STEIM (the studio for electro-instrumental music) is the only independent live electronic music centre in the world that is exclusively dedicated to the performing arts. The foundation’s artistic and technical departments supports an international community of performers and musicians, and a growing group of visual artists, to develop unique instruments for their work. STEIM invites these people for residencies and provides them with an artistic and technical environment in which concepts can be given concrete form. It catalyzes their ideas by providing critical feedback grounded in professional experience. These new creations are then exposed to a receptive responsive niche public at STEIM before being groomed for a larger audience.

STEIM promotes the idea that Touch is crucial in communicating with the new electronic performance art technologies. To much the computer has been used, and designed, as an exclusive extension of the formalistic capabilities of humans. At STEIM the intelligence of the body, for example: the knowledge of the fingers or lips is considered musically as important as the ‘brain-knowledge’. STEIM has stimulated the design of extremely physical interfaces and is widely considered the as the pioneering place for the new live electronic concepts.

STEIM’s artistic leader Michel Waisvisz is generally recognized as being the first to invent a practice for ecstatic live performance with live electronic instruments. Over the years a great variety of the pioneering artists of the live electronic performance arts have worked at STEIM. More recently STEIM is being discovered by DJ’s and VJ’s who want to liven up their act with physical control of their sound machines and laptops, also dancers, actors, visual artists and are coming up to STEIM to use the ideas found at STEIM and develop these further for there personal goals.

PRODUCTS:

LiSa X © v1.25: LiSa X © is sound manipulation software ultimately designed for live sonic performance. LiSa’s functionality is centered around creating a sound field in the computer, where the performer can record and manipulate multiple sound streams on the fly. Using live recorded sound and/or pre-stored revived sound montages; LiSa X combines the precision of studio practice with the liveliness of the stage. As a performance tool, LiSa X offers the oppertunity to use gestural input devices and control surfaces in an effective way to create augmented laptop music performances. As a specific studio tool, LiSa X allows the musician to compose and construct, play and resample multi layer sound structures with simple and fast moves.

LiSa X is built to simultaneously support: Live recording, gestural controlled playback, keyboard/control suface playback, automated pattern playback, sequencer controlled playback and immediate use and reshaping of other musicians live sound. LiSa X has been designed by musicians for musicians and is increasingly being used by performers for its rapidity and sonic feel.

junXion © v3: junXion © is a software tool to process incoming data from USB devices (joysticks, touchscreens, mice), MIDI devices and OSC sources using conditional processing and remapping. The outputted data (MIDI or OSC) can be routed to other MIDI controllable music and sound software or hardware.

BigEye © 1.1.4 (OS 9): BigEye © is a Macintosh program designed to take video information and convert it into Midi messages. Based on color information or a ‘reference image’ the software allows tracking of objects through space and converts their parameters into midi in real time. Using a powerful scripting language BigEye lets you build a ‘hands free’ digital control system for live performance and electronic installations.