin for composition & performance – Bruno Ruviaro

Call for Proposals

The first-ever Symposium for Laptop Ensembles and Orchestras (SLEO) will be held in Baton Rouge, LA, USA from 15-17 April 2012 on the campus of Louisiana State University.  SLEO will gather current and future practitioners for a Workshop and symposium exclusively dedicated to the topic of laptop ensembles and orchestras.  The symposium will address the use of all types of mobile devices, including laptops, tablets, and handheld devices, along with other relevant hardware and software for live group performances.

SLEO will feature presentations, workshops and performances with the goal of making it an important venue to both capture and exchange best practices in this rapidly evolving area of music technology.  We have assembled an impressive program committee that includes leading figures in this area of study who will peer-review all submissions for inclusion in SLEO.

SPECIAL EVENTS: The symposium will also feature a keynote address by Dr. Ge Wang, director of the Stanford Laptop Orchestra and co-founder of Smule. Performances will be presented by the Mobile Performance Group (Stetson University), Sideband (Princeton University) and the Laptop Orchestra of Louisiana (LSU). There will also be an attempt to set the record for the world’s largest laptop orchestra with the participation of all SLEO attendees.

SUBMISSIONS:
We encourage proposals for the following types of presentations:

  • workshops (2 or 4 hours in length)
  • papers (15 mins presentations)
  • panel discussions (30 – 60 minutes)
  • posters & demonstrations
  • music compositions for LEOs (Laptop/Mobile Ensemble/Orchestras)
  • SLEO video archive

Suggested topics for presentations include, but are not limited to:

  • Best practices in composition, rehearsal, performance
  • Techniques used in composing for LEOs
  • Software & network management
  • History & aesthetic theory of LEOs
  • Teaching & pedagogical strategies
  • Hardware (audio, interface, computers, loudspeakers)
  • Software environments & frameworks
  • Composers’ perspectives on their own music compositions

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: 
All submissions (except for music compositions) must include an extended abstract (between 500 – 1000 words in length) in PDF format.  Abstracts should be submitted anonymously, fully referenced where appropriate, and may contain links to supporting materials.  Accepted abstracts will be published on the conference website. Materials should be entered in the SLEO Submission site at EasyChair.

SUBMISSIONS FOR PERFORMANCE:
Music submissions must, in addition to , include a zipped directory with the following items:

  • A 250-word abstract which describes the work (in PDF)
  • A zipped directory with the following items:
    • A score or performance instructions, including hardware/software system specifications & requirements
    • All required software, scripts or Max patches (not including frameworks or middleware)
    • A recording (audio or video) or a link to a recording of the work. NOTE: audio/video files over 20 MB must be stored in an accessible web storage site (i.e., Dropbox). The correct URL for these files must be included in the abstract

Music submissions will also be reviewed by the directors of the Laptop Orchestra of Louisiana, the Mobile Performance Group, and Sideband who will have final discretion for acceptance.  Works not accepted for live performance may be selected for inclusion in the SLEO Video Archive. Works accepted for live performance may or may not result in an oral presentation opportunity. But composers interested in speaking about their composition are invited to separately submit an extended abstract (see requirements above).

SUBMISSIONS FOR VIDEO ARCHIVE: 
The SLEO Video Archive will be a peer-reviewed, publicly-accessible archive of performance videos of works for mobile and laptop ensembles. We will be accepting videos of performances for inclusion in this important resource. Submissions for the video archive should include:

  • A PDF document which contains:
    • A 250-word abstract which describes the work
    • A description of the performance itself (composer, performers, venue)
    • A link to an on-line web storage site (i.e. Dropbox) or on-line video site (i.e., YouTube, Vimeo) which contains the video recording

DEADLINE:
All submissions must be entered at the SLEO Submission site. The deadline for submissions is Monday, 7 November 2011.  Our goal is to review submissions and announce the program by 15 December 2011 in order to provide ample time for travel arrangements.

Program Committees

SLEO Executive Committee

  • Stephen David Beck
  • Jesse Allison
  • Rebecca Fiebrink
  • Nathan Wolek

SLEO Program Committee

  • Martin Blain
  • Ivica “Ico” Bukvic
  • Perry Cook
  • Roger Dannenberg
  • Georg Essl
  • Scott Hewitt
  • Alexander Refsum Jensenius
  • Paula Matthusen
  • Diana Siwiak
  • Scott Smallwood
  • Dan Trueman
  • Hsiao-Lan Wang

SLEO Local Arrangements Committee

  • Stephen David Beck
  • Jesse Allison
  • Lea Anne Couvillion
  • Karen Jones

Sponsors

SLEO 2012 is supported by grants and in-kind funding from the following organizations:

AVATAR Initiative in Digital Media Louisiana State University

LSU School of Music