All posts by John C.S. Keston

SYNTAX

SYNTAX is an exercise in programming computers to program ourselves. The collaboration with Mike Hodnick AKA Kindohm includes four movements from me and four from Mike for a total of eight generative, animated, graphic scores. We follow the unpredictable yet familiar visuals making each performance similar, but distinct from the next.

The piece questions technological idealism in an age of ecological disruption and data-driven exploitation. By deliberately coding and submitting to an “inversion of control” we evoke the warnings of media theorists like Douglas Rushkoff, risking a future wherein our behavior might be irreversibly dictated by the algorithms in the software we use instead of by our own volition.

SYNTAX was performed at the Performing Media Festival on March 10, 2023 at LangLab in South Bend, Indiana and Tte next day in Kalamazoo, MI at the Dormouse Theatre. The video excerpt above was presented at NIME 2022, and we performed the piece in-person at the Internation Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2022) in Limerick July 2022, and at iDMAa 2022 Weird Media, June 2022.

Keston and Honick performing SYNTAX at iDMAa 2022 Weird Media

Parking Ramp Project

Aniccha Arts premieres a performance installation inside a seven-level parking garage. The project asks questions about transience, migration, and stability in a space that temporarily stores cars and is home to nothing. Performers pervade the parking structure with their bodies, working against the visible slant of the ramp to find their individual verticality. Questions we asked in creating the work: How do we find softness in a landscape of concrete? What anchors us on these alternating planes? How do we connect across such a complex landscape? video by: Cully Gallagher

This video by Cully Gallagher is 3 minutes and 30 seconds of fragments from the approximately 44 minute long Parking Ramp Project. Composing music for this performance installation showed me how far it is still possible to explore improvised music through experimental processes. Considering the acoustics of the parking ramp was a critical consideration within the musical scope. One approach to this was rests coded into the algorithms that allowed for the music to decay during long pauses while the ambient sound of the space inserted itself as an unintentional “performer”.

I am humbled by the willingness of Pramila Vasudevan and other collaborators to humor my scheme to compose the work using Javascript. This language allowed me to quickly produce animated, generative, graphic scores. It was also a privilege to perform the music with Peter Hennig (drums) and Cody McKinney (bass/electronics) who effortlessly interpreted the graphic scores. You can read and hear more about the project or continue for a gallery of screen grabs from the animated graphic scores. Continue reading →

ISSTA 2018 and Ableton 10 NRPN Morphing

Soon I’ll be on my way to Ireland for my second appearance at the Irish Sound, Science and Technology Association (ISSTA) annual conference. This year ISSTA will be held at Ulster University’s Magee campus in Derry, Northern Ireland, November 9th and 10th, 2018. Tickets are still available.

This time around my work is entirely rooted in FM synthesis. Particularly around my explorations of the amazing PreenFM2. I have designed a Max for Live patch that allows me to degrade, morph, and/or scramble sets of parameters on the synth. This is similar to a device I designed for the Yamaha TX81Z. This process creates an algorithmic approach to the sound design. Continue reading →

Generative, Animated, Graphic Scores for Parking Ramp Project

This video is one of the six generative, animated, graphic scores that I have composed for Parking Ramp Project. The music was performed live and recorded while the screen was being captured. This piece is called Connected. Colored circles are generated on the screen with connecting lines. One of the three colors is randomly selected to change the color of circles with which it collides. Once all the circles are the same color they fade away and a new set is generated with a different color as the changer. This continues for seven minutes.

Musicians respond to this score by producing a sound event when circles of their assigned color collide with another circle or the boundaries of the screen. This process produces phrases with arbitrary yet continuous rhythmic patterns. The dimensions, velocity, x-axis, and y-axis of each circle serve as parameters that can be interpreted and applied to the frequency, timbre, dynamics and/or duration of the sound event. This interpretation is left up to the discretion of the musicians.

Purple = Peter Hennig (Drums)
Grey = Cody McKinney (Bass / Electronics)
Green / Cyan = John C.S. Keston (Rhodes / Synths)

Bloodline will be performing the music live for the piece, directed by Aniccha Arts choreographer Pramila Vasudevan, with nearly fifty dancers at a parking ramp near the Mall of America, September 29th and 30th, 2018. Learn more about Parking Ramp Project below: Continue reading →