Author Archives: John CS Keston

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.

GMS Beta Release, September 28, 2009

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gms_grabI have decided on September 28, 2009 as the release date of the GMS, coinciding with my performance with Graham O’Brien, and my birthday. We can call it a combination Ostraka with Dial System and DJ Zenrock show, GMS beta software release, and birthday party. Currently I am releasing a binary version of the software for Mac OS X only. A windows version is in the works, with no prediction of when it’ll arrive.

The GMS is a Gestural Music Sequencer that I developed in Processing (processing.org). The application samples video and displays it either normally or inverted so it looks as though you’re looking into a mirror. Each frame is analyzed for brightness, then the X and Y data of the brightest pixel is converted into a MIDI note. These notes produce a non-repeating sequence based on movement within the range of the capture device.

For more details, including audio examples and video produced using the GMS, checkout the
GMS category. There’s also a Gestural Music Sequencer Documentary Short produced by Josh Clos, that does a good job of illustrating what the software does.

The Microtonal Beep Master 9000

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beep_master_9000One of my recent class assignments led me to create a patch that automates the playback of a pair of microtonal tones with a frequency range of 200Hz to 1200Hz. I call it the Beep Master 9000 (press tongue firmly against cheek). The large toggles in the upper left turn on and off each of the sine waves individually. The large bangs to the right randomize the frequency when clicked. Below the bangs are a couple of smaller toggles that turn on metronomes that automate the randomization of the frequency for each cycle~ object. The number boxes allow the user to adjust how often the pitches are randomized in milliseconds. The encapsulated sub-patch (“p rightMetro” amd “p leftMetro”) multiplies the frequency of each metro by 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, or 1 randomly. This causes the beats to change by divisions (i.e. 4 times faster when multiplied by 0.25, twice as fast by 0.50, and so on). Here’s a sequence I created using the Beep Master 9000.

Beep Master 9000

Simple Wavetable Oscillation with Max/MSP

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wavetable_oscillatorFor my second entry in the One Max Patch Per Week category I’ve created a very simple, monophonic, wavetable oscillator.

Although it hasn’t been a week since my last patch, I’m going to allow myself to produce more than one example per week, if I happen to have the time available. To create output from the patch I loaded a rim shot sample using the read button into the buffer object. After that I turned on the dac and dragged the mouse around on the keyboard, known as the kslider object in Max.

The kslider sends velocity data from the bottom right outlet. The velocity values are determined by the vertical position of the mouse on each key. I scaled the velocities to 100 through 127 so that I wouldn’t get very quiet notes while dragging near the bottom of the keyboard. View the comments to copy the compressed patcher.

Simple Wavetable Oscillator

Mapping Pitch and Amplitude to the Track Pad with Max/MSP

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trackpad_to_pitch_and_amplitudeCurrently I’m taking a graduate class in Max/MSP/Jitter at the University of Minnesota with Ali Momeni. Recent experiences including a night class in July at CNMAT (the Center for New Music and Audio Technology, UC Berkeley), and this current class at the U are really opening up my eyes (and ears) to the possibilities of Max 5. As a result I’m becoming more and more convinced that this is the ideal platform for the kind of projects I’m currently interested in.

The workload in the class is intense, but I have decided to punish myself even further by committing to post the audio output of at least one Max patch per week on Audio Cookbook in a new category called One Max Patch Per Week. It’s not quite as ambitious as my One Sound Every Day project, but with my busy schedule I should be able to keep up the pace.

Here’s my first entry into this new category. It is a simple way to map the input from the track pad or a mouse to the pitch and amplitude of a sinusoidal sound wave. For the patch I used the “pictslider” object, which outputs the x and y coordinates as scaled values.

I mapped the x coordinate to pitch with a range of values between 200 and 800 Hertz, and the Y to the amplitude with the typical MIDI based values of 0 to 127. I’ve included a screen grab of the patch so you can see how simple it was to do this.

Track Pad to Pitch and Amplitude

Ostraka with Dial System and Keston and Westdal Performances

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unearthed-musicI have a few performances coming up. One at the end of the month and two at the begining of October. Here’s the official word from Unearthed Music on the upcoming events:

Unearthed Music has a few upcoming events we thought you’d like to know about. On Monday, September 28, John Keston is celebrating his birthday by performing with Graham O’Brien on drums as, Ostraka with Dial System at the Kitty Cat Klub. The duet combines the stochastic, angular melodies produced by Keston’s custom music software with live drumming. Gestural video input is simultaneously projected onto a screen and processed into musical phrases. The results are live looped and molded into spontaneous compositions. Expert, veteran turntablist, DJ Zenrock, completes the bill.

Keston and Wedstdal with Graham O’Brien on drums are performing back-to-back events at Sauce with House Luna and Honey Stick (Thursday, October 1, 2009, $5.00) and the Dakota late night (Friday, October 2, 2009, $5.00). Sauce is located in Uptown on Lake and Lyndale and the Dakota is on Nicolet Mall in Downtown Minneapolis.

More Information:
http://www.unearthedmusic.com/?source=shows.php

Recent Releases on UEM:
http://www.unearthedmusic.com/?source=releases.php