Special Panel: Clarence Barlow

Panelists

• Fabian Czolbe
• Bernd Härpfer
• John Chowning
• Anne Wellmer

Moderator: Georg Hajdu

Fabian Czolbe, Bernd Härpfer and Julian Rohrhuber: “Amplifying Participation. The digital Barlow Archive (dBA) as an Approach to the Recording of a Digital Computer Music Legacy”

The archiving of computer music presents specific challenges that arise from the process-oriented, software-based, and technologically contingent nature of digital compositional practices. Digital artifacts such as source code, algorithmically generated data, and custom compositional tools encode not only musical outcomes but also procedural knowledge that is often implicit and difficult to formalize. This paper presents the Digital Barlow Archive (dBA), which may be taken as a case study for addressing these challenges through a translational and participatory approach to archiving computer music.
The born-digital legacy of Clarence Barlow (1945–2023) is open-ended and comprises heterogeneous materials. For doing justice to this openness and diversity, the dBA adheres to existing archival standards while extending them to account for computer-music-specific objects and workflows. Thereby, an object/event framework is employed to translate non-linear and iterative compositional processes into structured metadata representations that remain interoperable with institutional and international archival infrastructures. At the same time, the framework acknowledges the limits of formalization and preserves interpretative openness.
Extending the old idea of computing as an amplification of the intellect, this paper argues that such archival methods do not only passively conserve material, but need to translate and amplify the possibility of participation: they actively shape access, interpretation, and creative reuse of digital musical materials. Archiving should be conducted as an epistemic practice that mediates between technological history, compositional knowledge, and the contemporary computer music community. 

Bernd Härpfer: “From pioneer to role model – a tribute to Clarence Barlow’s legacy to computer music and the ICMC”

For over five decades, Clarence Barlow (1945-2023) has made significant contributions to contemporary music and, in particular, to computer music. He is recognised worldwide as a composer, interdisciplinary researcher, author, software developer and professor. Another defining characteristic was his talent for bringing people together, networking the scene and demonstrating great organisational stamina. A key milestone in this regard was the organisation and hosting of the 14th ICMC – the first time the event was held in Germany – in Cologne in 1988. 

Anne Wellmer: TBA

Raphael Radna: “Tombeau de Barleau: An Interactive Ludic–Algorithmic Composition in Honor of Clarence Barlow”

Tombeau de Barleau is an interactive, generative, and audiovisual composition dedicated to the pioneering computer-music composer Clarence Barlow (1945–2023), a teacher of the author. In this work, two performers play a Pong-style video game in which collisions between the ball and a portrait of Barlow play a MIDI-controlled piano. The performers affect this process only indirectly, as the gameplay itself governs musical parameters including harmony, density, rhythm, dynamics, and tempo. As a result, the work balances novelty and determinism: while its musical surface varies across performances, its underlying algorithmic structure provides a stable form.

Tombeau de Barleau adopts several elements of Barlow’s compositional style, including rigorously formalized algorithmic processes, unconventional uses of piano automata, translations between visual and musical domains, and playful or outlandish premises. It also applies some of his theoretical contributions, namely his methods for quantifying the consonance of harmonic intervals (harmonicity) and priority of metrical pulses (indispensability). This paper describes the design and implementation of Tombeau de Barleau and reflects on its function as an homage to one of algorithmic music’s most inventive and influential figures. 

John Chowning: TBA