Projects SI 28/Writing Machine Ensemble

Projects SI 28/Writing Machine Ensemble

Explorations in Potential Musicality

With the Writing Machine Ensemble, rythm and repetition are experienced in a radically new form. Explorations in Potential Musicality is a musical journey through the sonic qualities of printers—with a strong emphasis on improvisation, yet promising dramatic intensity.

The Writing Machine Ensemble, co-founded by it's current members, is an international group of experimental musicians from around the XPUB Studio. Independent and idealistic, they focus on blending the role of 'instrument' and 'musician' in an assemblage of artistic creation, striving to find the essential musical quality in tools of writing. Since its debut in September 2025, the ensemble has performed once on WORM Radio, for the 5th edition of XPUB's Special Issue Radio show, where the group's unique live scoring method was born.

Members

Emanuele Arrigoni, Daan Princen, Robin de Haan,Thijs van Loenhout, Monica Olympia, Erika Model, N.E.C. (Dottie) Parson, Taxan X.Y. Plotter

Input > Output

INPUT: Finger movements that originate symbols and letters onto electronic devices.

OUTPUT[S]: the same input text BUT on long continuous sheets of paper, thanks to the use of ink that is both being sprayed onto the paper thanks to the marvellous technical engineering of a head that moves horizontally, and imprinted, thanks to the mechanical movements of engraved metal rods hitting the paper. > The result is print. This action of printing produces noise. > Together, noises and symbols on paper, leads people to wander into stuff called semiotics, thoughts and imagination through the use of interpretation.

Intro

The Writing Machines Ensemble was born during the Special Issue 28 by a common interest between the members on working onto sound by going beyond the writing aspect of language. The focus on sound it has been put not on how words are spoken but on how text is printed. During one of Steve's first lessons we felt an attraction to the audible qualities of a typewriter. During prototyping classes we were exposed to the DOT Matrix (Dottie) babblebash and the attraction started to feel stronger, so we saw an opportunity to widen our scope. This was even further enhanced when Thijs and Manetta filled the room with vintage penplotters.

We started to gather inspirational content to have a better view on existing materials to better orient our direction. The first key example was the orchestral composition The Typewriter (1953) by Leroy Anderson in which the sonic qualities of a typewriter, like the hammering of the keys and the bell that indicates the end of the line, takes the focus. This orchestral composition was written and notated in a standard way for an orchestral ensemble. The player of the typewriter is rhythmically hammering the buttons, pressing a bell and sliding the platen back to the left of the page.

Other references were the Electronicos Fantasticos, Open Reel and Scratch Orchestra, they experiment with the sonic qualities of tools and electronics originally made not to produce sound as a key aspect. They also do it by bending circuits and creating new sorts of sound devices.

XPUB alumni Rosa Schuurmans and Riviera Taylor became also a major inspiration for our project. At HfG Karlsruhe they did an experimental performance with amplifying parts of printers. They programmed parts of printers to adjust the sounds and the rhythm of their printing.

All combined these sources sketched a beautiful outline to what we wanted our project and performance to be like.

Cognitive Assemblage

While discussing our concept, we came to an understanding that we were dealing with the cognitive assemblage concept by Katherine Hayles. The trial and error while trying out rhythms on the typewriters, and getting the Dot Matrix to work, gave us the insight that we’re working with more cognitive agents other than ourselves. They needed special use and care. Only working with us if handled in it’s right form. They’re delicate machines. It was clear that we couldn’t just exploit their talents. Using the media in a different way than it was intended, to manifest a role that it wasn't programmed to do before.

On Score notation

When speaking about music and performing it, a major topic that comes up it's the notation of it. Since in the SI28 we faced questions regarding language and protocols, we developed our own protocol for music & used language that goes against the standard ways of notation.

In our research we came across a lot of different examples of non-classical ways of notation. Key examples are Anthony Braxton’s Synaesthetic Ideal and Notations for Improvisers, John Coltrane Coltrane Changes - Circle of Fifths and Giant Steps | Visualized on a Mathematical Space, Daphne Oram Oramics and Jani Christou. During a trip to the Antwerp Art Books Fair 2025, Ema randomly came across MELODY III BOOK II by Jon Gibson (1976) in which FILL HERE WITH THE TEXT FROM THE BOOK -

Jon Gibson outcome is printed on a continuous sheet of paper, just like the pin-feed paper used for DOT Matrix printers. Thanks to that aspect we then started to read and interpret the scoring of Gibson in new ways. Our output printed on paper falls in between musical notation written before playing the music and the musical notation produced after having recorded music. We have used a continuous feed paper to really expose the material aspect of producing the score live, since it better represent the constant flow of music. As we're making the piece of music, the printed output represents both the documentation of it but it also can become a new musical piece or at least an interpretation. Our notation is always open to all different kinds of interpretations.

The agency in creating the scoring is shifted from a purely human process, to a collaborative one between the printers and human players. From the viewpoint of established music, the notation is part of creating a musical piece, and fixing it on paper before being played. The instrument usually is the tool through which the sound is produced, but in the Writing Machines Ensemble there is the duality of creating the live score of the sound that is heard and the sound played. Furthermore the contemporaneity of it; the sound from the machines is the actual sound that is produced to print.

The notation being the formal documentation process that encodes sound into a system we have learned to understand as music.

In our case, we had to work together with the machines in order to understand how every particular machine creates sound and by which parameters they work. If we want to use a machine that is intended for producing text as a tool to make sound, we follow their restrictions as the starting point. Text output has become a documentation of the printers sound production that does not follow the formal system of music, but we still read as having a 'musical' quality. And it is up to the human players to work with each printer's restrictions to learn how to collaborate with them. Then, we made protocols among us so we could have a way to improvise between human and machine play in a live performance, rather than relying on an established, universal language of music.

DOTTIE

Offers a wide range of sound possibilities that vary depending on the printed character. During our experimentations we tested all of the different sounds they can produce. We mainly used ! # % . a characters.

TYPEWRITERS

Repeat a sentence or a word over and over in order for the player to delve into the rythmic aspect and variations. Reference to The Shining (1980): All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Ema came up with ‘Everything is noise. You interpret.’ as an open critique onto how music also commonly falls into highly standardizations and on how humans are always drawn to categorazation and how it’s impossible to run away from it.

All parts of a typewriter

Everything is noise. You interpet.

The Ensemble

First of, the working title for the project was Typewriter Orchestra. This was rapidly Changed into Writing Machine Ensemble when Dottie (NEC Dot Matrix printer) joined the room. The word orchestra describes a group of instrumentalists, especially one combining string, woodwind, brass, and percussion sections and playing classical music. We ran with ensemble which refers to a group of musicians, actors, or dancers who perform together. The word lends itself for a more open and general collection of objects and players. Ensemble comes from the Middle French word ensemblée, which means "together, at the same time." Groups of people who perform at the same time are ensembles, so objects that are collected in a group. This tightly connects to the French word Assemblage, meaning "gathering" or "collection," which in turn comes from the French verb assembler meaning "to assemble" or "bring together".

Ensemble then perfectly embodies what this project is.

This type of semi-circular stage became our setting for the performance. Everyone in the performance was also placed on the same level, to make sure everyone is equal.

We used the names of the machines in order to personify them in a way, to highlight the fact we see them as participants of the orchestra operation and co-existing on the same level as the human players.The names of our typewriters are Erika Model and Monica Olympia. Two feminine names.

These names are not neutrals and it is worth considering this. When the typewriters were made, in their original context, naming the machines with women's names was used to reinforce gender-roles at the time. Subordinating women to the role of women's work to production work, not unlike the machines they used. The men do the thinking, the women are the secretaries. The naming of the machines with women's names suggests their work is equated to each-other. Our aim for this project is to re-mix these contexts, to call them into question. Choosing the setting of a formal orchestra follows this same line. Taking this setting, but presenting it as an experimental ensemble of typewriters and humans, creates an ironic tone in our performance that questions the validity of that formation. And likewise, by taking the names of the printers out of their original context, inviting them on stage in a collaborative music performance, we give them a new interpretation. Imagining just one other way-among many-to relate to technologies and established relations of power.

Performance structure proposal Walk in in line like an orchestra. Align towards the audience and bow. Go to the machines. Load the paper. Theatrical gesture of raising the index finger and start the Dot Matrix script. One after the other, humans start to perform with a machine. At some point Daan goes in front and performs with the body. When Dottie goes silent, the performance ends from there. Humans goes in line at the front, they bow at the audience and then they leave the scene.