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.

Electric Independence: Inside Devo’s UFO Studio

Posted on April 21, 2010 by John CS Keston

I just got a note from Matt Musick at Vice Magazine regarding a feature on Devo just posted on Motherboard.tv. I haven’t had a chance to properly watch the entire feature, but I’ve been anticipating this, and will give it a good watch as soon as I am able. Here’s Matt’s note:

Hello John. I really think the Audio Cookbook audience would get a kick out of this piece and wanted to pass your way. The new episode of Electric Independence documents a rare look inside Devo’s studio. Mark Mothersbaugh himself gives us a tour through the space and shows us some of his favorite (and strangest) synths and circuit bending noisemakers. The guys even tell us some funny stories of their early Akron days, like the large girls (or “mother hens” as they like to call them) who would circle their equipment to warm it up before playing on those cold Ohio nights.

Watch Electric Independence: Inside Devo’s UFO Studio, They Whip It New Wave, But With New Hats

POSC Pocket Oscillator

Posted on April 19, 2010 by John CS Keston

This weekend I built a POSC Pocket Oscillator by Sonodrome as a prototype sound design element for an interactive dance collaboration. The circuit is incredibly simple, as you can see by the photo, but the variety of sounds possible with the two pulse wave oscillators is impressive. The first oscillator is controlled by by the players skin resistance between two zinc plated contacts, while the second is controlled by an LDR (light dependent resistor). Rather than running independently the first oscillation modulates the second.

After testing the build, I temporarily setup the POSC in a small cardboard box and started making sounds. During one test I found that a circuit could be made with two people. when one person touches one contact and a second person touches the other, then the people touch each other the circuit is made with a lot of resistance creating a much slower pulse. Here’s an unprocessed sample edited out of my initial experimentation.

POSC Sample

Sound Crawl 2010

Posted on April 19, 2010 by John CS Keston

This Friday, April 23, 2010 at around midnight I am very excited to be performing a rare solo set at McNally Smith under my Ostraka moniker.

I’ll be using a number of custom developed tools, including the GMS and my tentatively titled WTGM (Wave-Table Glitch Machine).

The event is called Sound Crawl and is being billed as “the official sound track for Art Crawl”.

Other artists include James Patrick and Timefog, Oliver Grudem, and Minneapolis Art on Wheels. More information and a complete schedule is available at:

http://blog.mcnallysmith.edu/soundcrawl/2010-schedule/

STEIM Electronic Music Lab at Japan Society in NYC

Posted on April 16, 2010 by John CS Keston

I have just been contacted by Steven Salzgeber of the Karpal Group about an upcoming performance of artists from STEIM in New York City at Japan Society on Saturday, May 8, 2009. Unfortunately I’m performing in Minneapolis on that date, so I won’t be able to attend. If you’re anywhere near New York for this show, I highly recommend checking it out. The STEIM performances at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art last year were some of my favorite moments of the festival, especially the set from DJ Sniff. Here’s what Steven had to say about the event.
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Gestural Music Sequencer Generative Track Competition

Posted on April 15, 2010 by John CS Keston

Now that the GMS beta has been out since December 2009, I thought it would be fun to start a competition to produce a track using this tool. Unearthed Music has agreed to consider the winning track for a spot on their upcoming compilation, Unearthed Artifacts Volume One.

The rules for the competition are simple. Create an instrumental track using the GMS. Every layer in the composition must be generated by video input fed into the GMS either through a camera, or by loading a pre-recorded video clip. There are no limitations as to what software or hardware is used to interface with the GMS in order to create the instrument sounds and produce the piece.

Editing and looping of the GMS MIDI output is allowed within reason. Please refrain from looping phrases that are shorter than one bar, or shifting several notes to tailor the melodies. I suggest experimenting with the note and duration probability distributions. All the drums and rhythmic patterns must be created using the GMS as well.

Write one-hundred to three-hundred words about how you produced your track and post it as a comment to this entry with a link to a 192Kbps or better MP3 file of the complete track. Links to a bio or videos about your process are great too. The track must be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. The tracks will be judged by a panel of representatives from Unearthed Music and myself. The submission deadline is Tuesday, June 1, 2010. Thanks, and have fun!