This default x iii edition celebrates the launch of Maya Verlaak’s publication ‘Blueprint #3: Deviation’ as part of iii’s Blueprint series, giving a detailed insight into the presented work and inviting others to recreate her artwork. The event will involve an accompanying deviated walk, using the aforementioned compositional system developed by Maya Verlaak. For this walk, the audience will be invited to join at a given time and place before the start of the event – the details of this will be shared closer to the event.

iii member Maya Verlaak is a composer, for whom composing means research and communication. For each new situation, she develops new techniques and never takes anything for granted. Experimental methods for better communication are central to her work. Sharing the creative process is important to her, which is why she develops new notation systems for each assignment

A deviation for approximation uses cardinal directions from a simple cycled route as a musical structure. The compositional process investigates the idea of approximation and how one route can become a musical variation of another. The performers receive a route Maya cycled in the city of Ghent and are asked to walk or cycle the exact same cardinal directions in the city where the performance takes place. Every time the route is performed, the initial map develops into new variations.

Áine O’Dwyer is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is informed by both the conceptual concerns of sound art and traditional composition techniques, embracing the broader aesthetics of sound and its relationship to environment, time, audience, and structure. She has created works for large-scale and intimate settings that allow for both planned and chance compositions to co-exist in live situ.

Sing in the Dark is a multi-channel performance that pays homage to the European nightjar’s nocturnal vocalizations and mastery of acoustic camouflage. The bird’s association with darkness has cast a sinister tone through the ages, and brought with it a barrage of prejudice and superstition. The performer will remain invisible to its audience while vocally mimicking birds and insects from the surrounding habitat, using ventriloquism to confuse predators.

Vanessa Rossetto is a composer and chipper-shredder, processing whatever sounds cross her path into sprawling, long-form narratives. Trained as a painter, Rossetto began working with sound in 2007 as a way to incorporate the element of time into her work. Her output is mainly focused on recording works entailing rollicking, homebrew musique concrète, both on her own and with a host of collaborators.

Through an intricate diary-like stitching of field recordings, electronics, chamber instrumentation, captured conversations, diegetic music, and other found sounds, Rosseto creates music that makes the lost and humble sounds of everyday life feel very close and at the same time fit seamlessly in their respective carefully constructed realities. The performance presented at default x iii comes just after her 2025 release ‘Pictures of the Warm South’ (Erstwhile Records).