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.
Number five in my sequence of experiments with FM synthesis is a bit noisier than the previous entries which is typical of sounds produced by randomizing parameters. Most of these I leave by the wayside, or edit specific parameters to make them more usable. However, this sound endeared me with is dirty and gravely characteristics. It caused me to imagine some scientific device of the future capable of materializing products or replicating a potato in a manner of seconds. This is the sound of that hypothetical device.
Today marks a total of one hundred sounds that I have posted consecutively in the One Sound Every Day category. To create todays sound I have simply started grabbing tiny, uniform chunks of audio from previous entries in the One Sound Every Day category. I sequenced them chronologically from oldest to newest, selecting what I thought might work in a micro sample opus. Sadly I ran out of time before I was able to sequence one hundred consectutive sounds, but I managed to make some good progress. As soon I return to the country I will continue this sequence and post a new version for you to listen to.
This drone represents the fourth in my series of FM synthesis experiments. It has a variable high frequency buzz, not unlike a typical evenings chorus of cricket calls, and an underlying low frequency drone that that throbs gently throughout the duration of the audio. This selection was made from a pool of randomized sounds. It was edited out of the surrounding audio but not processed in any way other than the processing that was randomized within the instrument.
Here is the third sound in my installment of FM synthesis experiments. Once again I’m using artificial selection to simulate a genetic algorithm. In this case I selected a rhythmic sound out of a large collection of randomized sounds then repeated the two bar loop four times to create an eight bar pattern based on the sample. To me it sounds like some sort of high tech laboratory equipment being operated.
One quick note. I will be out of the country from Friday, November 7 through Wednesday, November 12, 2008. On Friday, November 7 I’ll be posting my 100th consecutive sound, and want to continue the trend while I’m out of the country. So, I’ll be scheduling a series of entries based on these FM synthesis experiments to post automatically while I’m away.
This is the second in a series of FM synthesis experiments I am conducting with the X.FM instrument that is included as an example in MaxMSP. This sound was generated by randomizing the parameters in the instrument. I selected it because is has a nice artificial insectoid quality to it which is why I selected a photograph I took of a large dragonfly while camping at Nils Westdal’s bachelor party last September.
Number five in my sequence of experiments with FM synthesis is a bit noisier than the previous entries which is typical of sounds produced by randomizing parameters. Most of these I leave by the wayside, or edit specific parameters to make them more usable. However, this sound endeared me with is dirty and gravely characteristics. It caused me to imagine some scientific device of the future capable of materializing products or replicating a potato in a manner of seconds. This is the sound of that hypothetical device. 
Today marks a total of one hundred sounds that I have posted consecutively in the 
This drone represents the fourth in my series of FM synthesis experiments. It has a variable high frequency buzz, not unlike a typical evenings chorus of cricket calls, and an underlying low frequency drone that that throbs gently throughout the duration of the audio. This selection was made from a pool of randomized sounds. It was edited out of the surrounding audio but not processed in any way other than the processing that was randomized within the instrument. 
This is the second in a series of FM synthesis experiments I am conducting with the X.FM instrument that is included as an example in MaxMSP. This sound was generated by randomizing the parameters in the instrument. I selected it because is has a nice artificial insectoid quality to it which is why I selected a photograph I took of a large dragonfly while camping at Nils Westdal’s bachelor party last September.