jenny

Autoconstruccion

Iván Abreu, Malitzin Cortes

metacity self construction
AUTO{}Construction is an audiovisual concert of live coding and virtual reality in a video game environment. This act explores the relationship between speculative architecture and experimental electronic music, taking the phenomenon of informal housing executed by “non-architects” in countries like Mexico , United States, Latin America, Asia, India and some peripheries in Europe to create 3D imaginaries elaborated collaboratively with machine learning (machines trained to understand this phenomenon and reinterpret it), this audiovisual immersion is guided by a generative soundtrack that controls and gives life to this dystopian reality, a kind of music “self-constructed” by this score of inhabitable VR chaos.

E-09

Alexandra Maciá, Seamus O’Donnell

E-09 focuses on producing a live sound aesthetic composed of a collage of influences. While the live input of voice and electronic instruments is important, so are the frequencies of the radio bands and electromagnetic spectrum. Sources can include LW, SW and FM radio, where local electronic devices along with self-built mini FM transmitters interfere with normal reception. Power supplies feeding the devices used provide a color palette of EM spectrum tones to intuitively discover and manipulate. Other sources of electromagnetic sounds are the motors of the instruments used, such as the Dictaphone and the CD player picked up by a DIY broadband receiver for electromagnetic radiation. Other DIY instruments used are a digital circuit bending synthesizer and a circuit curve enhancer.
Once captured all these elements are filtered, dissected and then superimposed on themselves through repetition of patterns which in turn are destroyed – generating an organic, dynamic and progressive audible universe.

E-09 is collaborative live audio project developed by Alexandra Maciá and Seamus O’Donnell at the end of 2021. Their combined explorations envelop a wide range of approaches and intended outcomes. Always welcoming of fresh challenges E-09 thrive on a DIY attitude with an eye on the visualization of sound within the minds of their audience.

Alexandra Macia is a sound artist from Granada, Spain. Since her move to Berlin in 2015, she has been investing in analog sound and working with handmade instruments, sound recordings, loops, feedback, and electromagnetic signals which she processes using a modular synthesizer to sculpt cinematic compositions through the deconstruction of textures and noise.

Seamus O’Donnell works can include radio frequency experiments, manipulated field recordings, self made devices, amplified objects and magnetic fields, no-input mixer as well as other more traditional instruments and voice. Improvisation is probably the most important factor.
As an organiser O’Donnell works with the registered association, Salon Bruit e.V., a platform for experimental music and with ColaBoraDio, a part of the Freien Radios Berlin Brandenburg, as presenter and programmer on the local frequency 88.4FM.

YupanaSimi

Asimtria / Marco Valdivia, Milagros Paola Saldarriaga

Yupana Simi is an interactive audiovisual work executed through code in a programming language expressed in a syntax inspired by the Quechua, one native language of AbyaYala, which processes sounds from the Andes and contemporary graphics of artisans. The performance is executed by Semilla y Muerte and ###, audiovisual projects of Milagros Saldarriaga and Marco Valdivia, creators from Perú.

Milagros Saldarriaga
A woman of the abya yala, from Lima, who finds in the southern highlands the possibility of expanding her experiences and trying to unlearn the thoughts of cement to breathe the blowing of the apus, drink the water of the clouds, listen to seeds, touch the earth, resent the sun, look at the thunder, as a vital necessity to resist the violence that reigns and in search of harmonizing with life. Just taking off….

Marco Valdivia
He believes in technology and its appropriation as a tool for the development of people, individually and above all common and collective, focuses it on sound and audiovisual practice, and on the communication and exchange of knowledge and experiences on these same topics. From this perspective, he has mediated training spaces, shared talks, and presented concerts and works in different festivals, meetings, cycles and other specialized spaces in Abya Yala and other territories.

Since 2006 he has been developing his work from asimtria.org, an open transdisciplinary platform, focused on researching, carrying out, transferring and sharing various forms of creation based on the use, appropriation and free development of technologies applied to contemporary experimental music, listening and audiovisual, through projects such as Pumpumyachkan, Festival Asimtria, Festival Transpiksel, REUDO – Encuentro de Ruido, and others. He has also collaborated with other organizations and networks in the Latin American region.

Puckette/Hagan/Bowers

Kerry Hagan

Kerry is a composer and researcher working in both acoustic and computer media. She develops real-time methods for spatialization and stochastic algorithms for musical practice. Her work endeavours to achieve aesthetic and philosophical aims while taking inspiration from mathematical and natural processes. In this way, each work combines art with science and technology from various domains. Her works have been performed in Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas.
Kerry performs regularly with Miller Puckette as the Higgs whatever, and with John Bowers in the Bowers-Hagan Duo.
As a researcher, Kerry’s interests include real-time algorithmic methods for music composition and sound synthesis, spatialization techniques for 3D sounds and electronic/electroacoustic musicology. Her research has been presented in international conferences around the world.
In 2010, Kerry led a group of practitioners to form the Irish Sound, Science and Technology Association, where she served as President until 2015.
Currently, Kerry is a Lecturer at the University of Limerick in the Digital Media and Arts Research Centre. She is the Principal Investigator for the Spatialization and Auditory Display Environment (SpADE) and President of the International Computer Music Association.

Miller Puckette

Dr. Miller Puckette (Harvard; mathematics) is known as the creator of Max and Pure Data. As an MIT undergraduate he won the 1979 Putnam mathematics competition. He was a researcher at the MIT Media lab from its inception until 1986, then at IRCAM, and is now professor of music at the University of California, San Diego. He has been a visiting professor at Columbia University and the Technical University of Berlin, and has received two honorary degrees and the SEAMUS award.

Kerry Hagan is a composer and researcher working in both acoustic and computer media. She develops real-time methods for spatialization and stochastic algorithms for musical practice. Her work endeavours to achieve aesthetic and philosophical aims while taking inspiration from mathematical and natural processes. In this way, each work combines art with science and technology from various domains. Her works have been performed in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.

John Bowers

MTCD – A Visual Anthology of My Machine Life

Teresa Dillon

MTCD is a monologue in which the artist and researcher Teresa Dillon takes one “machine’ from each year of her life. From radios to home recording devices to her first experiences on the Internet, reflections on techs uses and misuses, failures and breakdowns, highlight the glitchy realities and contextual relations in which the key “machines” that shaped her technological know-how and imagination, play out.
MTCD originally premiered at Berlin’s transmediale in 2018 with further presentations in 2019. This updated but stripped back version is a special edition for PIKSEL 20th birthday.

Teresa Dillon (IRL/UK/DE)
An artist and researcher Teresa’s work explores the interrelationships between humans, other species, technology, cities and our environments. This currently manifests through three evolving programmes: Repair Acts (2018-) explores restorative cultures and practices by connecting past stories of care, maintenance and healing, with what we do today and how we envision the future. Urban Hosts (2013-) a programme that plays with civic conversational, encountering and hospitality formats and Liminal Routes (2020-) a mixtape and sonic tripping series for cities. Experienced in producing software and hardware projects, Teresa has also written on subjects such as open source processes, music, technology and design, sonic materiality’s and folklores, multispecies relations, surveillance, governance and the smart city, repair economies and artisan repair professions. As a Humboldt Fellow (UdK and TU, Berlin, 2014-16) her work documented artistic approaches to making the electromagnetic spectrum in cities audible. Invited to co-curate transmediale (2016) and HACK-THE-CITY (2012) for the former, Science Gallery, Dublin, since 2016 she currently holds the post of Professor of City Futures at the School of Art and Design, UWE, Bristol.
Links: polarproduce.org/ // repairacts.net/ // urbanhosts.org/

Prototyping DIY smart robots with Arduino and Machine Learning

Ivan Iovine

The workshop aims to teach participants the use of the Arduino platform in conjunction with the Ml5.js Machine Learning framework.

Each participant will be given a DIY robotic arm made of recycled wood, to which an Arduino will be interfaced. Through serial (WebSerial) communication, the Arduino will communicate with a Javascript application and the Ml5.js framework. Participants will be explained and taught the basics of Machine Learning, exploring and experimenting firsthand with pre-trained Machine Learning models for body recognition (PoseNet model), hand recognition (Handpose model), face and facial emotion recognition (FaceApi), as well as real-time object tracking (YOLO). Through the use of these Open Source technologies, workshop participants will be able to learn the basics of Arduino and Ml5.js, experimenting in a hands-on manner and creating customized human-machine interactions based on Machine Learning models.

Ivan Iovine is an interaction designer and media artist currently based in Frankfurt am Main. His artistic research focuses on the field of physical computing, physical interaction, machine learning and robotics. His works have been exhibited at “Maker Faire Europe” in Rome (2016), “JSNation Conference” in Amsterdam (2019), “Lab30” in Augsburg (2019) “Piksel Festival” in Bergen (2020) and “Die Digitale” in Düsseldorf (2021). In 2021 his work Theodore was published in the official journal proceedings of the scientific symposium “Art Machines 2: International Symposium on Machine Learning and Art”. The artwork was then exhibited in the same year at the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre in Hong Kong. He is head of the robotics lab at HfG Offenbach and teaches Physical Computing in the university’s art faculty.

Neural Networks in Pure Data

Alexandros Drymonitis

This workshop aims to demystify some basic concepts that pertain to neural networks, and their potential in artistic practices. Focusing on Pure Data and the brand new neuralnet object, the participants will be introduced to basic use cases of neural networks in audio (and visuals possibly), while the workshop will end with a collective brainstorming session where participants will either try for themselves, or will share their ideas on how they would like to use a neural network for their own work.

Alexandros Drymonitis is a sound and new media artist. He is a PhD candidate at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire doing research on the creation of musical works with the programming language Python. His artistic practice focuses on new techniques utilizing new media such as computer programming, AI, or even older practices, like modular synthesis.

He has collaborated with various artists from different art disciplines, plus several ensembles, either interdisciplinary or music ensembles.

He has taught the guitar at the Music School of Amsterdam and ‘Philippos Nakas’ Conservatory in Athens, and electronic music programming at ‘Musical Praxis’ Conservatory in Athens. He is currently a freelancer in the field of electronic music and multimedia programming, teaching several workshops in various venues and undertaking multimedia programming in various events.

Intro to PdParty

Dan Wilcox

This is an overview workshop PdParty, a free open-source iOS application for running Pure Data patches on Apple mobile devices using libpd. Directly inspired by Chris McCormick’s DroidParty for Android and the original RjDj by Reality Jockey, PdParty takes a step further by supporting OSC (Open Sound Control), MIDI, & MiFi game controller input as well as implementing the native Pd GUI objects for a WYSIWYG patch to mobile device experience. Various scene types are supported including compatibility modes for PdDroidParty & RjDj and both patches and abstraction libraries can be managed via a built-in web server. Unlike the rise of the single-purpose audio application, PdParty is meant to provide a platform for general purpose digital signal processing via Pure Data patches.

Dan Wilcox is an artist, engineer, musician, and performer who combines live musical performance techniques with experimental electronics and software for the exploration of new expression. He grew up in the Rocket City, and has performed in Europe, Asia, and around the US with his one man band cyborg performance project, robotcowboy.

screenBashing

Magno Caliman

screenBashing is a live coding piece, where audio and visual materials are programmed in real time during its performance using SuperCollider for it’s sound components, and C for it’s visual elements.
Visuals are created by printing characters such as backslashes and underlines in rapid succession, while at the same time freezing the whole system several times per second, creating the illusion of animated motion.

Audio is generated via an “oneliner”, and there are no refined performance controls to it, making it impossible later on in the performance to tweak parameters of something that was already generated and is being heard. Any modification on the code will create new versions of the audio, where the only possible option is to sound in superposition to previous layers, creating an accumulation which drives the narrative forward. Layers can not be paused or removed after their creation. Mistakes are impossible to be undone, and all decisions are final.

One consequence of this setup is that it is extremely resource-heavy on the computer, as it purposely freezes the whole system several times per second in order to create an animation.
This unavoidable consequence – saturation of the machine processing power – is embraced as a principle/composition guideline, and is deeply explored throughout the performance, with the computer becoming gradually more unresponsive as new animations are spawned. After a certain threshold, the system becomes erratic, up to a point where it is no longer possible to gain control of it.

Magno Caliman

Sound artist, educator and creative coder, both his artistic and academic research activities are heavily rooted in the embracing of programming languages as places for poetical speculation, as well as the construction, modification and manipulation of electronic circuits. Has a degree in Music Composition and a master’s diploma in Education, where he developed and researched learning and teaching methodologies for programming languages in the context of the arts. Former teacher of Multimedia Arts at Maia University in Porto – Portugal, and was part of the team running, managing and curating SOMAR, a venue in Lisbon dedicated to sound, art and technology.

Currently teaches at the “Artistic Research in Music” master’s programme at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome – Italy. As a doctoral researcher working with the “Music, Thought and Technology” research cluster at the Orpheus Institute – Ghent, he investigates how technical objects can operate as active, non-transparent agents in technologically mediated experimental sound practices.

robotcowboy

Dan Wilcox

robotcowboy is a wearable computing platform to explore new types of man-machine music & artistic performance. Embedded computing, custom open-source software, and audio electronics are utilized to build portable, self contained systems which both embed and embody the computation on the performer. This cyborg approach is both empowering and compromising as new sonic capability & movement are offset by the need for electrical energy: elements of tension between human and system. robotcowboy shows are always live and contain aspects of improvisation, feedback with the audience, and an inherent capability of failure.

robotcowboy’s first 2006-2007 incarnation melded rock with realtime algorithmic composition tools into a dynamic live show. The second incarnation followed the story of the first human on Mars with spacesuit as portable music machine in 2013. The ongoing third incarnation explores themes of trajectories, radiation, and space travel. The future is bright, do you have room to wiggle?

Dan Wilcox is an artist, engineer, musician, and performer who combines live musical performance techniques with experimental electronics and software for the exploration of new expression. He grew up in the Rocket City, and has performed in Europe, Asia, and around the US with his one man band cyborg performance project, robotcowboy.