I just finished sewing together an FM synthesizer that lives on a wristband and is controlled by a little brown button that serves as a knob and a pair of small pressure sensors made from conductive fabrics.  The whole thing runs off of an attiny45 chip, which is a really cheap AVR microcontroller chip that I’ve programmed with some FM synthesis routines.  In case you are curious, I uploaded some videos of the whisper synth on youtube:

It is a quiet little noise-maker, and is super fun to play with.  All of the electronic connections (except for the little hand-routed PCB) are made using conductive thread. I’m still working on some finishing touches like strengthening the weak points with embroidery and providing slightly better protection for the circuit, but the functionality is all there. Let me know what you think!

This is the noise module from the old San Francisco Tape Music Center’s Buchla Box, the first Buchla modular synthesizer. This synth now lives at the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music. It looks appropriate for generating white noise.

I picked up the book and although I haven’t had time to go through it completely, it looks fantastic. If David Bernstein’s previous writing is any indication, this is a must have for anyone who wants a full picture of American electronic music history. It contains interviews with the entire core group of the TMC, including Don Buchla, who doesn’t like interviews very much. The book is accompanied by a DVD with recordings of compositions originating at the Tape Music Center, along with visuals by Tony Martin.

Speaking of Don, he had a hard time getting in too…you can see his head near the wall, mysteriously surrounded by a glowing halo…

One of the nice things on display at the event was the Tape Music Center’s Buchla Box, the first (? at least large scale) Buchla modular synthesizer. It normally lives at Mills College in Oakland, CA.

A second highlight of the Zero1 festival was Fashionably Late For The Relationship a public performance by Lián Amaris Sifuentes, filmed by my friend Luke DuBois. It was presented in two formats, an installation on three screens, with footage being randomly pulled from the extensive footage archives, and an edited feature film version. I much preferred the film, perhaps because one of the major facets of the work is its relationship to time, and a theater setting invites this type of interaction better than a gallery setting.

From the site:

Fashionably Late For The Relationship is a three-day long public performance by Lián Amaris Sifuentes, filmed and digitally compressed into a feature-length video work by R. Luke DuBois. As a woman prepares for a night on the town, three days pass by in the city around her. In the live performance on the Southeast corner of Union Square, her slow, nuanced actions become a counterpoint to and critique of the unnaturally rapid and unyielding pace of the public environment which she redefines as the private, feminine ritual space of a boudoir. Her actions will be captured by a combination of three HD video cameras (wide, medium, and closeup) and a number of small surveillance cameras embedded in her set. The cameras will be shooting the entire time, with the result digitally time-compressed to a 72-minute multi-channel video installation. Accelerated to sixty-times speed in the final video, the barely perceptible acts of her intimate narrative unfold in a radically condensed time frame, making her actions the punctuation within the ephemeral blur of the transformed urban landscape. 

A trailer is also available at BitForms gallery.

From just about everyone I talked to at the festival, the top, number one, highlight was the performance by Author and Punisher.

A&P is a noise musician of the wall of sound variety (an aesthetic close to my heart). The music is well constructed, and although I think some more thought could be paid to transitional elements, on the whole it’s very moving material. There are influences from industrial and metal, but while the overall sound is much like you would expect A&P’s personal style is definitely recognizable, and I’m looking forward to hearing more of his music.  

But, what really stands about about his performances (and I believe translates to the sound) is the use of very large tactile controllers. There were three main controllers at the 01SJ set; a metal rotating cylinder, a long sliding handle, and a box with two throttle levers. While these are just basically large MIDI controllers (they produce no audio signal) they allow A&P to play with inertia and forceful haptics in performance. Watching someone slam a huge metal sliding handle into a large metal block, and hearing the resulting cacophony (which looked to be NI Battery among other things) is a much more visceral experience than hearing the same thing come out of a fader box. The huge speaker stack also helped.

While the tactile controllers were the real unique part of the performance, this seemed to be a blessing and a curse in regards to perception of work. In my own work, I personally value the final audio result over all else, including performance, and I use real time improvisatory methods only because of the ways they effect the sound, not to add interest to the performance. My appearance on stage is just not a concern for me considering the type of music I do. A&P’s performances are significantly more visually appealing than my own, and this led to great reviews at the show and a large audience. However, the kind of music being made was the sort that most people wouldn’t give a second listen without this performative element. There are certainly similar genre works being performed all the time with smaller audiences and not much exposure. It would bother me that the performance interface, in addition to its role as a sound sculpting device, was also functioning as a gimmick that attracted an audience due to its novelty. I would hate to detract from the soundscape with distractions such as that…watching this performances have made me think a lot about the perception of my own live work and how to keep the focus on the important elements while also incorporating physical controllers.

The full program, which includes some fantastic performances, is available at Esophagus.

They now seem to be in a bit of financial trouble.

The call for support is out to help fundamental research center STEIM keep their funding secure.

Things are not well at STEIM. We are in the danger of losing our structural funding from the government, based on a review from the advisor board which called us ‘closed and only appealing to a niche audience’. The outlook isn’t exactly bleak, but at the moment our future is unclear.

As we see you as an important friend and colleague of STEIM, we would like to ask you to help us present our case that we are connected to a diverse network of professionals and that our work has significant influence on both a Dutch and an international community.

What you can do is to send a letter of support, and make sure we receive it by May 26. We hope that these letters will show the variety and depth of the effect STEIM has in the real world. The contents are up to you, a few good lines will suffice. You could tell how you or someone you know benefited from their contact with STEIM: making or refining an instrument or an idea for a performance or meeting fellow artists, or what you feel would be lost if STEIM ceased to exist, or waxing aphoristic, just 12 words about STEIM. 

Also include some specific details of your context: as an artist or educator or musician or code hacker - so your place in the world will be visible for the committee. A letterhead with your organization or institution and your position or title above your signature are small things that can leave an impression.

As for how to reply, time is of the essence so email is the preferred option. If you have time to scan a printed letter that’s great but we can print emails or faxes as well.
Unfortunately we have only a short period for our response, so we would like to receive your letter by May 26. You can address the letter to the Council for Culture.

Please send your letter to:

Email: knock@steim.nl
Fax: + 31 (0)20 6264262
Address: Achtergracht 19, 1017WL Amsterdam, The Netherlands

To help, either send a letter to the above address, or you can comment online. Please help support our mainstays of music and technology research.

(Photos by Simon Lee)

I will be performing on Bus Obscura, a moving installation by artist Simon Lee, this Sunday. It has been in the Bay Area for the last week or so.
 

A single pinhole camera obscura is the ancient predecessor to the modern camera. It allows light through an aperture to project an image on an opposite surface.

Lee’s “Bus Obscura” takes the static image of a camera obscura several steps forward. He has blackened the windows of a school bus and made more than 1,000 camera obscura lenses on them.

When the bus moves, viewers inside watch the clear, bright images move — albeit upside-down and backwards. The result is an odd visual mosaic of trees swaying in the breeze and buildings, cars and people moving about.

I will be preforming on the bus with my friend Noah Phillips, a fantastic guitar player. Hopefully we can adequately accompany the visuals with some lush sonic washes.

The bus leaves from Rayko Photo Camera (428 3rd at Harrison) in San Francisco at Noon, and drives until Three. We have the first hour of the ride. 

It’s free.

Hope to see you there.

The Tenori-on global launch party is coming up in San Francisco this Friday. The event features music from Tenori-on inventor Toshio Iwai along with Robert Lippok, Pole, Sutekh, I am Robot and Proud, Nathan Michel, and Safety Scissors. This is a fantastic lineup, certainly for free, and everyone should sign up to make sure they get a slot.

For those who aren’t familiar, the Tenori-on is a new musical instrument that is part Monome, part Electroplankton, and part Kaossilator. It is the next in a line of musical instruments that are a cross between traditional instruments and toys, making electronic music production accessible while at the same time offering enough depth to create compelling works. This is vast uncharted territory, and the new surge of content creators from every walk of life will make these kind of tools all the more compelling, and serve to further break down the traditional model of the closed channel music industry.