Midnight Playground is an interactive, kinetic, installation by Peng Wu, Jack Pavlik, John Keston, and Analaura Juarez. Peng initiated and directed the idea, Jack built the jump rope robot, and Annalaura helped refine the concept and promote the piece. My role was to produce the music and track it to the still images that Peng had selected. I ended up making a one hour video with thirty minutes of the image from the moon followed by a four second transition into another thirty minutes with an image of Mars. To produce the sound I gave Peng a list of audio excerpts that had all been previously posted on AudioCookbook in One Synthesizer Sound Every Day. He picked the two that he thought would work the best and I went back to my original recordings and processed them specifically for the piece by adding some reverb and delay to enhance the spacial properties of the music. The piece will be on display in Gallery 148 at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design through January 29, 2012.

Tonight (Friday, January 6, 2012) DKO is performing our first concert of the year. We’ll play two sets at Acadia, 329 Cedar Ave S., Minneapolis, MN 55454. This little gem of a venue has one of the best beer selections in the city. There’s no cover and all ages are welcome. Here’s another segment from our December 16, 2011 performance at the Kitty Cat Klub. This one starts out with some Pro-One arpeggios then moves into Rhodes playing with a solo at 4:43 and then a Pro-One solo at about 9:25.

This improvised piece from my trio DKO was recorded live at the Kitty Cat Klub on December 16, 2011 (live mix by Ryan Olcott and post mix by John Keston) and features Jon Davis on bass, John Keston on keyboards (that’s me), and Graham O’Brien on drums. For more music, information about DKO, and booking please visit dkomusic.tumblr.com. My rig on this track included two of my favorite standbys; the Rhodes electric piano and my newly calibrated Pro-One. I also had my Electro-Harmonix Memory Man Delay on a send and used the Korg Monotron for some atonal synthesizer textures.

COMPOUND is a 156-page publication compiling 22 artists and designers. The book is broken up into two sections: the first section of the book includes artist reviews, interviews with COMPOUND members, and pieces of writing that the artists and designers consider influential or inspirational to their work. The second section correlates the text section with the individual contributor’s visual practice. Samples of each artist’s and designer’s work is presented in full color on high quality matte paper. In addition to the two sections there is a secondary narrative that runs through the publication that timelines the development of the studio space that we all share: our COMPOUND. The book ends with a detailed index that includes a brief artist statement from everyone involved.

Don’t miss the debut of D.O.G. Three people, three bands, three totally distinct concepts. This event features performances by DKO, Ostracon, and Ghostband, Wednesday, November 30 at the Honey Lounge, 205 E. Hennepin, Minneapolis, MN (Doors at 9:00pm, 3 bands, $5 cover, 18+).

DKO – The headlining act of the evening includes Jon Davis on bass and bass clarinet, John Keston (that’s me) on Rhodes and synthesizers, and Graham O’Brien on drums. We perform improvised music that blends elements of jazz, funk, afrobeat, krautrock and post-punk with a dancefloor sensibility. Two sets. No cover. Drink specials.

Listen to DKO:
DKO @ Try This #4 Segment B
DKO @ Try This #4 Segment A
Battle of Everyouth Segment 103:28 to 105:44

Ostracon – The second project of the night is John Keston (that’s me) on electronics and Graham O’Brien on drums. The duo performs generative, improvisational compositions using John Keston’s custom software, the GMS (Gestural Music Sequencer), that converts video signals into musical phrases.

Listen to Ostracon:
Unauthorized Modifications
Ostracon

Ghostband – Starting the evening off is Moonglyph recording artist Ghostband who produces and performs some amazing experimental electronic music.

Listen to Ghostband:
ghostband.bandcamp.com
www.myspace.com/ghostband

This video illustrates the amazing sound art of Christine Sun Kim. Rather than explain it, or give away any details, please watch the video. You will thank me afterward!

On Wednesday, November 16, 2011, Olivia Solon of Wired.co.uk wrote an article describing my piece, Voice Lessons. I have creativeapplications.net to thank for this one. Olivia found the article about my piece there and then emailed me to ask for a brief interview. We conducted the interview over email and the article was published the next day. Read the article by Filip Visnjic on Creative Applications Network. Read the article from Olivia Solon on Wired. Thanks, Filip and Olivia!

Voice Lessons is an electronic, audio device that interrogates the popular myth that every musical instrument imitates the human voice. Touching the screen allows the participant to manipulate the visuals and vocalizations of the “voice teacher” as he recites vocal warm up exercises.

The piece resides in the space between a musical instrument and voice lesson. Move the touch point left, right, up, and down to explore the visual and auditory possibilities. Rapid high pitched loops occur while touching near the top of the screen while lower pitched longer loops are heard near the bottom.

The actor, also named John Keston, is my retired father who became a voice teacher after a long career on stage in plays, operas, and musicals with the Royal Shakespeare Company in our native country England and abroad.

Voice Lessons
32” interactive touch screen installation
By John Keston 2011

This video documentation was shot while Voice Lessons was installed at the MCAD Whittier Studios for a session of the graduate critique seminar in November, 2011.

The piece, developed in Max/MSP, granulates both sound and video in parallel as the viewer touches the screen. Synchronization between the the audio and visual content is maintained. The piece will be installed again for an open studio night on December 9, 2011 (6 to 10pm) at the MCAD Whittier Studios, 2835 Harriet Avenue South, Minneapolis.

The image above shows the main patch window for Voice Lessons. The X and Y coordinates of the touch-screen are translated into position, frequency, and grain width for the audio and video. When the screen is not being touched video without sound of the subject looking around the environment is played. I call this the idle mode and it serves to attract the viewer into interacting with the piece.

When the idle mode has been active for 1.5 seconds a new video and corresponding sound is randomly selected from a pool of five possibilities. Each video is a distinct performance of vocal exercises that explore a variety of vowels and consonants.

After more than two months of spare time spent searching and replacing, all of the audio and image files that were lost in the crash have been recovered. It is possible that a few things have fallen through the cracks. I have been clicking “Visit Random Entry” to do occasional spot checks since wrapping up my data recovery todo list, and a couple of things have come up missing that way.

It has been interesting to revisit the old content, but I am ready to move on and get back to posting some of my latest projects. If you’d like to help out the recovery process, click the “Visit Random Entry” link in the right sidebar a few times, and if you find something that doesn’t play, or a missing image or video, please post a comment with a link to the post in question. Thanks!