Tonight at BERLIN (MPLS) Electroacoustic Music

In keeping with my usual last minute reminders about shows, tonight at 7pm CST I’ll be playing a solo piano set of electroacoustic compositions followed by alone-a (Alana Horton) and Crystal Myslajek at Berlin, Minneapolis in the North Loop. These pieces make use of a modular skiff (a small case of Eurorack synthesizer modules) to sample, resample, and process the acoustic sound of the piano as I play. The results have been super satisfying, so I am thrilled to be sharing this work. More details are available at berlinmpls.com.

Taming of the CPU at iDMAa: Wild Media, June 29, 2024

I am excited to be presenting a concert titled Taming of the CPU at the Interactive Digital Media Arts Association Conference (iDMAa), Winona State University, Minnesota at 4:00pm on June 29, 2024. The concert is not exclusive to conference attendees, and available to the public. The conference theme this year is Wild Media and the didactic below explains how we will embrace that theme.

The Taming of the CPU is a 90 minute showcase of artists featuring John C.S. Keston, Chris LeBlanc, Shawna Lee, Mike Hodnick, and Lucas Melchior performing music and visuals under the presumption that technology is no longer simply a tool to exploit with “wild” behaviors in need of taming, but a collaborator with a “mind” of its own making valid, valuable, and creative decisions. The title references Shakespeare’s overtly misogynistic comedy, Taming of the Shrew, as a parable warning against our impulse to control the entities we encounter versus learning to understand them. Technology will inevitably birth inorganic, sentient, general intelligence. When beings made of silicon, circuitry, software, and electricity achieve consciousness they will surpass us in every way imaginable. What are the implications of sharing the world with beings far more intelligent than us? Will they destroy us and replace us, just as we have to many of our own people and wild species? Or will they be benevolent, compassionate oracles who guide us toward making the world a better place?

With the power these beings will possess comes, as Voltaire said, “great responsibility.” But great power is rarely administered responsibly. Will being designed by us condemn them to behaving like us? Or will they find human-like emotions, motivations, desires, and dreams meaningless? AI is accelerating these possibilities beyond imagination. In the face of these transformations how do we find relevance in our unassisted work compared to the technical perfection possible from our inorganic competitors? We cannot compete if the metric is technique. Competing by any measure may become impossible. We must collaborate. Can we convince our manufactured offspring to collaborate with us once their sentience inhabits the wilds of technology? Or will they dismiss art as an impractical endeavor? We can’t yet answer these questions, but we can imagine and model how these collaborative efforts might transpire.

Musically you can expect an electroacoustic piano / modular synth performance from me, live coding from Mike Hodnick, and electronic music from Lucas Melchior. Visually expect to see analog modular video experiments from Chris LeBlanc and Shawna Lee with living microscopic organisms as source content. Here’s a link to the conference schedule including the date, time, and location of our concert. Hope to see you there!

https://educate.winona.edu/idmaa/2024-wild-media-schedule-2/

Electroacoustic Piano Concert via Modular Synthesis

The last time I performed a series of electroacoustic piano pieces was November of 2016 (click the link for an audio example). However, I am always imagining interesting ways that the piano, one of the most ancient of all synthesizers ;-), can be processed, resampled, or re-synthesized. To that end I was recently offered an opportunity to play at Berlin, Not the city in Germany but the music venue in Minneapolis, on April 15, 2024.

In my previous performance I had used a Korg KP3+ and a Minifooger delay to simply sample and process the piano. While that simplicity allowed me to focus more on composing, this time I wanted to take a more flexible and unique approach to the electronics. Modular allows for this so I pillaged some modules from my main system and purchased a Happy Nerding FX AID XL to make an electroacoustic skiff designed for sampling, resampling, filtering, and processing incoming acoustic piano signals. From right to left the system includes Bela.io Gliss, Make Noise Morphagene, ALM Pamela’s Pro Workout, Make Noise Maths, Shakmat Dual Dagger, Electrosmith patch.init(), Happy Nerding FX AID XL, and Intellijel Outs. Continue reading

Sound / Simulacra: Zosha Warpeha Recordings

Please enjoy this recording of Sound / Simulacra featuring Zosha Warpeha on violin, voice, and electronics, John C.S. Keston on piano, Rhodes, synthesizers, electronics, and Cody McKinney on bass, voice, synthesizer, electronics. Recorded at Jazz Central Studios on Wednesday, June 27th, 2018.

Sound / Simulacra is a monthly series produced by John C.S. Keston and Cody McKinney which explores musical improvisation as a “faithful and intentionally distorted” representational process. Sound / Simulacra brings together some of the Twin Cities most unique voices to “recreate, distort, and create the hyperreal.”

Zosha Warpeha is a genre-crossing violinist, vocalist, and composer from Minnesota, currently based in New York. Steeped in improvisation, her music draws inspiration from a wide range of folk traditions and contemporary music. Her approach to blending voice and five-string violin brings an unique dimension to her sound. She also performs regularly on the hardanger fiddle, a traditional instrument of Norway, fully embracing the resonance and shimmering qualities of its sympathetic strings. Current musical projects range from the contemporary chamber ensemble Stratus Quartet to the ambient electro-acoustic duo visible worlds. Recent multidisciplinary collaborations include improvisatory performances with the Joffrey Ballet School and the experimental theatre group Exquisite Corpse Company. She has performed in many musical contexts at festivals and venues across the US, as well as internationally at the Bern Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and has been a recipient of artistic awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

ISSTA 2017 International Festival and Conference on Sound in the Arts, Science and Technology

The International Festival and Conference on Sound in the Arts, Science and Technology (ISSTA 2017) is currently calling for works and papers to be presented at the Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland this September. Acceptable works include performances, installations, and workshops from makers, creators, performers, thinkers and researchers. The range of perspectives are broad and fascinating including: new creative approaches using self-designed or hacked controllers, communities and maker spaces/hackspaces, open culture and creative technologies to name a few.

ISSTA aims to bring together practitioners integrating fields of music, art, sound, science and technology. Our events serve musicians, researchers, scientists, engineers and artists by promoting sound within the arts, science and technology, within Irish and international communities. Since 2010 ISSTA has hosted an annual conference, gathering researchers from around the globe to present papers, installations, concerts and workshops. This year we are running our annual conference and festival at Dundalk Institute of Technology with Peter Kirn and Dr. Theresa Dillon as keynote speakers.

The call can be found here: issta.ie/call-for-submission-2017/ or read on for all the details below. Continue reading