Alternations Around Zero – Water

Warren Burt attended the State University of New York, Albany (BA, 1971) and the University of California, San Diego (MA, 1975) before moving to Australia in 1975. In Australia he has worked in academia (La Trobe University, NSW Conservatorium, Victorian College of the Arts, Australian National University, Victoria University of Technology), education, and radio (freelance and commissioned productions for ABC and PBAA), and as a composer, film maker, video artist, and community arts organiser. His works have been performed and shown in the USA, Australia, Europe and Japan and he has received grants from the Australia Council, the Victorian Ministry for the Arts and the McKnight Foundation (USA). Warren Burt has also been artist-in-residence with a number of organisations, such as the Australian Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation, the Los Angeles based art-science think-tank International Synergy, the Broadcast Music Department of ABC Radio, the Monash University Music Department, the RMIT Department of Fine Arts, the American Composers Forum, Art-Science Laboratory, Santa Fe, and the Djerassi Artists Program. Since the 1970s, Burt has toured and performed his electronic and computer music internationally, and has been especially active in the fields of interactive technology (especially with dancers and actors) and microtonality. Two books are currently available: Writings from a Scarlet Aardvark: 15 Articles on Music and Art, 1981-93 (Frog Peak Music, 1993) and Critical Vices: The Myths of Post-Modern Theory (in collaboration with Nicholas Zurbrugg) (Gordon and Breach, 1999). Recent CDs include A Book of Symmetries on “Zygotones: Loretta Goldberg” ( Centaur, USA, 2000), Five Tango Permutations on “Homo Sonorus - International Anthology of Sound Poetry” (NCCA, Russia, 2001), and Ethnic Static and Chinese Whispers on Stilling Time (Move, Melbourne, 2003). From 1992 until 2003, he was involved with Al Wunder’s ‘Theatre of the Ordinary’ in Melbourne, working improvisationally with dancers, actors and musicians. From 1998-2000, Burt held an Australia Council Composers’ Fellowship. In 2001 & 2002, he was Visiting Professor of Composition at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. In 2003 he was involved in the reconstruction of Percy Grainger’s 1961 Electric Eye Tone Tool, the first light-controlled synthesizer. Currently, he is a research fellow at the University of Wollongong, writing a book on Microtonality for the Beginner.

Cfr. nn. Arch. 152.27, 184.11 ZERO is a limited edition collection of one-minute soundworks by international sound artists, experimental composers, noise makers and other audio creators. Contributors were invited to create an original recording of one-minute duration for the CD on the theme of ZERO – whether through their stripped-down, low-tech aesthetic or a focus on themes of absence, abstraction, distortion or a sense of thereshold between one state and another. The CD contains a broad variety of one-minute soundworks and presents the results of artists working thematically in chance juxtaposition. By bringing together this calibre and range of contributions, ZETRO aims to stimulate further interest in the artist work and practice, debate and dialogue surrounding sound art. The artists on ZERO range from well known world figures, to individuals and groups making their first wirks in this field. ZERO was commisioned by the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT) and was published with the support from Liverpool Art School.