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

[Continued from part 0…]
[Continued from part 0.1…]

Description of video: short calibration exercise followed by an improvisation; exploring ideas of the body-guitar as physical computer, and generating rhythm from that (cyborg) configuration. Recorded: Brooklyn, November 25, 2012.

[To be continued in part 1…]

I am writing a more humanly readable summary/expansion on some of these issues. I hope to have that article posted in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, for an alternative, complementary, critical take on the concert, see Melanie L. Marshall’s article on the ImproTech concert. I am indebted to @drmelmarshall, @tperkis, @piesaac, @jeffalbert and @weefuzzy for their twitterverse interactions that shaped my responses.

Twitter transcript (unedited)

Concert: Brooklyn, May 2012

Some thoughts from a technomusical concert coming up…

1. remind me to tell you about Joel Ryan’s story about politicking in computer music

2. wow. it’s like what turntableists did like three decades ago. #culturalborders

3. it’s the third time in two months I think, if you take away the electronics, there’s really fine ensemble there

4. funny how the iconoclasm and high mindedness is expressed by the uniformity of brand logos

5. almost feels more like a product demonstration than a concert performance #cantputmyfingeronit

6. Wasn’t this was more absurd/playful/questioning when Kagel did it?

7. How does one develops virtuosity w/ a trackpad/qwerty/lcd combo? Is virtuosity an impossibility?

8. Is it possible to develop a musical practice w/out a common practice notion of instramentalism?

9. What are the power implications of the sweaty saxophonist vs the effortless laptop?

10. Why is this more worthy of my attention in comparison to a NAMM show performance?

11. What would we do without cycles of fifth?

12. That really was terrible.

13. How often have you heard live electronic performance where you didn’t perceive the electronics as (primarily) reactive? #notacriticism

14. Why the ubiquity of the ramp envelope (the swell) in electronics? Are we fearful of sudden hits and cut outs?

15. …or does it perform the western romantic notion of the orchestra, with the centrality of the bowed strings?

16. While trip-hop and glitchcore explore the frayed edges of the artificial, why is so much Computer Music stuck w/ this?

17. …does the ‘natural’ (or the fear of the artificial) haunt the CM enterprise?

18. reminded of Park’s First Law of Live Electronics

19. is, say, a cello (always) already designed w/ the possibility of virtuosity? What does that mean for trackpads/qwerty/footswitches?

20. I am reminded of Richard’s talk about the need to spend time practicing—forging a kind of virtuosity and familiarity.

21. Anyone else feeling overfamiliar w/ the vocabulary of live video processing (in high art)?

22. …what is video processing? Is it a reductive, sculptural medium? Is it painterly?

23. …Is the emphasis on transformation, invention, or the magnification of what is already in the image?

24. Why don’t we hear the juxtaposition of the unamplified and the electronic more often? Again, is it the fear of the artificial?

25. Ask @tomerbe to tell you a story about GEL et al. and Bob Moog at ICMC

26. apologies for the lack of tweets, but that last performance was… fantastic. I could listen to RM all night.

27. The problem w/ percussion in European concert music is that you can _hear_ the (limits of its) notation (abstraction/schema).

28. this sounds like the CM we did when I was at the conservatory almost 15 years ago. Why the relative stasis in practice/sound?

29. …it would be wrong for me to repeat Bob Ostertag’s question… so I won’t

30. Reminded of Zappa’s rhetorical question of why anyone would want to see someon on stage press the PLAY button.

31. …also reminded of the old joke about the rock band that discovers their hit song by observing that it’s sh*t but at least it’s different

32. what is the effect when such simplistic notions of interaction are presented w/in the context of a shiny futuristic technotopia?

33. Problematic: I think this is great, and then realize that I have, as a listener, phased out the electronics.

34. In an improvisation, if a player is doing something systematic, detailed, & compelling, are you not obliged to meet them in that space?

35. Not convinced. Didn’t Ikue do this in the 90s w/ far more sophistication and humor?

36. Problematic musically, but I’m fascinated by this piece from an engineering standpoint. #theConstructorIsIn

37. Final thoughts: I only walk out of two performances, & I didn’t make my CM concert face, so that’s a lot better than most.

38. I always take my hat off to GEL. His post-Voyager pieces almost make me listen & forget my engineer’s hat.

38. See @drmelmarshall’s observations about gender. There’s a strong (perhaps self-defining) gender/race/class dynamic of CM.

39. …the dynamic is so strong that perhaps the only way you can continue to practice Computer Music is by ignoring the ideological…

40. …or perhaps the only people who continue practicing CM are those who are unaware of the ideological implications…

40. …or, more worrying, subscribe to certain gender/class/race ideologies.

41. …computers in so much CM the computer becomes assistive technology for the composer; further centralizing autocratic power…

42. …and power of definition.

addendum to tweet 29: Ostertag’s question. http://bobostertag.com/writings-articles-computer-music-sucks.htm #computermusic #politics #technology

43. following for a conversation w/ @drmelmarshall: is the anti-performance, anti-virtuosity stance of CM laptopiteers because…

44. …they identify as composer w/in the composer-performer hierarchy? To ‘perform’ in this context would be to identify w/ lower caste.

45. …studied anti-virtuosity similar to the ‘all mind’ of certain class of (white, male, bourgeois) academics as described by bell hooks.

Conference: New York, May 2012

Random thoughts from a technomusical conference coming up…

1. GEL: “creative machines” #expressiontoremember

2. GEL: improvisation ~ “process of social transformation”

3. I want to know more about imbuing machines w/ “integral subjectivity”. Let you know when I get a chance to corner GEL.

4. Never realized how much Richard’s playing resembles Sun Ra’s. #makingconnextions #aha

5. is this relational schema correct? tech knowledgepractical usemusical knowledge #epistemology #technoscience #music #culture

6. …do not (musical) technical objects (always) already (materially) embody musical knowledge?

7. …is not musical knowledge (always) already performed by the technical (in its construction, etc.)?

8. Is knowledge something that can be bound? Is it useful to think of (technical) knowledge in terms of intention?

9. …practice of close-reading & reverse-engineering suggests the link between intention and knowledge is a distraction, or fuzzy at best.

10. why the distrust of the regular beat?

11. Polish notation! #geeklove

12. reminds me of the ‘Free Jazz Bass Player’ simulator that I hacked in an afternoon. #isComputerMusicBeyondParody

13. Can musical be reduced to a series of BANGs. It’s not even a data type. #Max

14. Before asking the question of whether machines can improvise, should we ask if we can determine if we ourselves can improvise?

15. machine agency live on stage during a conference about machine agency. #revoltoftechnics

16. Is it useful to study #improvisation by drawing boundaries around it? thru definition? #ontology

17. …or would it be more illuminating to study #improvisation by its effects?

18. Ah, John Searle’s critique of hard AI. @weefuzzy will get this.

19. Is an algorithm an abstraction or representation of what a computer does, rather than (necessarily) what it _actually_ might be doing?

20. But Searle’s objection was partly a critique of lazy sizeism; there is no reason to believe that complexity/scale leads to intelligence?

21. Does no one else understand Searle’s critique?

22. Is the Western #Subject (as theorized/critiqued by #Foucault) holding us back in understanding the improvisative? #subjectivity

23. … #improvisation may offer alternative notions of #freedom, or relations, say, that have radical implications for the subject.

24. Searle’s critique actually nullifies the second stance: improvisation as an emergent property of a complex of algorithms. #duh

25. Do you ever see a paper title and wonder if they will address the ‘why we did this #research’ question? #academia #music

26. Apropos of nothing, the last transcription I did was Taylor’s Jitney… cured me of the need to do more perhaps.

27. Ever imagine if your, say, bugle or snare drum would be playable if it had even 1/10 of the latency of digital devices?

28. If gestures are the focal point of interaction/creation, why does one have to link it to novel sounds? #unaskedquestion

29. Pointless. #goingoutforair

30. 1 more thing: Searle’s critique was specifically of Hard AI’s dependence on simple, deterministic algorithms…

31. …it does not necessarily follow that it applies to other forms of computing (embodied robotics, neural networks, analog computation).

32. why the prefix ‘augmented’? what distinguishes it from, say, ‘cyber’? #nomenclature #artscatchphrases

33. Is #improvisation a tool? or is it a practice? process? method?

34. old question: is the notion of #mistake, flaw, right/wrong useful in discussing #improvisation?

35. Computer Music loves is acronyms & initialisms. #tradition #nomenclature #linguisticdetritus

36. …which I parodied w/ AMM (Automatic Morricone Machine-temporal morphologies) & io 0.0.1 bets++ (not an acronym). #linguisticdetritus

37. Interesting: first instance of a presentation dealing (pragmatically) w/ the issue of machine latency. #time #computation

38. …something that Bruce, @franzschroeder & I spent a lot of time, effort & (I hope) ingenuity addressing w/ io 0.0.1 beta++. #latency

39. Reminded of Risset’s advice about the importance of a Panic Button. #computermusic #liveelectronics

40. Why is on-screen feedback so important for these new #instruments? We don’t need flashing lights on the fingerboard. #interface

41. …despite our training, can we not trust our ears & bodies w/ these technologies? #instrument #technology #interface

42. …or is this an instance in which system #latency prevents reliable aural or tactile #feedback? #instrument #technique

43. Ask Joel Ryan to give you the incredibly detailed, rigorous meditation of The Slider.

44. Much of this is the realization of things we were klugily _attempting_ w/ archaic technology (8bit microcontrollers, MIDI) 10 yr ago…

45. …& would we have continued down that path had we known the results as they are realized now? #whatwasourmotivation #technodreams

46. Why are our technodreams just that little bit out of reach? Why are systems just one ‘feature’ short of what we desire?

47. …generally guitarists, say, do not wish if only the guitar frets spacing were wider in the middle register it would be perfect.

48. … #virtuosity becomes a #negotiation between the #technical, #physical & #physiological, not wishing extra limbs or laws of physics.

49. fascinating. people talk about Max (not the ‘program’, or ‘computer’) as the name of an entity. #linguisticdetritus #technics

50. Structured programming is not possible with Max. #discuss

51. In the middle of all this technomusical talk/presentation, get a real desire to hear @uitti2bows play. #realmusicianship

52. old joke: mathematicians’ results r precise, but study toy problems. engineers study real-world problems, but their results r approx…

53. …computer musicians, being neither engineer nor mathematician, study toy problems & fudge their results

54. yrs ago, Murray Campbell & I had a plan 2 present an entirely fabricated, counterfeit project, SimJazz: the desktop bebop simulator.

55. …some of that survives in the blurb at //www.busterandfriends.com/amm/ …anyway, maybe it’s time to revive that. #beyondparody

56. I live by my volume pedal, and I’d like to say that foot pedals definitely are _not_ and easy option. #feelstronglyaboutthis

57. interactive systems w/in a compositional frame? feels like @DoctorNerve or Clarence Barlow should be referenced in this presentation.

58. said this before: clamshell of laptop is designed to closeout the rest of the world. fine as your mobile office, but not as performance…

59. …Nic Collins said it’s like playing battleships. #laptop #music #performance #narcissism

60. borrow an expression from @matanaroberts: robotrane

61. anyone remember Matt Ingalls’ work with improvising automata? #youshoudlookthisupifyoudontknowit

62. fwiw, here’re my (old) experiments w/ generating #rhythm: //www.busterandfriends.com/hz/ #musicaltime #algorithm #robotics #automata

63. wonder if (notational) abstractions (quarter notes, triplets etc) are useful algorithmically. Perhaps there r computational shortcuts.

64. …perhaps we don’t generate rhythm w/ that notational abstraction. Maybe that abstraction is after the fact.

65. 1st presentation in which the entity is called ‘computer’ not Max? (‘computer’ is gendered male btw) #identity #gender #computermusic

66. presentation about this piece from last night: http://twitter.com/hanearlpark/status/202958935127359489

67. Reminds me of the AI music research based on #Jackendoff & #Lerdahl work on music cognition.

68. I remember Miller Puckette’s demonstration of tempo tracking in the mid 90s…

69. …algorithms are much more sophisticated now, but what we are doing w/ them seem not so different. #whathappened #technodreamsoftimespast

70. why are our dreams so durable? why the stasis in Computer Music? Ostertag’s question still haunts my mind. #technodreams

71. Is Rowe’s neat #dichotomy of the #instrument/player paradigm damaging 2 our ability 2 see alternative relations? #technology #music

72. thesis: instruments are not #neutral, they shape music. would it be wrong to respond w/ #duh

73. …but why frame this relation in negative terms? ‘constrain’

74. …#instruments are bound because we identify it, but is our #relationship constrained? #interface #cyborgs #music #virtuosity #technique

75. I’m done for today. #goingoutforair #goingtoseethesun

76. you know the discrepancy between an abstract & presentation that makes you think: this guy knows how to write grant app? #notacriticism

Conference: New York, May 2012

missed the morning session 2day which did sound more interesting (on paper). More random thoughts from a technomusical comference coming up…

0. …intermittent 3G connection, so this may not be exactly a live tweet…

1. Even the goofiest techno neologisms sound impressive w/ a French pronunciation. eg. acoumatique. #linguisticdetritus #randomactsofpoetry

2. Tenney’s Monster haunts the practice of Computer Music. #radicalreductionism #parameterization

3. isn’t a million miles away from Ikue Mori’s work (but that, as Ostertag pointed out, is not CM). #disciplinaryboundaries #policingborders

4. does #parameterization usefully describe musical processes? practices? in motion? #empiricism #reductionism

5. …what gets lost thru such #radicalreductionism? what gets lost from theorizing & constructing #music as discreet parameters? #empiricism

6. …I too struggle w/ Tenney’s Monster: it is attractive/compelling/‘intuitive’… but I fear what it may be bulldozing over alt. conceptions.

7. …what happens when such #radicalreductionism meets a practice such as #improvisation? #empiricism #parameterization

8. …under the #radicalreductionist gaze, what happens to a #practice that may embrace (& fueled by) unresolved #complexity & #contradiction?

9. Anyway, isn’t this what Barlow’s been doing for over two decades? #culturalamnesia

10. probabilistic behavior does solve the Infinite Slider problem, but I am unconvinced that musical performance is usefully parametric.

11. convinced that the listener & player components cannot be separate. #machinemusicianship #machinelistening #analysis #abstraction

12. …in real-time performance: listening does not create a reduction/analysis from which data is fed to the playing. #machinelistening

13. …as an improviser, u don’t translate input stream to a (notational) reduction before generating/modifying output… #machinelistening

14. …I/O is more closely tied together. or better, I/O is meshed in a complex, not-easily-reduced form. #improvisation #machinemusicianship

15. …almost like CM researchers took the simple beginners exercises as the model for how #improvisers practice their craft. #colonialism

16. Almost tempted to ask: why are you doing this? #nothelpful

17. didn’t get to ask my question: how is such a reduction/compression/cataloging of input data musical?

18. this afternoon, unlike yesterday, the entity is referred to as ‘we’ and ‘the system’. #nomenclature #machineidentity

19. …although a questioner referred to the entity as ‘he’. #gender #technology

20. #colonialism #appropriation #authorship had enough #goingouforair

21. Make a Computer Music Noise Here. #isComputerMusicBeyondParody

btw, if my live tweets stop, it’s prob. because my battery died. #doesanyonehaveausbchargerhandy

22. as a institutionally unaffiliated, part-time geek, I’m finding the CM tribes’ behavior fascinating. #amateuranthropology

23. this presentation is excellent. real scientist, real research. #myinnernerdishappy

24. “musicogenic seizure” #termtoremember #linguisticdetritus

25. trust a scientist to remind us how to do old fashioned algorithmic composition. #culturalamnesia

26. the researchers from the biggest Big Computer Music institute are amateurs compared to this guy. #realalgorithms #illuminatinguseoftech

27. …my faith in technomusical enterprises is revived. reminds me of my first fascinating encounter w/ algorithmic musicking.

28. now back to the rest :-/

29. idle thought: is it possible to use the same tech behind analog synth modeling to simulated analog computers?

30. fascinating idea: the theory of a #music is not understandable w/out physical practice. #raga

31. …but what happens when a system which makes sense physically is translated into a probability table? #embodiment #mind #body

32. it’s Break Like The Wind: Laptopiteers’ Edition #isComputerMusicBeyondParody

Concert: New York, May 2012

no live tweets from the concert tonight. Not enough power (well, strictly speaking, that should be energy s…ce pow…r is t… asu… t… ar… … ft…

final thought: when I started constructing improvising automata, I felt I was at the end of a long, illustrious but dying tradition…

…but now people seem to see themselves at the start of a wave. #whatishappening

anyway, re: the music, this would be much better w/out the computers. #neoludditism

Closing track here, Return Trajectory is a good for instance of the excellent rapport existing among the aforementioned [“flesh-and-blood”] players, whose parallel traveling seems to suggest a good dose of telepathy—check the final moments, the two winds going towards a note in teleological mode. This is the track that, in my opinion, clearly shows more than a trace of these musicians’ formative influences, with Schroeder’s soprano reminding me of Evan Parker (elsewhere on the album she sounds quite more personal), while Coates’ alto is clearly reminiscent of the zig-zag wondering of Anthony Braxton (an influence that is also quite apparent elsewhere on the album, both on alto and sopranino). Han-earl Park’s guitar sits somewhere halfway between Joe Pass and Derek Bailey, being quite aware of the jazz vocabulary and the art of comping, though of course filtered through a modern sensibility, starting with timbre, but not as ‘indifferent’ to the surrounding as Bailey’s sometimes could be.

Were the album as good as its closing track, well… we’d only have a good album, nothing more. But—surprise!—as per its title, we have an ‘unknown quantity’ called io 0.0.1 beta++: a ‘musical automaton’ created by Han-earl Park whose improvising—so rich when it comes to timbres (which are sometimes more than a bit old-fashioned, a fact that goes well with its bizarre physical aspect, so reminiscent of 50s sci-fi movies), so mysterious when it comes to its decision-making—works as a valuable stimulus for its fellow musicians.

If on an aesthetic plane the main parallel that I can trace (one that I hope can be useful to readers) is with mid-80s Company, here the work as it’s offered to the listener appears to highlight the issue of the decisional process which is at the basis of improvisation when seen as a conscious ‘discipline of choices’. And in the CD liner notes penned by Sara Roberts I seemed to detect more than an echo of those debates which flourish about the famous (?) Turing Test. [Read the rest…] [In Italian…]

— Beppe Colli (CloudsandClocks)

[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.

Ce quatuor (ou faux-quatuor, à la limite) propose des improvisations libres exigeantes faisant appel à de nombreuses techniques étendues, des pièces aux gestes décomposés, aux timbres déstabilisants, mais à la synergie impressionnante.

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. [Read the rest…]

— François Couture (Monsieur Délire)

[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.