Photo © 2010, Stephanie Hough.

Back, behind-the-scenes, I still have some articles in draft form that both detail the nuts’n’bolts decision-making processes in the construction of a machine improviser, and self-reflective critique such constructions, detailing the trade-offs and shortcomings of such an entity, and its design and implementation. I would like to get back to work on these at some point as they may provide as both cautionary tales and critical guides in future constructions of ‘creative’ automata and machine performances, and to anyone engaged in the critical (reverse-)engineering of such entities and their constructions. (There are so many stories, (self-)reflective and (self-)critical, of shortcoming and failures that get lost in our need to tell tales of technocultural heroics.)

Meanwhile, in this post I’d like to provide a selective index of documentation of io 0.0.1 beta++, its construction and performance, both of material published on this site and elsewhere.

Overview

\ constructor: Han-earl Park
\ copyright 2008 buster & friends' C-ALTO Labs
\
\ www.busterandfriends.com/io
\
\ (Edinburgh, November 1996 -
\ (London, August 1997 -
\ (Den Haag, October 1997 -
\ (Valencia, March 1999 -
\ (Southampton, May 2000 -
\ (Cork, April 2006 -
\
\ (Cork, October 2008 -
\
\ REV: 0.0.1 alpha (Southampton, October 2000)
\ REV: 0.0.1 beta (Southampton, November 2000)
\ REV: 0.0.1 alpha++ (Southampton, July 2004)
\ REV: 0.0.1 beta++ (Cork, May 2010)

io 0.0.1 beta++ is an interactive, semiautonomous technological artifact that, in partnership with its human associates, performs a deliberately amplified staging of a socio-technical network—a network in which the primary protocol is improvisation. Together the cyborg ensemble explores the performance of identities, hybrids and relationships, and highlights the social agency of artifacts, and the social dimension of improvisation. Engineered by Han-earl Park, io 0.0.1 beta++ is a descendant, and significant re-construction, of his previous machine musicians, and it builds upon the work done with, and address some of the musical and practical problems of, these previous artifacts.

Standing as tall as a person, io 0.0.1 beta++ whimsically evokes a 1950s B-movie robot, constructed from ad-hoc components including plumbing, kitchenware and missile switches. It celebrates the material and corporeal; embracing the localized and embodied aspects of sociality, performance and improvisation.

Chronology

• 1996–1999: Coding of early experiments, tests, and software components:
  • Edinburgh, 1996–1997
  • London, 1997
  • The Hague, 1997–1999
• March 1999: Construction of io begins in earnest, Valencia, California.
• April 2000: Debut performance of working prototype of io at the Roy O. Disney Concert Hall, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia.
• October 2000: REV: 0.0.1 alpha, Southampton, England.
• November 2000: REV: 0.0.1 beta, Southampton.
• December 2000: Recording of io 0.0.1 beta at De Illusie, The Hague, The Netherlands.
• July 2004: REV: 0.0.1 alpha++, Southampton.
• January 2008: With funding from the Arts Council of Ireland, major update and revision of io begins, Cork, Ireland.
• May 2010: REV: 0.0.1 beta++, Cork, Ireland.
  • Recording session at Ó Riada Hall, UCC Department of Music.
  • Debut performance at Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork with funding from Music Network and support from UCC Department of Music.
• August 2011: ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) released by SLAM Productions.

Documentation

Audio recordings

We watch and listen carefully because we know we’re seeing a kind of manifesto in action. What is an automaton? A sketch, a material characterization of the ideas the inventor and the inventor’s culture have about some aspect of life, and how it could be. io and its kind are alternate beings born of ideas, decisions and choices. It is because io stands alone, an automaton, that the performance recorded on this CD not only is music, but is about music.

Sara Roberts (from the liner notes)

[Additional recording…]

Articles and publications

My article, ‘In Conversation with an Automaton: Identities and Agency in a Heterogeneous Social and Musical Network’ [local copy…], published in the Leonardo Electronic Almanac: ‘My Favorite Things: The Joy of the Gizmo’ (Volume 15, No. 11-12, November–December 2007) is still probably the best description of the motivations and choices behind the io enterprise.

Abstract

io 0.0.1 beta is an interactive, semi-autonomous technological artifact that, in partnership with its human associates, performs a deliberately amplified staging of a socio-technical network—a network in which primary protocol is improvisation. In this paper, I explore the performance of identities, hybrids and relationships, illustrating the space between myself (human partner and constructor) and io through imaginary conversations between us. Considering that io highlights, in particular, the social agency of artifacts, I find it fitting that my own notions about the nature of improvisation, the technical and the social have changed through my interactions with io.

[Read the rest…] [Local copy…]

In addition, this site has the following short pieces about the construction of io 0.0.1 beta++:

Han-earl Park, ‘frankenmusic(s),’ November 25, 2008:

Fifteen days ago, during the break between beta test sessions, Franziska Schroeder asked a pithy question that cut to the core of this enterprise: what do I hope to achieve? My answer surprised me even as it reminded me of Sara’s observation: my goal with io (and io++) is to encapsulate my take on improvisation—its mechanisms, its sociality, its significance. [Read the rest…]

Franziska Schroeder, ‘io + I met,’ November 24, 2008:

Who is io? What does she sound like? How would she react to me? Would she respond? Would she challenge me (musically, that is). In other words, would she adopt sensitively to changes, make creative contributions and develop musical ideas suggested by me? [Read the rest…]

Images

images © 2010 Stephanie Hough, and © 2010–2011 Han-earl Park [additional images (google gallery)…]

Source code

Download all source files (requires HMSL to run):

• io 0.0.1 beta++ (322kB .zip archive)…
• Supporting components (180kB .zip archive)…

View individual source files linked below:

\ additional midi stuff

include?  task-midi_plus  myt:midi_plus


\ device classes

include?  task-device           myt:device
include?  task-midi_device      myt:midi_device
include?  task-interpreter      myt:interpreter
include?  task-ctrl_interpreter myt:ctrl_interpreter
include?  task-fan_out          myt:fan_out


\ input components

include?  task-parser         myt:parser
include?  task-mono_parser    myt:mono_parser
include?  task-mono_parser+   myt:mono_parser+
include?  task-poly_parser    myt:poly_parser
include?  task-guitar_parser  myt:guitar_parser

include?  task-parser_list    myt:parser_list

include?  task-pulse_tracker  myt:pulse_tracker
include?  task-pulse_tracker+ myt:pulse_tracker+

include?  task-banalyzer      myt:banalyzer
include?  task-banalyzer+     myt:banalyzer+


\ output components

include?  task-gm_instrument myt:gm_instrument
include?  task-gm_drumkit    myt:gm_drumkit
include?  task-gm_patch      myt:gm_patch

include?  task-vl_sysex      myt:vl_sysex
include?  task-vl_instrument myt:vl_instrument
include?  task-vl_patch      myt:vl_patch


\ "henri poincare"

include?  task-floatingpoint      hsys:floatingpoint

include?  task-hp_util            myt:hp_util
include?  task-hp_fputil          myt:hp_fputil

include?  task-hp_particle        myt:hp_particle
include?  task-hp_force           myt:hp_force
include?  task-hp_space           myt:hp_space
include?  task-hp_gravity         myt:hp_gravity
include?  task-hp_fpgravity       myt:hp_fpgravity

include?  task-hp_particle_player myt:hp_particle_player


\ graphics

include?  task-graph_plus    myt:graph_plus
include?  task-gr_view       myt:gr_view
include?  task-screen+       myt:screen+
include?  task-ctrl_numeric+ myt:ctrl_numeric+


\ io -- globals and configuration

include?  task-io_config   io:io_config
include?  task-io_glob     io:io_glob


\ io -- modules

include?  task-io_interp_table io:modules:io_interp_table
include?  task-io_interp       io:modules:io_interp
include?  task-io_player       io:modules:io_player

include?  task-io_particle     io:modules:io_particle
include?  task-io_space        io:modules:io_space
include?  task-io_patches      io:modules:io_patches

include?  task-io_pdur_dlog    io:modules:io_pdur_dlog


\ io -- main components

io_test? .IF
	
	include?  task-hp_screen   myt:hp_screen
	include?  task-hp_screen+  myt:hp_screen+
	
.THEN

include?  task-io_hp      io:io_hp
include?  task-io_matrix  io:io_matrix
include?  task-io_input   io:io_input
include?  task-io_output  io:io_output


\ io - user interface

include?  task-io_ui      io:io_ui
include?  task-io_screen  io:io_screen

io_file? .IF
	
	include?  task-file_elmnts     myt:file_elmnts
	include?  task-file_elmnts_mac myt:file_elmnts_mac
	
	include?  task-io_file_scene   io:modules:io_file_scene
	include?  task-io_file_glue    io:modules:io_file_glue
	include?  task-io_file         io:modules:io_file
	
.THEN

io_turnkey? .IF
	
	include?  task-dialog     myt:dialog
	include?  task-midi_menu  myt:midi_menu
	
	include?  task-io_menus   io:modules:io_menus
	
.THEN


\ io - top level

include?  task-io_top  io:io_top

© 2002, 2018 Han-earl Park

Tuesday, December 11, 2018, at 3:30pm: I will be giving a presentation at the Instituut voor Sonologie. Among other topics, I’ll be talking about my work constructing, and performing with, musical automata:

Improvising automata, and improvising cyborgs; performing stories of salvation through technology, and amplifying the voices of everyday artifacts. Cautionary tales, and small triumphs, from the practice of an institutionally unaffiliated artist-engineer, as he attempts to evolve techniques and approaches while riding the lines between ambiguity, didacticism, the improvisative, virtuosity, and neo-Ludditism.

The Colloquium takes place at the Varèsezaal, Koninklijk Conservatorium (Juliana van Stolberglaan 1, 2595 CA The Hague, The Netherlands).

Also, the next day (Wednesday, December 12, 2018 ) at 7:30pm: I’ll be performing a duo with Richard Barrett as part of the Sonology Discussion Concert. That event takes place at the Arnold Schoenbergzaal, Instituut voor Sonologie/Koninklijk Conservatorium (Juliana van Stolberglaan 1, 2595 CA The Hague, The Netherlands). Free entrance.

Image © 2001 Han-earl Park (sort of…)

Nothing directly to do with io 0.0.1 beta++ (it didn’t make the cut for this show), but the Hierarchical Music Specification Language developed by Phil Burk, Larry Polansky and David Rosenboom, and which drives the cognitive innards of io 0.0.1 beta++, forms part of the subject of the Luke Fowler and Mark Fell curated exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery, London:

The computer is a ubiquitous component in today’s music studios and on stage. Using sound, text and image, the new collaboration between Glasgow-based artist filmmaker Luke Fowler (b. 1978) and Sheffield-based multidisciplinary artist Mark Fell (b. 1966) examines the development of early computer music languages that have been obscured by more commercially viable options.

The exhibition looks at how the use of computers began to shape music-making through experimentation with unfamiliar techniques involving mathematical structures, data and unusual forms of interaction. These methods are buried deep in the archaeological sub strata of today’s electronic music. Working across visual arts and music, the display becomes a tool for local students to experiment with computer-based composition. [Read the rest…]

The show runs until February 7, 2016. Admission is free.

In teoria è tutto aperto, free, non ci sono quasi pre-istruzioni, tranne la durata approssimativa della performance — come in qualunque contesto improvvisativo — che va inserita nel sistema. Ogni atto — suono, rumore — è del tutto autonomo o almeno sotto la supervisione di ciascun agente interattivo, uomo o macchina che sia. io 0.0.1 beta++ è stato costruito secondo le pratiche comuni dell’improvvisazione aperta: non ci sono interventi non-musicali, quindi nessun interruttore a pedale, niente tonalità o tempi prestabiliti — per certi versi una blackbox. In pratica traccia i confini attorno al possibile: vedi le discrepanze tra finzione scientifica e realtà pratica, ma sono più che compensate dai musicisti umani. Se c’è qualcosa che manca, qualcosa che è divenuto sempre più evidente in questo lavoro di anni a stretto contatto con Bruce [Coates] e Franziska [Schroeder] nel perfezionare e costruire il sistema è il senso di evoluzione individuale.

[In theory, entirely open—free—almost no prescription (except for the rough duration of each performance which can be set in the system) just like it would be in any other open improvisative context. Every gesture, every bloop and bleep, is entirely autonomous, or at least under the supervision of each interactive agent whether human or machine. io 0.0.1 beta++ was constructed according to the common practices of open improvisation: no non-musical cues (thus no ‘footswitch’), no prearranged tempo, key, etc (it is, to some extent, a blackbox). In practice, there’s some interesting… boundaries around the possible (where you see the discrepancy between science fiction and practical reality), but those are more than compensated for by the human performers. If there’s one thing the system lacks, something that became increasingly apparent working closely with Bruce [Coates] and Franziska [Schroeder] over the years debugging and constructing the system, it is a sense of individual evolution.]

You can read more in the current issue of jazzColo[u]rs. [More from this interview…]

Expériences de résonnances et d’occupation de l’espace sonore. Très dramatique sans narration. Tout l’espace est occupé, toujours de manière surprenante, avec peu de sons, peu de matière (toutefois l’occupation peut se densifier sans rupture), travaillée finement, une dentelle de musique. Des allers et venues des sons comme de personnages sur ce qu’on peut vraiment appeler une scène musicale. Un travail de legato général, structurel, dans la rupture permanente des sons individuels. Un disque étonnant dans lequel les sons de l’automate sont reconnaissable sans être décalés. Les humains ne jouent pas comme s’ils étaient entre eux, le robot les influence, l’inverse est vrai. [Read the rest…]

[More info on the recording…] [All reviews…]

‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) [details…]

personnel: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

© 2011 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

It was about four years ago that—totally by chance: I found the CD in my mailbox—I listened to guitarist Han-earl Park for the very first time. While at first I believed that the only featured musicians on the album besides Park were Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder, a closer examination revealed that, besides being the name of the album, the tag ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ was also the name of the fourth member of the line-up: a “musical automata” that was fully engaged in an improvising role, in deep dialogue with those three “humans”. Something that, though not totally unprecedented—I’ll only mention trombonist George Lewis and his software program called Voyager—involved a lot of interesting issues. I have to add that the work appeared interesting and stimulating anyway, a feeling of quality staying with the listener well after all those intellectual preoccupations had been thoroughly investigated. [Read the rest…] [In Italian…]

[More info on the recording…] [All reviews…]

‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) [details…]

personnel: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

© 2011 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

Anomic Aphasia (SLAMCD 559) [details…]

personnel: Han-earl Park (guitar), Catherine Sikora (tenor and soprano saxophones), Nick Didkovsky (guitar), and Josh Sinton (baritone saxophone and bass clarinet).

© 2015 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2015 SLAM Productions.

I’m creating YouTube samplers of some of the more recent items in my discography, and I’ve started by uploading a trailer for ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) [more info on the recording…].

On the stage: two men, a woman, and an artifact, a freestanding mélange of industrial, military, and domestic hardware. The humans hold graceful, polished objects, but the domed assemblage stands alone. And while the woman and men make sound (vibrate the air) holding and fingering the graceful objects, the artifact, named io 0.0.1 beta++, makes sounds without being touched at all. io and the humans improvise together, listening to each other, responding to each other’s musical gestures.

Sara Roberts (from the liner notes)

Music by Han-earl Park, Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder.
Images © 2010 Han-earl Park, and © 2010 Stephanie Hough.
Video collage © 2014 Han-earl Park. ℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) is available from SLAM Productions. [Details…]

personnel: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

© 2011 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

Intellectually, if nothing else, the pair [Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park] are an intriguing match. Before his meeting with Barrett, in May 2010, Park recorded an album, io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAM), with two human companions, both saxophonists, and the titular automaton, io 0.0.1 beta++, which Park constructed himself.

Park describes io 0.0.1 as: “not an instrument to be played but a non-human artificial musician (‘constructed from ad-hoc components including plumbing, kitchenware, speakers and missile switches’) that performs alongside its human counterparts.” Performing with an automaton, Park says: “demonstrates alternative modes of interfacing the musical and the technological, and illuminates the creative and improvisative processes in music.”

In his duo [‘Numbers’] with the abstracted electronics of Barrett, Park explores pretty similar sonic terrain…. [Read the rest…]

[More info on the recording…] [All reviews…]

‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) is available from SLAM Productions. [Details…]

personnel: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

© 2011 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd).

personnel: Richard Barrett (electronics) and Han-earl Park (guitar). [About this duo…]

© + ℗ 2012 Creative Sources Recordings.

Han-earl Park

Based in Brooklyn, during 2012, Han-earl Park has been performing with Michael Evans, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Josh Sinton, Andrew Drury and others. He participated in Gowanus Company IV at the Douglass Street Music Collective, and as part of Out Of Your Head Brooklyn. A particular musical highlight was the performance with Tim Perkis and Harris Eisenstadt at The Stone (NYC) on September 7. On May 27, Eris 136199 (Nick Didkovsky, Han-earl Park and Catherine Sikora) debuted at Citizens Ontological Music Agenda/ABC No Rio (NYC).

2012 also saw the release of Richard Barrett and Han-earl Park’s ‘Numbers’ (CS 201 cd) from Creative Sources. A CD with a “bazillions of events” and of “transonic beauty and extreme structural atomization” according to Massimo Ricci, the record made Délire actuel’s 2012 Demanding Music Top 30. Barrett and Park performed in Scarborough on May 3, 2012. During that micro-tour, Park also performed as part of Mathilde 253 (with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith) at Freedom of the City (London), and as guest performer with the Mark Hanslip/Dominic Lash/Phillip Marks trio at Jazz @ The Oxford (London).

Audio recordings coming out in 2013 include ‘apophenia: A atomic symphony in 10 movements ii you seek iii a comfortable spot to listen iv to this v track the sofa perhaps vi or the vii floor however viii standing hand ix suspended over the volume x control you xi find that xii it is’ as part of ‘The $100 Guitar Project’ (BRIDGE 9381A/B) from Bridge Records, and the rerelease of the download album with Paul Dunmall and Mark Sanders which will be the final in the current series of download releases from busterandfriends.com (an earlier release in that series was with io 0.0.1 beta++ collaborator, Franziska Schroeder).

In addition to continuing his work with existing projects including Eris 136199, in 2013, Park will be performing and documenting a set of interactive, improvisative macros (he hesitates to actually call them compositions). Catherine Sikora and Josh Sinton and Park will perform an initial test-run at On The Way Out/Freddy’s (Brooklyn) on March 26.

Bruce Coates

‘Node/Flow/Mass Disaster Box’ at Magna (Rotherham, November 4, 2012). Photo © 2012 Bruce Coates.

Notable performance events in 2012 included the ‘Node/Flow/Mass Disaster Box’ at Magna (Rotherham) in November:

‘Node/Flow/Mass Disaster Box’ is an improvised sound piece bringing together 50 vocal and musical improvisers from the Midlands and South Yorkshire, performing on this magnificent post-industrial site. Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra and Juxtavoices, a unique Sheffield experimental anti-choir, provide the core of the performers along with musicians from all over the country.

Devised by Geoff Bright and Walt Shaw, the piece works with the idea of social processes and flows where individuals gather in groups, congregate as large collectives and disperse once again. Through sound improvisation it explores the history and atmosphere of the building and the spririt involved in the evacuation of the workplace. All inspired by the original 1970s steelworks’ ‘Diaster Box’, which contained plans, maps and procedures for evacuation in the event of a catastrophic explosion. [Read the rest…]

In addition to performances by the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra, new projects for 2013 include a duo with Walt Shaw, and a trio with Christopher Hobbs (percussion/electronics) and Virginia Anderson (clarinets) which will be debuting at Fizzle (Birmingham) on February 5.

Franziska Schroeder

Franziska Schroeder, Showcase Concert 2012 flyer. © 2012, Franziska Schroeder. Photograph by Caroline Forbes.

In 2012 Franziska Schroeder had a few exciting gigs, such as playing with her trio FAINT at the Perspective on Musical Improvisation in Oxford, commissioning new works for saxophones, premiered at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast, playing at the Sounds New Contemporary Music Festival in Canterbury, as well as doing a great new work with Evan Parker and a group of traditional and improvising contemporary musicians, premiered at the Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music, Belfast.

Schroeder was the Artistic Director of the Sonorities Festival, and she is also now the Chair of the Events Committee of the School of Creative Arts (CATE) at Queen’s University Belfast.

Schroeder published two chapters, one on the changes of form in music as brought forth by digital platforms. The chapter is ‘Shifting Listening Identities—Towards a Fluidity of Form in Digital Music’, and appears in S. Broadhurst and J. Machon (eds.), Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of Empowerment, Embodiment and Technicity (Palgrave Macmillan).

The other chapter is co-authored with choreographer and pianist Imogene Newland and is entitled ‘The Musical Body—Devising a choreo-musical interpretation for the work Tierkreis (1974–75) by Karlheinz Stockhausen’. The work will appear in Nine Ways of Seeing a Body: Body & Performance (Triarchy Press) in 2013.

Schroeder is working hard on editing and writing for a forthcoming volume on improvisation, to include writings by David Borgo, Georgina Born and Evan Parker. Forthcoming in 2013: Improvisation in the 21st Century (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).

And last, Schroeder received a teaching development grant from the HEA (Higher Education Academy) to run the PhD public engagement training called ‘BIG EARS – learning to design sonic arts’ [Twitter…].

io 0.0.1 beta++, Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder (Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork, May 26, 2010). Photo © 2010 Stephanie Hough.

Seeking performance opportunities; particularly in Europe, 2014: the cyborg ensemble of interactive, semi-autonomous, technological artifact and machine musician and improviser io 0.0.1 beta++ with human musicians Han-earl Park, Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder.

See performance proposal for further information (availability, technical requirements, performers’ biographies, etc.).

overview

This quartet (or faux-quartet, if you prefer) performs demanding free improvisation calling on a range of extended techniques. Pieces of dismantled gestures, destabilizing timbres, and impressive synergy.

François Couture (Monsieur Délire)

An idea that would be pleasing to the Futurists of a century ago, a total hymn to modernity…. The completely improvised session requires a lot of attention from the listener, to be fully repaid by that which is a successful experiment.

Vittorio (MusicZoom)

We watch and listen carefully because we know we’re seeing a kind of manifesto in action. What is an automaton? A sketch, a material characterization of the ideas the inventor and the inventor’s culture have about some aspect of life, and how it could be. io and its kind are alternate beings born of ideas, decisions and choices. It is because io stands alone, an automaton, that the performance recorded on this CD not only is music, but is about music.

Sara Roberts (from the liner notes to SLAMCD 531)

An extraordinary meeting between human and machine improvisers. Featuring the machine musician io 0.0.1 beta++ with guitarist Han-earl Park and saxophonists Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder, the performance is part critique and part playful exploration, both a boundary-breaking demonstration of socio-musical technologies and an ironic sci-fi parody.

Constructed by Han-earl Park, io 0.0.1 beta++ is a modern-day musical automaton. It is not an instrument to be played but a non-human artificial musician that performs alongside its human counterparts. io 0.0.1 beta++ representing a personal-political investigation of technology, interaction, improvisation and musicality. It whimsically evokes a 1950s B-movie robot—seemingly jerry-rigged, constructed from ad-hoc components including plumbing, kitchenware, speakers and missile switches—celebrating the material and corporeal.

The performances with this artificial musician highlights society’s entanglement with technology, demonstrates alternative modes of interfacing the musical and the technological, and illuminates the creative and improvisative processes in music. The performance is a radical and playful engagement with powerful and problematic dreams (and nightmares) of the artificial; a dream as old as the anthropology of robots.

The construction of io 0.0.1 beta++ has been made possible by the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland.

The CD ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) was released by SLAM Productions in August 2011.

further information

* Additional audio recordings and documentation available on request.

[Full performance proposal…]

updates

11–08–12: this is a repost of a previous article: change of availability from 2013 to 2014.

io 0.0.1 beta++ (SLAMCD 531) © 2011 Han-earl Park

Downtown Music Gallery is back up and running after Hurricane Sandy, and they need your support.

If io 0.0.1 beta++ could express a preference, I imagine it would state Downtown Music Gallery to be its favorite record store. io, however, cannot prefer, or express a preference for, anything… but you have my expression of preference!

[DMG review of ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531)…]

[Get the ‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) from DMG…]
[CDs by Han-earl Park from DMG…] [Bruce Coates from DMG…] [Franziska Schroeder from DMG…]

I’d be grateful if you could give these a play, and let me know if you have any problems, comments, criticisms or questions. I especially welcome feedback from those visiting via alternative and/or unusual browsers, agents, operating systems and devices. Please email me or leave a comment below.

[More audio clips from the CD…] [Additional audio recordings…]

Above audio clip courtesy of SLAM Productions. Music by Han-earl Park, Bruce Coates and Franziska Schroeder. Audio ℗ 2011 SLAM Productions. Please do not distribute the audio file. You are welcome, however, to distribute and share following pages: [clip 1…] [clip 2…].

‘io 0.0.1 beta++’ (SLAMCD 531) is available from SLAM Productions. [Details…]

personnel: io 0.0.1 beta++ (itself), Han-earl Park (guitar), Bruce Coates (alto and sopranino saxophones) and Franziska Schroeder (soprano saxophone).

© 2011 Han-earl Park.
℗ 2011 SLAM Productions.

updates

08–07–13: yet another change of audio player.