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.
After Joel Ryan and Keir Neuringer’s appearance at the Ted Mann Concert Hall on February 21, 2009 for the Spark Festival, I had an opportunity talk with Keir during the night life event at the Bedlam Theatre. I told him all about Audio Cookbook and he agreed to posting a segment of his performance here.
The performance consisted of two improvisational pieces with Keir on saxophone and Joel Ryan processing the sound in real-time. The sheer breadth of textures and mood produced by the duet made it difficult to decide what to include in this entry.
The first piece was 23:55 minutes long, while the second was 10:15. Here’s a fifty-seven second segment from the first piece that illustrates some of Keir’s unorthodox techniques on the saxophone as well as Joel Ryan’s approach to real-time audio manipulation.
The opening piece at Spark, Concert 5 on Thursday, February 19, 2009 was Metamorphoses by Clifton Callendar for three cellos, or solo cello and digital delay. As it happens, it was expertly performed in the latter configuration by Evan Jones. The level and timing of the delay made the piece often sound as though there was more than one instrument present, and auto-panning on the delay trails sent the ghost instruments back and forth across the stage. The cellist was wearing headphones, perhaps listening to a click track. Here’s a short segment from the performance.
I have lots more from Spark that I would like to post, but it needs some sorting through, so here’s something of my own for now. This is an arpeggiated loop of a synthesized clavinet chord filtered in real-time with the cutoff frequency on the instrument, which happens to be the Korg MS2000. After looping it I ran it through some gentle amp modeling followed by two ping pong delays. One set very short and another set much slower. The short delay has a lot of feedback and almost sounds like reverb, while the long delay is creating the echo.
The best way I can think of to describe the work of dj sniff is “free turntablism” as in “free jazz”. That said, like a good free jazz musician, he clearly knows and anticipates every move he makes with precision. His work is more often angular and arrhythmic than not, and was entirely engaging for me as a listener. Currently dj sniff is involved with STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, Amsterdam) as their Artistic Director, curating events while lecturing and performing regularly on behalf of the studio. I recorded this brief segment of his set at the Bedlam Theatre in Minneapolis during his performance for Spark on February 19, 2009.
Kanta Horio’s recent installation at the Spark Festival consisted of a room with a dozen or more sound making mechanisms suspended by wires. One of the mechanisms was a metal teapot with a magnet traversing its circumference. When I asked Kanta how this was achieved, he graciously removed the lid from the teapot and showed me an internal motor rotating another magnet just inside the inner surface. With some good luck and a bit of patience I was able to get a few minutes alone in the room and capture some of the fascinating sounds that his piece was producing. Please note that no loud speakers were used in Kanta’s piece. This recording is a snapshot of the acoustic sound produced by the mechanisms involved.
After Joel Ryan and Keir Neuringer’s appearance at the Ted Mann Concert Hall on February 21, 2009 for the Spark Festival, I had an opportunity talk with Keir during the night life event at the Bedlam Theatre. I told him all about Audio Cookbook and he agreed to posting a segment of his performance here. 
The opening piece at Spark, Concert 5 on Thursday, February 19, 2009 was Metamorphoses by 
I have lots more from Spark that I would like to post, but it needs some sorting through, so here’s something of my own for now. This is an arpeggiated loop of a synthesized clavinet chord filtered in real-time with the cutoff frequency on the instrument, which happens to be the Korg MS2000. After looping it I ran it through some gentle amp modeling followed by two ping pong delays. One set very short and another set much slower. The short delay has a lot of feedback and almost sounds like reverb, while the long delay is creating the echo.
The best way I can think of to describe the work of 