SYNTAX by John C.S. Keston & Mike Hodnick

SYNTAX questions technological idealism in an age of ecological disruption and data-driven exploitation. Widely misused technology continues to cause pollution, habitat destruction, global warming, and disinformation. Like two sides of the same coin it is responsible for immeasurable prosperity and immeasurable suffering. It threatens all life on the planet, yet most humans depend on it.

To explore this question the composers have programmed the computer to program themselves. By deliberately coding and submitting to an “inversion of control” they evoke the warnings of media theorists like Douglas Rushkoff, that we risk a future wherein our behavior might be irreversibly dictated by the algorithms in the software we use instead of by our own volition. SYNTAX is a performance piece that parallels the dilemmas we face from two sides of the same coin.

The collaboration includes a series of eight animated, graphic scores designed to guide the two composers through a generative narrative of improvised sound. This inverts the usual practice of creating visuals in response to sound by creating music in response to visuals. The scores that the artists read are designed as functional symbolism representing a set of rules that suggest musical ideas, sound design techniques, and timed phrases. The scores are regenerated each time the application is executed so that every performance is distinct.

The software engineered to generate the graphic scores provides information to the performers in the form of animated and color coded graphics. Each movement was written with its own graphical language, algorithms, and directives while maintaining visual and conceptual themes to work as a whole. The composers perform the piece using a combination of hardware synthesizers and software independent from the scores including sequences programmed using the Tidal Cycles live coding environment and manipulated in real time. It is the intent of the human composers for the audience to experience the projected graphic scores and musical performance together.

SYNTAX has been performed at The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Limerick, Ireland; New Interfaces for Musical Expression or NIME; The Performing Media Festival, Sound Bend, IN; and The Int. Digital Media Arts conference, Winona, MN

***Video files for the work will be emailed after purchase***

electronic sounds to peel open your mind
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Minneapolis, Minnesota.