Chromatic Textures Shown at 6X6 #5: Mystery

On Wednesday, July 7, 2010 my piece Chromatic Textures was shown at 6X6 #5: Mystery, an exhibition at Ciné Lab in Athens, Georgia. My work was accepted along with five other artists, “…including Denton Crawford’s eyeballs, Aaron Oldenburg’s plunge into asphyxia, and a performance streamed live over the Internet from California.” Here’s my abstract for Chromatic Textures.

Chromatic Textures is a study on the synesthetic nature of our senses of sound and sight. Video input is used to produce generative musical phrases. The visual media is analyzed by the GMS (Gestural Music Sequencer) to create the musical forms in real-time. The software includes adjustable probability distribution maps for the scale and rhythm. Adjusting these settings allows familiar structures to emerge. The settings chosen for this piece cause notes within a particular scale to play more frequently, however, it is still possible for any note within the twelve-tone chromatic system to occur. As a result, dissonant or blue notes can be heard at rare instances throughout the piece.

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The process for this piece involved shooting a collection of hand-held, macro-focused videos of various objects and textures. The intent was to frame high-contrast images that would work well with my analysis algorithms built into the GMS and create a sense of mystery in keeping with the theme of the exhibition. After choosing the best shots from the collection, I edited them together and applied processing such as converting the majority of the clips to black and white, and slight adjustments to the brightness and contrast. I captured the musical forms in real-time as the visual media was analyzed by the GMS. Next I selected short phrases from the generated music and looped them on separate layers for emphasis. Finally I automated the processing to enhance the dynamics in the generative composition.

Although it might seem that this work represents computer generated music, my process maintains a dominant human influence by gathering information from organic, time-based, visual media and using it to produce dynamic musical phrases. The GMS is an instrument with a camera operator as the musician. This method aims to satisfy my curiosity for “auralizing” visuals as opposed to visualizing sound.

“6X6 is a monthly media arts event in Athens, Georgia, a cross between an art show and a film festival, first Wednesday of the month at Ciné Lab. Six curated short video, film, performance, sound, or other time-based combination works.” For more about the 6X6 event visit their site at hexadic.blogspot.com.

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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.

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