R. Luke DuBois
Encyclopedia
Roger Luke DuBois is an American composer
, performer, conceptual
new media art
ist, programmer
, record producer
and pedagogue
based in New York City
.
, UK, where he attended the American School in London, before moving to New York
in 1993 to attend Columbia University
. DuBois holds both a master's (1999) and a doctorate
(2003) in music composition from Columbia (studying primarily with Fred Lerdahl
and Jonathan Kramer
), and worked as a staff researcher at Columbia's Computer Music Center
until 2008. He has taught interactive
music and video
performance at a number of institutions, including Columbia, Princeton University
, the School of Visual Arts
, and the music technology
and interactive telecommunications programs at New York University
. In Fall 2008 he began teaching as a full-time professor at the Brooklyn Experimental Media Center at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU. As a graduate student at Columbia he was a contributor to Real-Time Cmix
. Since 2000, he has worked for Cycling '74
on Max/MSP/Jitter
.
DuBois has collaborated with a wide range of artists and musicians, including Elliott Sharp
, Paul D. Miller
, Todd Reynolds, Toni Dove
, Chris Mann
, Michael Joaquin Grey
, Matthew Ritchie
, Eric Singer
, Bora Yoon
, and Leroy Jenkins. He was a founding member of the Freight Elevator Quartet
, and has produced records for Bang on a Can
composer Michael Gordon
on the Nonesuch
label. His music integrates real-time performer-computer interaction with algorithmic
methodologies repurposed from other fields, most notably formal grammar
s such as L-system
s. His research into issues of musical time revolve around a technique called time-lapse phonography
, as used in his piece Billboard. His instrumental writing, like his artwork, is often based on techniques derived from stochastic music and data mining
, using metaphors and information from cultural topics as source material, but with a postmodern stylistic approach, as in the string quartet Hard Data, a six-movement sonification, which, although basing its musical structure on the casualty stream of the Iraq War, borrows heavily from the instrumental writing of Stravinsky, Messiaen, Xenakis
, and Crumb
.
As a conceptual artist, DuBois takes on various topics in American culture and places them under a computational microscope attempting to raise issues relevant to information theory
, perception of time
, canonicity, and gaze
. For example, his trio of pieces on gestalt media, Academy, Billboard, and Play, look at three iconic cultural "canons" in American popular culture
(the Academy Awards
, the Billboard Hot 100
, and Playboy
magazine's Playmate of the Month). His piece Hindsight is Always 20/20, based on a statistical analysis of presidential State of the Union
addresses, uses computational means as a lens into the politics of political rhetoric
. Fashionably Late For The Relationship, his feature-length collaboration with performance artist Lián Amaris, uses the radical time-compression of a 72-hour film of a performance to deconstruct romantic obsession. For his latest large-scale artwork, A More Perfect Union, DuBois joined 21 different online dating sites and constructed a census
of the United States based on an analysis of the profiles of 19 million single Americans; shown as a series of colored and re-labeled maps, the work investigates the lexicon of American self-identity in the 21st Century. His work is represented by bitforms gallery
in New York City, and has been exhibited worldwide, including at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival
and the 2008 Democratic National Convention
.
Prior to becoming a well known laptop musician
, DuBois did most of his improvisation and performance on Buchla
and Serge modular synthesizers.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, performer, conceptual
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
new media art
New media art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
ist, programmer
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
, record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
and pedagogue
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
based in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Biography
DuBois was born in New Jersey, moving at age 11 to LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, UK, where he attended the American School in London, before moving to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1993 to attend Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. DuBois holds both a master's (1999) and a doctorate
Doctor of Musical Arts
The Doctor of Musical Arts degree is a doctoral academic degree in music. The D.M.A. combines advanced studies in an applied area of specialization with graduate-level academic study in subjects such as music history, music theory, or music pedagogy. The D.M.A...
(2003) in music composition from Columbia (studying primarily with Fred Lerdahl
Fred Lerdahl
Alfred Whitford Lerdahl is the Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on pitch space and cognitive constraints on compositional systems or "musical grammar[s]." He has written many orchestral and chamber...
and Jonathan Kramer
Jonathan Kramer
Jonathan Donald Kramer , was a U.S. composer and music theorist.- Biography :...
), and worked as a staff researcher at Columbia's Computer Music Center
Computer Music Center
The Computer Music Center at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. The Center was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center....
until 2008. He has taught interactive
Interaction
Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal effect...
music and video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
performance at a number of institutions, including Columbia, Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
, and the music technology
Music technology
Music technology is a term that refers to all forms of technology involved with the musical arts, particularly the use of electronic devices and computer software to facilitate playback, recording, composition, storage and performance. This subject is taught at many different educational levels,...
and interactive telecommunications programs at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. In Fall 2008 he began teaching as a full-time professor at the Brooklyn Experimental Media Center at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU. As a graduate student at Columbia he was a contributor to Real-Time Cmix
Real-time Cmix
Real-Time Cmix is one of the MUSIC-N family of computer music programming languages. RTcmix is descended from the MIX program developed by Paul Lansky at Princeton University in 1978 to perform algorithmic composition using digital audio soundfiles on a VMS mainframe computer. After synthesis...
. Since 2000, he has worked for Cycling '74
Cycling '74
Cycling '74 is a San Francisco-based software development company and music label, specializing in Interactive Media. The company is best known for their work with the digital signal processing software environment Max...
on Max/MSP/Jitter
Max (software)
Max is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. During its 20-year history, it has been widely used by composers, performers, software designers, researchers, and artists for creating innovative recordings,...
.
DuBois has collaborated with a wide range of artists and musicians, including Elliott Sharp
Elliott Sharp
Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock,...
, Paul D. Miller
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
, Todd Reynolds, Toni Dove
Toni Dove
Toni Dove is a New York-based artist working primarily in electronic and interactive media. She is considered one of the pioneers of interactive cinema , and has shown work at ZKM, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Brooklyn Anchorage, and the Whitney Museum of American Art...
, Chris Mann
Chris Mann
Chris Mann is an Australian composer, poet and performer specializing in the emerging field of compositional linguistics, coined by Kenneth Gaburo and described by Mann as "the mechanism whereby you understand what I'm thinking better than I do."...
, Michael Joaquin Grey
Michael Joaquin Grey
Michael Joaquin Grey is an American artist, inventor, educator, and toy designer based in New York City....
, Matthew Ritchie
Matthew Ritchie
Ritchie attended the Camberwell School of Art 1983-86. He describes himself as "classically trained" but also points to a minimalist influence.Ritchie's art revolves around a personal mythology drawn from creation myths, particle physics, thermodynamics, and games of chance, among other...
, Eric Singer
League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots
The League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, or LEMUR, is a Brooklyn-based group of artists and technologists developing robotic musical instruments. Founded in 2000 by musician and engineer Eric Singer, LEMUR's philosophy is to build robotic instruments that play themselves...
, Bora Yoon
Bora Yoon
Bora Yoon is an American musician who uses unconventional instruments in her music.-Early life:Yoon grew up in the United States outside Chicago, Illinois...
, and Leroy Jenkins. He was a founding member of the Freight Elevator Quartet
Freight Elevator Quartet
The Freight Elevator Quartet were a music performance group specializing in improvised electronic music active in and around New York City...
, and has produced records for Bang on a Can
Bang on a Can
Bang on a Can is a multi-faceted classical music organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1987 by three American composers who remain its artistic directors: Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon...
composer Michael Gordon
Michael Gordon (composer)
Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the Bang on a Can festival and ensemble. His music is associated with the genres of totalism and post-minimalism.-Early life:...
on the Nonesuch
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
label. His music integrates real-time performer-computer interaction with algorithmic
Algorithmic composition
Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music.Algorithms have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in Western counterpoint, for example, can often be reduced to algorithmic determinacy...
methodologies repurposed from other fields, most notably formal grammar
Formal grammar
A formal grammar is a set of formation rules for strings in a formal language. The rules describe how to form strings from the language's alphabet that are valid according to the language's syntax...
s such as L-system
L-system
An L-system or Lindenmayer system is a parallel rewriting system, namely a variant of a formal grammar, most famously used to model the growth processes of plant development, but also able to model the morphology of a variety of organisms...
s. His research into issues of musical time revolve around a technique called time-lapse phonography
Time-lapse phonography
Time-lapse phonography is the name for an audio signal processing technique developed by R. Luke DuBois for his pieces and . The core algorithm consists of a highly modified phase vocoder that allows for the creation of a fixed or moving spectral average of an input sound represented in the...
, as used in his piece Billboard. His instrumental writing, like his artwork, is often based on techniques derived from stochastic music and data mining
Data mining
Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
, using metaphors and information from cultural topics as source material, but with a postmodern stylistic approach, as in the string quartet Hard Data, a six-movement sonification, which, although basing its musical structure on the casualty stream of the Iraq War, borrows heavily from the instrumental writing of Stravinsky, Messiaen, Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
, and Crumb
George Crumb
George Crumb is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello , metallic vibrato for the piano George Crumb (born...
.
As a conceptual artist, DuBois takes on various topics in American culture and places them under a computational microscope attempting to raise issues relevant to information theory
Information theory
Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...
, perception of time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
, canonicity, and gaze
Gaze
Gaze is a psychoanalytical term brought into popular usage by Jacques Lacan to describe the anxious state that comes with the awareness that one can be viewed. The psychological effect, Lacan argues, is that the subject loses some sense of autonomy upon realizing that he or she is a visible object...
. For example, his trio of pieces on gestalt media, Academy, Billboard, and Play, look at three iconic cultural "canons" in American popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
(the Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
, and Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine's Playmate of the Month). His piece Hindsight is Always 20/20, based on a statistical analysis of presidential State of the Union
State Of The Union
"State Of The Union" is the debut single from British singer-songwriter David Ford. It had previously been featured as a demo on his official website, before appearing as a track on a CD entitled "Apology Demos EP," only on sale at live shows....
addresses, uses computational means as a lens into the politics of political rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
. Fashionably Late For The Relationship, his feature-length collaboration with performance artist Lián Amaris, uses the radical time-compression of a 72-hour film of a performance to deconstruct romantic obsession. For his latest large-scale artwork, A More Perfect Union, DuBois joined 21 different online dating sites and constructed a census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of the United States based on an analysis of the profiles of 19 million single Americans; shown as a series of colored and re-labeled maps, the work investigates the lexicon of American self-identity in the 21st Century. His work is represented by bitforms gallery
Bitforms gallery
bitforms gallery is a gallery in New York City, New York, United States of America devoted to new media art practices. Breaking new ground in 2001, bitforms gallery has become a destination for artists, curators, and collectors exploring new art forms that lie at the intersection of software and...
in New York City, and has been exhibited worldwide, including at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival
2007 Sundance Film Festival
The 2007 Sundance Film Festival ran from January 18 until January 28, 2007 in Park City, Utah with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah and Ogden, Utah. It was the 23-rd iteration of the Sundance Film Festival...
and the 2008 Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 national convention...
.
Prior to becoming a well known laptop musician
Laptop
A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...
, DuBois did most of his improvisation and performance on Buchla
Buchla
Buchla & Associates, Inc. is a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, notably synthesizers and unique MIDI controllers. The 200e Electric Music Box and Lightning III are currently in production.-Buchla Music Box :...
and Serge modular synthesizers.
Notable works
- Billboard (2005)
- Play (2006)
- Academy (2006)
- Fashionably Late For The Relationship (with Lián Amaris, 2007)
- Hindsight is Always 20/20 (2008)
- SSB (with Lesley Flanigan, 2008)
- Hard Data (2009)
- a year in mp3s (2009–2010)
- Moments of Inertia (with Todd Reynolds, 2010)
- A More Perfect Union (2011)
Discography
- The Freight Elevator QuartetFreight Elevator QuartetThe Freight Elevator Quartet were a music performance group specializing in improvised electronic music active in and around New York City...
(Electronic Music Foundation, 1997) - The Freight Elevator Quartet's Jungle Album (Electronic Music Foundation, 1998)
- DJ Spooky vs. the Freight Elevator Quartet: File Under Futurism (Caipirinha/Sire, 1999)
- This Is Jungle Sky, Vol 6: Funk (Compilation, Liquid Sky Music, 1999)
- File Under Futurism EP (with DJ Spooky and A Guy Called GeraldA Guy Called GeraldA Guy Called Gerald is the stage name for the musician, record producer and DJ Gerald Simpson ....
) (Caipirinha/Sire, 1999) - Open Ends (Compilation, Museum Music, 2000)
- The Freight Elevator Quartet Becoming Transparent (Caipirinha/Sire, 2000)
- Exasperation EP (with JMD, Kit ClaytonKit ClaytonJoshua Kit Clayton, better know by his stage name Kit Clayton, is a San Francisco-based electronic and digital musician and computer programmer...
, Datach'iDatach'iDatach'i is the pseudonym of Joseph Fraioli, an electronic musician based in New York City. Datach'i's music places an emphasis on complex drum programming and elaborate timing.-Biography:...
) (Caipirinha/Sire, 2000) - State of the Union 2.001 (Compilation, Electronic Music Foundation, 2001)
- Radiolaria (Elliott Sharp, zOaR Music, 2001)
- The Freight Elevator Quartet Fix it in Post (Cycling'74 Music, 2001)
- DecasiaDecasiaDecasia is a 2002 found footage film by Bill Morrison, featuring an original score by Michael Gordon. The film is a meditation on old, decaying silent films and is similar in spirit to Lyrical Nitrate. It begins and ends with scenes of a dervish and is bookended with old footage showing how film...
(Michael Gordon, Cantaloupe Music, 2002) - Light Is Calling (Michael Gordon, Nonesuch, 2004)
- Messiah Remix (Cantaloupe Music, 2004)
- Timelapse (Cantaloupe Music, 2006)