Panic by Proxy at the Walker Art Center

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PANIC BY PROXY is an audiovisual composition produced in collaboration with Syrian architect and multidisciplinary artist Khaled Alwarea. The piece is a long distance response and “musical” reimagining of Alwarea’s film Panic Attack. I will be making the debut performance of the piece at the Walker Art Center this Thursday, August 23, 2018.

The performance will feature audiovisual objects provided by Alwarea projected and amplified while being granulated in real-time along with electronic accompaniment. The dissonance, distortion, and uncanny synchronization illicit feelings of disturbance and confusion as an expression of the artist’s anxiety.

This video is a 0:45 clip from the 30 minute piece that demonstrates the audiovisual granular synthesis technique used to process the video in real-time. Ginormous thank-you’s go to Esmaa Imady for inviting me to participate in the event, Khaled Alwarea for his amazing film work, and Emily Gastineau at MN Artists for organizing the event.

Read more about Esmaa Imady and the other artists participating in this event on Hyperallergic.

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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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