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.

New Recordings Available on SoundSimulacra.org

Since we launched the Sound / Simulacra website last February we have posted new concert recordings from Michael Masaru Flora, Michelle Kinney, Martin Dosh, and Adam Svec. A total of eighteen recordings are currently available on the site with more to come. Please visit SoundSimulacra.org for more details or have a listen below: Continue reading

ISSTA 2019 Call for Proposals

October 31st and November 1st, 2019 the Irish Sound, Science and Technology Association annual conference and festival will be held in Cork, Ireland at CIT Cork School of Music. Keynotes include a performance and lecture from Robert Henke (Ableton Live, Monolake) and a performance and workshop from Ellen King (ELLLL / Gash Collective).

I starting going to ISSTA in 2017 and have had incredible experiences while attending and performing. It’s usually a fairly small gathering of like-minded artists, educators, performers, and scientists all of whom are experimenting with sound in fascinating ways. I’ve participated in many events, festivals and conferences, but nothing aligns better with my interests and practice than ISSTA does. If you appreciate the music and sound experiments I share here on ACB, then please review the call below for details about this wonderful gathering. Continue reading

Video: REV2 Patch Degrader Demo & Sounds

This video describes and demonstrates the device I designed to create most of the patches in the REV2 Experimental Sound Set available here on AudioCookbook.org:

https://audiocookbook.org/prophet-rev2-patch-set/

I am hoping to make it available sometime in the next few months if I can gage enough interest for a release. To hear five minutes of just the patches (no talking) please skip to 9:56. Also a complete playlist of all 128 patches is available on SoundCloud:

SoundSimulacra.org Offcially Launched

I am pleased to announce the launch of a new website for the Sound / Simulacra performance series that I produce with Cody McKinney. This website will host a calendar of events, artist profiles, and recordings of the concerts. Please visit soundsimulacra.org and let us know what you think!

Prophet Rev2 Experimental Patch Bank Now Available

Since November of 2018 I have been working on developing a collection of experimental patches for the Sequential Prophet Rev2. This was a ton of work, partially because I developed a custom Max for Live device specifically to explore more experimental soundscapes but well worth it. I am quite happy with the results and have made the patches available for purchase here on AudioCookbook.org. Checkout all 128 patches in this playlist or have a listen to a few of my favorites below.