from san francisco to graz

as you might have read in my other blog i have had a crazy time in the last couple of months relocating from the bay area to graz in austria. i joined the institute for electronic music and acoustics (iem) at the university of music and performing arts graz for the project sysson – a systematic procedure to develop sonifications.
the goal of sysson is the systematic development of sonifications – from finding sound metaphors and creating a ‘sound library’ to aesthetic/scientific evaluation and finally the sonification tool. the procedure is developed with and tested on data from climate science.
i have had my first weeks of work behind me and it has been a great experience working with such amazing and smart people. i'm busy working on a sonification project now for a conference but we keep on updating sysson's website and soundcloud account throughout the project. we would love to hearing your thoughts and comments on the project and the whole process.
in the meanwhile i might not have enough time to make a lot of music but at least i try to attend concerts organized by iem and engineered by iem's team and kug. university of music and performing arts has an amazing new house of music called mumuth. i was lucky that i could attend a concert at ligeti hall of mumuth on the first week i started my work. it was a performance of brice pauset's anima mundi. the acoustic of the building is wonderful and the sounds were clear and crisp. i also love the architecture of mumuth and it looks a lot more intriguing at night with colorful lights changing the color of the building every twenty seconds. it also looks like a glass and metal aquarium. i also look forward to attend the upcoming concerts at the cube in iem, which reminds me of the listening room at ccrma with 24 speakers.

soundcloud global meetup

if you haven't used soundcloud and you are a sound creator or listener, you are missing tons. soundcloud is a social platform to share sound, music, and any type of audio. you can record, upload, and share any sounds you capture from your surrounding to your musical creations or even if you want to have your own alternative radio, or even if you want to share a conversation. what i love about soundcloud is that the sound creators are not promoted depending on their recording label or sound studio, instead it's a social network that people listen to what ever sound they are more interested in from all over the world. if you are interested in adding your own features, soundcloud also has a fantastic api that you can add up your own plug-ins or apps.
good news for the users and non-users of soundcloud is that there will be a global soundcloud day this coming wednesday and there are soundcloud events all over the globe on that day. i helped with a fantastic group of soundclouders in san francisco to have one in our city. if you like to hear more about soundcloud or share your experience with it and meet some people who love sharing sounds or using soundcloud api, join us on wednesday october 5th 2011 7pm-10pm @ the summit, 780 valencia.

we will feature soundcloud user instillations and apps using the soundcloud api, and will be online on twitter under the #SCMeetupSF hash-tag, so you can join us even if you're not at the summit.

the poster of the event is generously created by max poynton.

transitions 2011

don't miss these two great concerts at ccrma. every year when new students come there's a transition concert to welcome them and let them hear what kind of sounds are made at ccrma and what are all the possibilities. bring your blankets and hang out in the ccrma courtyard in these two evenings of electronic music. there will be sixteen loudspeakers, four subwoofers, and twenty seven squirrels that live under the lawn.


TRANSITIONS 2011 - night 1: soundscapes under the stars
Wednesday, 9/28, 8pm, CCRMA courtyard
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/events/transitions-2011-night-1-acousmatic
Acousmatic music by John Chowning, Gilles Gobeil, Jonty Harrison,
Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, Ake Parmerud, Hans Tutschku, and Unknown!

TRANSITIONS 2011 - night 2: live electronic music
Thursday, 9/29, 8pm, CCRMA courtyard
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/events/transitions-2011-night-2-live-electronic-music
Music by Chris Carlson, Bjoern Erlach, Mark Applebaum, John Granzow&
Hongchan Choi, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, Mike Rotondo&  Nick Kruge, Luke
Dahl, Locky, Cloud Veins.

sfemf 2011

the 12th annual san francisco electronic music festival took place on september 8 -11 in sfmoma and brava theater. it was the first time that sfmoma hosted one of the nights and it was amazing to have some amazing sounds in that space. 


one of the highlights of this year's festival was a tribute to max mathews. as you may already know we lost the father of computer music earlier this year. in sfemf marielle jakobsons and diane douglas played improv for olympiad using max's phaser filters.  max mathews' phaser filters create tuned resonances within any sound played through them., the way that a room can amplify certain frequencies depending on its shape. max loved to play these filters melodically to constantly shift the resonant space. he was also interested in harmonics for example, changing the tuning of his filters to quarter tones or complex chords.


from other new composers and media artists i was most fascinated by the music of cadet kuhne. her piece stora bioern is a collaboration with visual artist alba corral. the piece is  based on great bear constellation using a recursive algorithm to compose dynamics and structures. corral used processing to create visuals. since i am a fan of open source software, processing, i really enjoyed what she has done with it.  there are regularly processing workshops at gaffta if you are interested in learning more about the software. also cadets pulsing sound progressing in sync with the visuals were very fascinating. 

rose is a rose is a rose is a rose

i'm not a literature expert to talk about getrude stein's writings, but i like them rhythmically and enjoy how she plays with phrases. also i respect her work as being a contemporary art collector. there are two amazing exhibits in san francisco now on her life, one at sfmoma, and one at contemporary jewish museum. in these exhibits, her works in literature and art, life and relationships, and even works of artists about her are exhibited.

one of my very favorite art works on these exhibits is deborah sperber's after picasso. this work is based on picasso's portrait of getrude stein which is at metropolitan museum of art in new york. what sperber has done with several classic pieces is amazing. she has recreated these classic art works by using thousands of spools of colored thread arranged in abstract patterns that pulled into focus when viewed through a circular device resampling a crystal ball. from a few feet away they look like vague, pixilated color but through the optical device you see the perfect reproduction of the painting of picasso.

another interesting installation in this exhibit is terry berlier's human tuning fork #4. i really enjoyed her pan lid gamelan when she exhibited it with us at somaarts. that was a very interactive piece that you could play gamelan on an array of pan lids mounted on the wall. the human tuning fork is less interactive but very interesting. there are circles of tiny speakers mounted on the wall, each representing one country in the world. each speaker is wired parallel to the other which means the whole system either works all together or not at all. a sound recording of getrude stein text is played by the speakers which is translated into several languages.

ccrma fall concert

is time for another amazing night at ccrma in the form of a cagean musiccircus. there are all kinds of computer music in the program: installations, live performances, iphone music, and tape pieces: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/events/ccrma-fall-concert-cagean-musicircus

i was very inspired by benoit mandelbrot recently. since he passed away about a month ago, i went back to my mathematical interests and thought of using fractal algorithms to generate sound. i know i'm not the first person thinking about it but it inspired me to create new sound textures. in case you are not familiar with fractal geometry and are not much into mathematics to read about it i recommend this great documentary: hunting the hidden dimension.

i will be performing the piece fractale at ccrma's listening room as part of the cagean musiccircus tomorrow night. the piece has two sections; in the first one i tried to use fractals in a more rhytmic fashion whereas in the second part i have taken a more melodic approach. also having the listening room to create multichannel music is inspiring.

treasure island music festival

last weekend we went to treasure island music festival. it was definitely very different from european versions of it. music-wise the first day was more beat music that i rather go to see and the second day mostly indie. i really enjoyed deadmou5's show. great visuals, entertaining, and some good beats. kruder and dorfmeister were also one of the reasons i went to the festival on sunday, but they lacked energy that day. i used to see them in flex in vienna almost every week, but they used to spin more drum and base than lounge music. their show was still good but didn't make me dance. another entertaining band that day was die antwort but not the austrian one, the south african one. their words were a bit too harsh but they were entertaining.

the festival was very well organized. there were shuttle buses all day long from sf to the festival and back, great view of the city from the island, and an an awesome silent disco for taking breaks from the crowd. you could listen to the dj's music over a headphone and dance or just chill out in the silence and see people dancing to the beats.