Hackoustic Presents – September 2019

A NIGHT OF TALKS, DEMONSTRATIONS, PERFORMANCES AND HANDS ON EXPERIENCES WITH SOME INCREDIBLE INSTRUMENT MAKERS, INVENTORS, HACKERS AND RESEARCHERS.
THIS TIME, WE HAVE:

Leon Trimble will be showcasing his Gravity Synth

Gordon Charlton from Beat Frequency talk about generative music techniques.

Oddballism will be bringing their amazing MIDI controller hidden inside a bouncy ball.

Cutlasses will be talking about and performing on his DIY noise boxes and effects units!

plus installations and instrument builds too!

DETAILED INFO IS BELOW:

Leon Trimble has been working on The Gravity Synth since 2016, it is a musical instrument combining the instrumentation used to detect gravitational waves, and a modular synthesiser. The experimentation with the scientific and musical equipment has been a collaboration between researchers at the Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy at University of Birmingham and audiovisual artist Leon Trimble. This is a parallel journey exploring the similarities between the processes of art and science.

Gordon Charlton records and performs experimental theremin and computer based music as Beat Frequency on the White Label Music record label. Highlights of his biography range from opening for the world renowned thereminist Lydia Kavina at the 2010 Ether Festival at the Royal Festival Hall, where he also organised a twenty piece theremin orchestra, to presenting best paper at the 1992 EuroForml for a non-deterministic pattern matching language programmed in Forth. He has performed and lectured across Europe.
His presentation for Hackoustic is inspired by the Ada Lovelace quotation "… the [Analytic] Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity and extent". Gordon has realised this conjecture by the sonification of integer sequences, creating the audio equivalent of fractal mathematical images. At the talk he will demonstrate a range of techniques for creating this sort of generative music using simple programming methods and primary school level arithmetic that can can be adapted to a variety of applications of interest to the Hackoustic community.

Cutlasses is the solo project of maker and musician, Scott Pitkethly. A sound art project which seeks to integrate the process of creating music with the process of making the sound creation tools themselves. The compositions combine field recordings, recorded from various sites around the British Isles, which are heavily manipulated using DIY electronic controllers and effects he has designed and built himself, accompanied by live guitar drones and melodies. Taking cues from the world of sound art and horror film soundtracks but always trying to apply pop sensibilities, the result is lush and cinematic soundscapes topped with delicate melody.

Oddballism have created a product that uses bluetooth to send MIDI data from sensors inside a bouncy ball. Oddball comes in two parts, the ball, and the app. The ball behaves as the percussion trigger. Every time you bounce it off a surface, sensors at the heart of the ball communicate with the app via Bluetooth to play a sound through your headphones, speakers, or just the internal speaker on your phone. Oddball is pressure sensitive – The harder you bounce it the more intense the sound, the lighter you bounce it the more delicate.

There will also be a flute making workshop with Hackoustic creative director Vulpestruments