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.

Notice The Changes Around Here?

You may have noticed a few changes around here. Unfortunately, at the present they are not for the better. The shared hosting service that I use suffered a catastrophic crash that wiped out the servers that hosted AudioCookbook.org and ten other sites that I either produced, maintained, or had a hand in.

This happened sometime during the afternoon on Tuesday, August 30, 2011. Having a busy schedule on that day (and since) I didn’t learn about the crash until midnight. I was up all night for the next three days assessing the situation and attempting recovery procedures. I discovered that the hosting service had no backup available (this is a long story that I won’t get into). So it was up to me to recover whatever possible.

After five years of no trouble from the hosting service I had become somewhat complaisant about daily backups, but I did have some things in order. Current backups of all the databases were available. I also have all of the sounds that I have ever posted here backed up locally. However, it will not be an easy matter to put all the pieces back in place. I have begun the process, but as well as teaching full-time I also just started a graduate program (ironically on the same day of the server crash), so my schedule will only allow me to focus on recovery incrementally.

As a result I have had to temporarily suspend the One Synthesizer Sound Everyday Project. I started posting a hand programmed synthesizer sound on a daily basis on January 5, 2011 and consecutively created two-hundred and thirty-six entries before the crash. I have more than enough material to fill this temporary void, but I am sorry that I won’t be able to get to it immediately. For now have a listen to a live, full-length, Ostracon mix that I finished editing this afternoon.

Ostracon at Honey

Ostracon Performance Segment 8

Here’s another excerpt from a recent Ostracon performance.

Ostracon Performance Segment 8

DKO @ Try This #4 Segment B

This is the second excerpt from our DKO set at the Slam Factory on Friday, July 29, 2011. My parts in this segment are dominated by a pulsing arpeggiation on the Pro-One with a little bit of Rhodes sparingly sprinkled in.

DKO @ Try This #4 Segment B by Ostraka

DKO @ Try This #4 Segment A

This is the first of a couple of excerpts from our DKO set at the Slam Factory series “Try This” #4 on Friday, July 29, 2011. This live recording sounds pretty good, but we are also planning to spend some time in the studio soon.

DKO @ Try This #4 Segment A by Ostraka

Ostracon Live Segment 13a with Drums

Ostracon Live Segment 13a with Drums