August Black

Live collaborative radio with Mezcal

August Black

Mezcal is a web app for collaborative sound and live transmission that I have been prototyping and building in collaboration with https://wavefarm.org and multiple artists (such as Anna Friz https://nicelittlestatic.com/, Betsey Biggs https://www.betseybiggs.org/, and Peter Courtemanche http://absolutevalueofnoise.ca/?now).  In this 1 hour workshop, I give an overview of the software, its design intentions and practical implementations, and then split the group up into sections to create a live experimental radio session on-site. (note: this software is not YET free software, but lives in the web as a free service for free cultural institutions such as radio libre in Medellín, Colombia https://red.radiolibre.cc/ and Sound Camp in the UK https://soundtent.org/, among others)
https://august.black/mezcal/

August Black is a hybrid practitioner of art, design and engineering. He makes experimental spatial and acoustic situations, often by building his own technological artifacts and instruments in hardware and software. His past work focused on live networked audio, mixing FM radio with user input through online software. His current interests span the fields of the philosophy of technology, software studies, techno-politics, peer-to-peer networking and AI/machine learning. In the past, he’s been a member of arts organizations such as the ORF Kunstradio and the Ars Electronica Futurelab, as well as a former member of the engineering team at Cycling ‘74, makers of Max/MSP. He has shown works at festivals and venues such as Ars Electronica Festival, Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Wave Farm, Transmediale, Pixelache, LA Freewaves, Piksel Festival, Polar Circuit and the Tasmanian Museum of Art, among others.He earned a BFA at Syracuse University and was an NSF IGERT Fellow at UC Santa Barbara, where he completed an MS and PhD. He’s taught media and art classes at UC Santa Barbara, University of San Francisco and CU Boulder, where he serves as Assistant Professor of Critical Media Practices.

https://august.black

The Audio Composting app

August Black

The Audio Composting app is an engine used for decomposing existing acoustic and sonic waste into new organic material to fertilize and improve the sonic imagination. Humans from different backgrounds, identities, and natural habitats speak into their portable microphones (aka mobile phones) to simultaneously feed the system with acoustic content. The incoming sonic material, fed remotely through the network from near and far, is mixed together into an ongoing frippertronic mulching process that is synchronized across all devices. The result is a sometimes rhythmic, sometimes cacaphonic, assemblage of hoots, howls, whistles, stomps, bomps, and thwamps.

https://compost.listen.center/

August Black is a hybrid practitioner of art, design and engineering. He makes experimental spatial and acoustic situations, often by building his own technological artifacts and instruments in hardware and software. His past work focused on live networked audio, mixing FM radio with user input through online software. His current interests span the fields of the philosophy of technology, software studies, techno-politics, peer-to-peer networking and AI/machine learning. In the past, he’s been a member of arts organizations such as the ORF Kunstradio and the Ars Electronica Futurelab, as well as a former member of the engineering team at Cycling ‘74, makers of Max/MSP. He has shown works at festivals and venues such as Ars Electronica Festival, Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Wave Farm, Transmediale, Pixelache, LA Freewaves, Piksel Festival, Polar Circuit and the Tasmanian Museum of Art, among others.He earned a BFA at Syracuse University and was an NSF IGERT Fellow at UC Santa Barbara, where he completed an MS and PhD. He’s taught media and art classes at UC Santa Barbara, University of San Francisco and CU Boulder, where he serves as Assistant Professor of Critical Media Practices.

https://august.black

We Are Here FM

Betsey Biggs, August Black

We Are Here FM is a web-based audiovisual installation and transmission created by Betsey Biggs and August Black. A constantly shifting audiovisual radio station of sights and sounds, it brings together geo-tagged images and audio clips to create unnamed, imaginary, hyperreal landscapes, whose generative soundscapes are at times magically experimental and at times utterly mundane. Best experienced at life size projection, the audience must locate themselves within a realistic, yet utterly artificial landscape (both exterior and interior) and negotiate their place within it. Because We Are Here FM is a streaming experience, all listeners form a community experiencing the same landscape. The project was made using free and open-source software such as React, Node, and the Janus WebRTC server. We hope you will enjoy getting lost with us.

https://wearehere.fm/

I’m a composer and studio artist based in Boulder, Colorado. My work connects the dots between music, sound, visual art, place, storytelling, and technology, and has been described by The New Yorker as “psychologically complex, exposing how we orient ourselves with our ears.” Over the years I’ve written a book, worked as a video editor and producer, composed string quartets and multimedia operas, created big participatory art projects, earned a Ph.D. in music composition at Princeton University, and taught music, multimedia, public art, and video at Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of Colorado, where I currently serve as Assistant Professor. I’ve given talks about my work at Harvard, the New Museum, and lots of other wonderful places.
http://www.betseybiggs.org/

August Black is a hybrid practitioner of art, design and engineering. He makes experimental spatial and acoustic situations, often by building his own technological artifacts and instruments in hardware and software. His past work focused on live networked audio, mixing FM radio with user input through online software. His current interests span the fields of the philosophy of technology, software studies, techno-politics, peer-to-peer networking and AI/machine learning. In the past, he’s been a member of arts organizations such as the ORF Kunstradio and the Ars Electronica Futurelab, as well as a former member of the engineering team at Cycling ‘74, makers of Max/MSP. He has shown works at festivals and venues such as Ars Electronica Festival, Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Wave Farm, Transmediale, Pixelache, LA Freewaves, Piksel Festival, Polar Circuit and the Tasmanian Museum of Art, among others.He earned a BFA at Syracuse University and was an NSF IGERT Fellow at UC Santa Barbara, where he completed an MS and PhD. He’s taught media and art classes at UC Santa Barbara, University of San Francisco and CU Boulder, where he serves as Assistant Professor of Critical Media Practices.

https://august.black