Interactivity Sonified Workshop at INST-INT

The INST-INT 2015 conference, exploring the “…art of Interactivity for objects, environment, and experiences,” just happened and I had the honor and privilege of giving a workshop at the event titled Interactivity Sonified. The intent of the workshop was to teach attendees to sonify their work by triggering, generating, and processing sonic textures or musical forms through interactivity. I covered several basic programming techniques for including sound in projects with input devices and numerical values. Touchscreens, microphones, cameras, gyros, MIDI controllers, or any other stream or set of incoming data might be used to add sound. The sonification of this information adds a whole new sensory dimension to interactive installations and performances.

During the workshop I covered sonification examples in Processing.org and Max while looking at input signals from the Leap Motion, MIDI controllers, video camera, microphone, keyboard, and trackpad. We experimented with recording, looping, reversing, pitch shifting, and granulating sampled audio. We also looked at modeling waveforms and processing them through lowpass, highpass, bandpass filters, delays, and reverbs. Finally we looked at the convolution reverb in Max for Live trying out several of the IRs as well as discussing the technique of sampling impulse responses.

In this video I asked the attendees to pull out their headphones cords after completing the task of triggering sounds with a moving object. The resulting cacophony in the room was quite beautiful! I thoroughly enjoyed giving this workshop and would love to do it again. Please be in touch if you’re part of an organization interested in a workshop like this. For more information you can view the slideshow for the workshop at instint.johnkeston.com. Keep in mind that the slide show just a fraction of the activities. Most of the time was spent applying code and examples to either trigger, generate, or process sound.

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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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