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.
This Friday, May 17 from 6 to 9:30pm (during the opening night of Art-a-Whirl) is the opening reception for the Master of Fine Arts 2013 Thesis Exhibition at the Northrup King Building, Gallery 254, 1500 Jackson Street NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413. I will be showing a series of prints titled Spectral Tablature with an iPad application to “listen” to the prints (more on that later), a 32″ interactive touchscreen installation titled, Machine Machine, and a kiosk with a series of filmed performances. I will also be debuting a performance piece titled, Instant Cinema, featuring DKO (music), David T. Steinman (mobile operator), and Jon Steinhorst (art direction). The performance begins at 9:00pm. Admission is free and open to the public. Two years of hard work has led up to this single night. If you have any interest in art, sound, music, or performance please consider attending. Thank you!
This piece was shot under a railroad bridge that I ride under during my commute. While trains are going over the bridge a nice rumbling, screechy ambience envelopes the space. On this occasion, a few weeks ago, melting icicles were dripping onto the sidewalk adding a chaotic rhythm to the soundscape. Rather than producing a drone to mimic the ambience I used noise, LFO pitch sweeps, and sample-and-hold on the Monotribe to contrast the reverberated railroad rumbling, and screeching.
NOTE: This is a binaural recording mixed with a monophonic, analog, synthesizer performance. Please use circumaural headphones to experience the binaural effect.
Here’s a recent addition to my series of duets for synthesizers and environments. Once again I have used the cleaners as a setting, but this time focusing on the spin cycle and using the binaural head with a fixed camera. The accelerating oscillations of the spin cycle are really fun to mimic with the Korg Monotribe. The dual speed setting on the LFO goes a long way. Pushing the speed up into the audio range one can create cross mod or FM like textures. This piece will be shown, along with similar work, at my MFA thesis exhibition next month.
NOTE: This is a binaural recording mixed with a monophonic, analog, synthesizer performance. Please use circumaural headphones to experience the binaural effect.
Here’s another piece in my series of subversive duets with indeterminate events. This piece will be shown, along with similar work, at my MFA thesis exhibition next month. NOTE: This is a binaural recording mixed with a monophonic, analog, synthesizer performance. Please use circumaural headphones to experience the binaural effect.
The true test of a new instrument is whether you can integrate it into your workflow and use it to produce satisfactory work. This I wasn’t so sure about after my first few hours of working with the Yamaha FS1R. The factory performance patches on the FS1R are all overloaded with effects and glitzed out to impress the ears of musicians from 1998. Despite the frustrating characteristics of the instrument’s patches, I had faith that the complexity of its FM architecture coupled with its formant shaping features made it something worth trying to tame. To produce Vortex I created the formant lead sound from the ground up, made a nice, wide stereo bass patch using a couple of DX voices, and adjusted a melody patch to my taste. The percussion and arpeggios were programmed and played on the DSI Tempest.
