Category Archives: theory

Social, political and technological dimensions of the io enterprise.

Documentation: io 0.0.1 beta++, the musical automaton and machine improviser constructed by Han-earl Park

io 0.0.1 beta++, Blackrock Castle Observatory, 05-26-2010 (photo copyright 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 […]

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Presentation at the Institute of Sonology, The Hague

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.

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RIP, Douglas Rain

Automatic Morricone Machine

RIP, Douglas Rain, who gave his voice to the machines of our dreams and nightmares, and shaped the vocality that stood for anxiety in the age of machines.

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jazzColo[u]rs: le discrepanze tra finzione scientifica e realtà pratica

In the interview with Han-earl Park in the current issue of jazzColo[u]rs (Sommario Ago./Set. 2015, Anno VIII, n. 8–9), Andrew Rigmore asks about the the balance of freedom and prediction in working with improvising machines such as io 0.0.1 beta++: In teoria è tutto aperto, free, non ci sono quasi pre-istruzioni, tranne la durata approssimativa […]

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from the archives: frankenmusic(s)

Originally posted (under the title ‘beta test 11-10-08: preamble’) on November 25, 2008 in response to the testing session with Franziska Schroeder, and to Franziska’s article. This testing session took place a year and a half before io 0.0.1 beta++’s public debut, and at this stage io was very much work in progress. Almost eight […]

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Technological Singularity as apocalyptic religious phenomena

Noted cyberpunk author and general critic of all things technocultural, Bruce Sterling has caused a minor storm by telling us that the Technological Singularity is “just not happening” and that “all the symptoms [of the Singularity] are absent” [via io9…]. In the midst of Sterling’s general critique of the Oracles of The Singularity, for me […]

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from the archives: io + I met

Note from the editor (Han-earl Park): This piece by Franziska Schroeder was originally posted November 24, 2008 in response to the first testing session with Franziska. This testing session took place a year and a half before io 0.0.1 beta++’s public debut, and at this stage io was very much work in progress. On the […]

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(musical) time and machine musicianship (part 0.2)

[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…]

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freedom, machine subjectivity and pseudo-science: twitter transcript

As a institutionally unaffiliated, part-time geek (and amateur anthropologist), I find the Computer Music tribes’ behavior fascinating. This is an unedited transcript of my observations from ImproTech Paris-New York 2012 : Improvisation & Technology series of events. My original observations came in the form of live tweets via @hanearlpark that spanned the performances on May […]

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from the archives: In Conversation with an Automaton

The Leonardo Electronic Almanac’s archives, a project to reissue articles that document over fifteen years of techno-cultural activity, has caught up with ‘My Favorite Things: The Joy of the Gizmo’ (Volume 15, No. 11-12, November–December 2007). That issue of the LEA, a companion to Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 17, featured my article, ‘In Conversation with […]

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(musical) time and machine musicianship (part 0.1)

[Continued from part 0…] Talking to Melanie L. Marshall after she read the previous post on musical time clarified some matters that were left unstated. The issue is not so much that a musicality built up from a simple ‘beat detection’ is not possible (such notions of musicality surround us in our music schools, in […]

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(musical) time and machine musicianship (part 0)

Melanie L. Marshall, in asking questions about musicality, takes a Foucauldian track and asks about musicality’s opposite, and in doing so, discusses and critiques some modern attempts at drawing a boundary between the musical and the unmusical. Melanie pulls up research by Henkjan Honing as an interesting, if problematic, example of such an attempt at […]

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