About John CS Keston

John CS Keston is an award winning transdisciplinary artist reimagining how music, video art, and computer science intersect. His work both questions and embraces his backgrounds in music technology, software development, and improvisation leading him toward unconventional compositions that convey a spirit of discovery and exploration through the use of graphic scores, chance and generative techniques, analog and digital synthesis, experimental sound design, signal processing, and acoustic piano. Performers are empowered to use their phonomnesis, or sonic imaginations, while contributing to his collaborative work. Originally from the United Kingdom, John currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he is a professor of Digital Media Arts at the University of St Thomas. He founded the sound design resource, AudioCookbook.org, where you will find articles and documentation about his projects and research. John has spoken, performed, or exhibited original work at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2022), the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2022), the International Digital Media Arts Conference (iDMAa 2022), International Sound in Science Technology and the Arts (ISSTA 2017-2019), Northern Spark (2011-2017), the Weisman Art Museum, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Institute of Art, the Eyeo Festival, INST-INT, Echofluxx (Prague), and Moogfest. He produced and performed in the piece Instant Cinema: Teleportation Platform X, a featured project at Northern Spark 2013. He composed and performed the music for In Habit: Life in Patterns (2012) and Words to Dead Lips (2011) in collaboration with the dance company Aniccha Arts. In 2017 he was commissioned by the Walker Art Center to compose music for former Merce Cunningham dancers during the Common Time performance series. His music appears in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012) and he composed the music for the short Familiar Pavement (2015). He has appeared on more than a dozen albums including two solo albums on UnearthedMusic.com.

Prophet 08 LFO Random Pitch

Posted on March 4, 2011 by John CS Keston

This sound from the DSI Prophet 08 reminds me of computer room sound effects from ’60s scifi flicks.

P08 LFO on Random Pitch

Prophet 08 Wobbly Analog Special Effect

Posted on March 3, 2011 by John CS Keston

Here’s yet another sound from the DSI Prophet 08 recorded during my recent random patch browsing session. Since I didn’t bother making notes of which patch I was using for which sound I am left up to coming up with names and descriptions of my own creation. Let’s call this one Wobbly Analog SFX. I’ve been granted an extension on the loan of the P08 from its owner, so expect to hear some programmed sounds in upcoming entries.

P08 Wobbly Analog SFX

Prophet 08 Hard Panned Stereo Pad

Posted on March 2, 2011 by John CS Keston

Here’s another sound from the DSI Prophet 08 recorded during random patch browsing. I’d describe it as a hard panned stereo pad.

P08 Hard Panned Stereo Pad

DSI Prophet 08 Presets

Posted on March 1, 2011 by John CS Keston

One of the things I’ve been doing with the Prophet 08 that I’m borrowing is playing through the presets. This is something I generally don’t like to do, but it’s a good way to get a feel of what an instrument is capable of. Many of the factory patches in professional synthesizers are exhibition sounds, programed to demonstrate the features of the instrument. Tonight I decided to record the process of playing through some of these presets for the purpose of sharing them here. Here’s one to start with.

Prophet 08 Patch Testing #1

VidiSynth Generates Audio from Light Sources

Posted on February 28, 2011 by John CS Keston

Expanding the VidiSynth Part III from paul sobczak on Vimeo.

Paul Sobczak has recently posted some videos documenting the VidiSynth. It’s has four independent oscillators that are controlled by either potentiometers or inputs from other sources. In this case he is using light dependent resistors or LDRs that suction onto a display. As video plays on the display the pitches change on all four oscillators based on the position of the LDR on the screen producing corresponding sounds. I’m not sure how Paul plans to use this, but I’m anticipating some interesting generative work with a synesthetic theme.