“I used to have 30 guys helping me do this,” quips Jones as he adjusts a mic stand. “…but here I am.”
And indeed, there he was, all alone on the stage, performing a dizzying variety of instruments, from lap steel, to mandolin, to triple-neck guitar, grand piano, pipe organ, Kyma electronics, and of course his signature bass. Winning the prize for the festival’s most audacious entrance, Jones rose from the orchestra pit playing “Your Time Is Gonna Come” on a bright red-painted theater organ, to delighted squeals of recognition, masterfully tweaking his audience’s collective memories and, alternately coaxing them along with him into the future with live electro-acoustic performances like this one:
Bassist, keyboardist, mandolinist, composer (and much more), John Paul Jones – once in a little band called Led Zeppelin — has more recently toured as Them Crooked Vultures with Dave Grohl and Joshua Homme, appeared in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera ‘Anna Nicole,’ toured the US with Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch, released Cloud to Ground (debut album of Minibus Pimps), and made several guest appearances with acclaimed Norwegian avant-garde group Supersilent.
John was also one of the first adopters of Kyma (on the original Capybara), and he continues to expand the frontiers of live interactive electronics performance today using the newest incarnation of the APU hardware — the Pacamara Ristretto — in conjunction with his bass, piano, and a menagerie of tiny controllers and other instruments (expect the unexpected).
“One of the world’s biggest music bashes” (NYT), the Big Ears Festival features visionary composers and musicians on concerts that transcend genre — bringing together trailblazers and iconoclasts, blending classical and contemporary composition, jazz, rock, world music, pop, avant-garde, ambient, experimental, and beyond.
Big Ears offers 200 performances during the festival situated in historic downtown Knoxville — at restored historic theaters, churches, refurbished warehouse spaces, museums, galleries, and clubs — with pop-up events and performances, exhibitions, films, literary readings, workshops, markets and talks taking place in cafes, bars, hotels, restaurants, all within walking distance or dedicated trolley service to nearby hotels.
The 2024 MOXsonic (Missouri Experimental Sonic Arts Festival) March 14-16, 2024 is an exploration of sonic possibilities and includes several opportunities to hear live Kyma electronic performances:
Mei-ling Lee’s “Summoner” is a mythical narrative that evokes the nocturnal summoning of peacocks and owls.
Mark Zaki’s “Masks” explores identity in the digital age, using violin, Kyma, and live video to delve into themes of self-curation and virtual anonymity.
In Mark Phillips’ “Dream Dance”, dreamy vocoders give way to an algorithmic synth groove, but only partially … and not for long.
Chi Wang will perform AEON on a new instrument she designed — the Yuan, a bamboo round-shaped interactive, data-driven controller and connected the sensors
Experience innovative music and engage with the creative minds shaping the future of sound! Tickets to all events are FREE and OPEN to the general public.
Sound designers, electronic/computer musicians and researchers are invited to join us in Busan South Korea 29 August through 1 September 2019 for the 11th annual Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS2019) — four days and nights of hands-on workshops, live electronic music performances, and research presentations on the theme: Resonance (공명).
“Resonanceâ€, from the Latin words resonare (re-sound) and resonantia (echo), can be the result of an actual physical reflection, of an electronic feedback loop (as in an analog filter), or even the result of “bouncing†ideas off each other during a collaboration. When we say that an idea “resonatesâ€, it suggests that we may even think of our minds as physical systems that can vibrate in sympathy to familiar concepts or ideas.
Photo by Belinda J Carr
At KISS2019, the concept of resonance will be explored through an opening concert dedicated to “ecosystemic†electronics (live performances in which all sounds are derived from the natural resonances of the concert hall interacting with the electronic resonances of speaker-microphone loops), through paper sessions dedicated to modal synthesis and the implementation of virtual analog filters in Kyma, through live music performances based on gravity waves, sympathetic brain waves, the resonances of found objects, the resonance of the Earth excited by an earthquake, and in a final rooftop concert for massive corrugaphone orchestra processed through Kyma, where the entire audience will get to perform together by swinging resonant tubes around their heads to experience collective resonance. Sounds of Busan — two hands-on workshops open to all participants — focus on the sounds and datasets of the host city: Busan, South Korea. In part one, participants will take time series data from Busan Metropolitan City (for example, barometric pressure and sea level changes) and map those data into sound in order to answer the question: can we use our ears (as well as our eyes) to help discover patterns in data? In part two, participants will learn how to record, process, and manipulate 3d audio field recordings of Busan for virtual and augmented reality applications.
Several live performances also focus on the host city: a piece celebrating the impact of shipping containers on the international economy and on the port city of Busan; a piece inspired by Samul nori, traditional Korean folk music, in which four performers will play a large gong fitted with contact mics to create feedback loops; and a live performance of variations on the Korean folk song: Milyang Arirang, using hidden Markov models.
Hands-on Practice-based Workshops
In addition to a daily program of technical presentations and nightly concerts (https://kiss2019.symbolicsound.com/program-overview/), afternoons at KISS2019 are devoted to palindromic concerts (where composer/performers share technical tips immediately following the performance) and hands-on workshops open to all participants, including:
• Sounds of Busan I: DATA SONIFICATION
What do the past 10 years of meteorological data sound like? In this hands-on session, we will take time series data related to the city of Busan and map the data to sound. Can we hear patterns in data that we might not otherwise detect?
Photo by Belinda J Carr
• The Shape Atlas: MATHS FOR CONTROLLING SOUND
How can you control the way sound parameters evolve over time? Participants will work together to compile a dictionary associating control signal shapes with mathematical functions of time for controlling sound parameters.
• Sounds of Busan II: 3D SOUND TECHNIQUES
Starting with a collection of 3D ambisonic recordings from various locations in and around Busan, we will learn how to process, spatialize, mix down for interactive binaural presentation for games and VR.
Photo by Belinda J Carr
Networking Opportunities
Participants can engage with presenters and fellow symposiasts during informal discussions after presentations, workshops, and concerts over coffee, tea, lunches and dinners (all included with registration). After the symposium, participants can join their new-found professional contacts and friends on a tour of Busan (as a special benefit for people who register before July 1).
Sponsors and Organizers
Daedong College Department of New Music (http://eng.daedong.ac.kr/main.do)
Dankook University Department of New Music (http://www.dankook.ac.kr/en/web/international)
Symbolic Sound Corporation (https://kyma.symbolicsound.com/)
Busan Metropolitan City (http://english.busan.go.kr/index)
Madison Heying shows us the view from the Music Center at UC Santa Cruz
Madison Heying is a PhD candidate in cultural musicology at the University of California Santa Cruz where she focuses on experimental, electronic, and computer music. On any given day, you’re as likely to find Madison on a stage performing DYI analog electronic circuits with her partner David Kant as you are to find her holed up in the experimental music archives at the UCSC library. In between publishing scholarly articles and presenting papers at international musicology conferences, she also hosts a podcast and curates experimental music events around the Monterey Bay area as a member of Indexical, a composer-run artist collective that focuses on new chamber and experimental music, and especially music that lies outside of the aesthetic boundaries of major musical institutions.
Somehow Madison has also found time in her schedule to co-organize the Kyma International Sound Symposium this year in Santa Cruz on the themes: Altered States and Ecosystems. She sat down with us recently to talk a little about Santa Cruz, experimental music, and banana slugs…
Experimental, electronic, and computer music
Hi Madison. Could you please tell us what a cultural musicologist is (as distinct from historical musicology, etc)? What do you study and how?
A cultural musicologist is a music historian that pays particular attention to the people groups behind a given musical phenomenon. I think the attention given to cultural context has been a trend in musicology for a while now, but my PhD program makes it a priority. Many of us study living or recent composers and music-making communities and borrow a lot of our methodology and theory from ethnomusicology. My work broadly focuses on experimental, electronic, and computer music.
At UC Santa Cruz, it appears that experimental music is still very much ongoing and supported. Can you talk a little bit about what “Experimental Music†is and why UC Santa Cruz was and continues to be a strong center for this aesthetic or this mindset?
There is a really strong history of musical experimentation in the Bay Area in general, dating back to composers like Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison to the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s, and later programs at Mills College, CCRMA, and UCSC. James Tenney taught at UCSC for a year in the 70s. Gordon Mumma started the Electronic Music studio here, David Cope ran the Algorithmic Composition program for years. Along with the Cabrillo Music Festival (which used to be VERY experimental), Santa Cruz was something of a hub for weird music in the 70s and 80s. There’s a really strong tradition here of incorporating elements of non-Western music into a more experimental compositional practice, of developing hand-made electronics, and also big developments in DSP and computer music.
At UCSC there are currently some really exciting people on the faculty including composers Larry Polansky, David Dunn, and musicologist Amy C. Beal in the Music Department, sound artist Anna Friz and Yolande Harris in the Arts Division, and Kristin Erickson Galvin, who is also co-organising KISS2018, on the staff of the Digital Arts and New Media Program.
You’ve been learning Kyma and building analog circuits as part of your research. Does having hands-on experience with the tools change the way you view, understand, and report on the cultural implications and impact of technology?
Absolutely! Taking a hands on approach has given me significant insight not only into how a given technology works, but how it might have been used historically, and some of the reasons why a composer or musician employed the technology in a particular way.
The thing with Kyma in particular is that it’s such a rich, deep language, so I think even if I spent 20 years using it, I’d still learn new things. Having the hands-on experience has been a total necessity to just scratching the surface of understanding of how Kyma works and why it’s so unique. It’s also made a big difference to collaborate or work with people that know a lot more about electronics or programming; I’m able to learn so much by seeing how they tackle/think through problems and find solutions.
Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS)
Kristin Erickson Galvin and Madison Heying at UCSC talking about their implementation of cellular automata in Kyma
What motivated you to co-host KISS2018 in Santa Cruz? What would you like to show people about Santa Cruz, your university, your home state? What are you hoping people will come away with after participating in this conference?
My first impulse was that co-hosting KISS2018 would be a very tangible way to give back to the Kyma community, who have given me so much! I also thought UCSC would be the perfect place to host KISS and I knew that this would be my last year here, so I figured, why not do it now?!
I think the first KISS you attended was KISS2015 in Bozeman Montana. What struck you about KISS that made it different from other conferences that you regularly attend?
I was particularly struck by how nice everyone is. At academic conferences people can be really cruel during the Q & A after a presentation or in down time. A good number of people are jockeying to make a good impression on senior scholars or prove their intelligence by making someone else look bad, there is definitely more of a hostile competitive atmosphere. It just takes time to find your people and to be comfortable being yourself in that kind of environment.
But at KISS, it’s different. Everyone is there to learn and share their work, so there is a much greater sense of camaraderie. If there is competition, it seems like it’s mostly self-imposed, that people just want to get better at using Kyma or their compositional or performative practice.
Madison in front of the Music Center Recital Hall at UCSC
Was KISS2016 in Leicester UK different from the experience you had in Montana? How was it different and how was it similar in terms of the people, the atmosphere, the content, the music? Has your picture of the Kyma community evolved over time and with more experience?
Yes, I think each KISS has its own flavor based on the host institution and the people that end up coming. On a personal level they were also different because in Bozeman I didn’t really know anyone except the people I came with. So I felt a bit more like a newbie outsider. But in Leicester, I felt like I was already part of the group and it was great to see so many familiar faces and reconnect with people I met in Bozeman (and of course to meet new people as well).
Are there some things that you’re particularly looking forward to for KISS2018?
For me it’s been really fascinating to see how people interpret the theme. I love the variety of approaches Kyma users take to composition and performance, it makes for really dynamic concerts. Each time I attend KISS there’s usually a few pieces that totally shock me and blow me away and leave me wondering how they did it or just in awe of someone’s prowess as a performer/composer. I’m looking forward to seeing the thing that’s just under everyone’s radar, but that’s going to be the really memorable piece.
Santa Cruz and the spirit of place
Do you believe there is such a thing as “spirit of place� If so, then how does the natural, cultural, political environment of Santa Cruz affect you and your colleagues?
Yes, I do. I think the biggest thing I notice is that life moves at a slower pace in Santa Cruz than other places, people are rarely in a rush to do things. As an impatient person this is probably the best and most frustrating aspect of living here, it’s difficult to get other people to feel the same sense of urgency about something, but at the same time it also helps me slow down and “stop and smell the roses†as they say.
Madison at Seabright Beach
How is the atmosphere influenced by, yet distinct from, the culture of “The Valley� Since it’s so close by, does Silicon Valley ever act as a magnet, draining people and activities away from Santa Cruz? Do people ever “escape†from the Valley and seek refuge in Santa Cruz?
Yes, it’s becoming more and more common for techies from “over the hill†to live in Santa Cruz and commute into Silicon Valley. They realized that the commute is the same as it is from San Francisco, with slightly cheaper rents and better beach access! In general I love being so close to Silicon Valley. Many of my close friends work for tech companies like Google, Facebook, or Uber. Some of the excitement and energy of their fast-paced lifestyles oozes into Santa Cruz and sends a jolt of fresh possibilities into this sleepy beach town. I also love to think about the history of the place, how since the 60s there’s a real convergence of counter-cultural values with the most cutting-edge, high-tech and commercial innovations. It makes for some interesting paradoxes, like the wealthy aging-hippy beach bum software developer 🙂
For those of us who are planning to come to KISS2018, what’s the one thing that every visitor to Santa Cruz absolutely, unequivocally, cannot miss seeing or experiencing on their first visit there?
Well, the best thing about Santa Cruz is that it has the beach and redwood forests, so I’d say they have to visit both things. To go for a hike in the redwoods, maybe on Pogonip trail near campus, or Nisene Marks, about 5 miles south. And then visit the beach. Seabright beach, near where I live, is great, because the tourists don’t know about it, so it’s not usually too crowded. If you don’t want to go in the water, a walk along West Cliff Drive will also blow you away, I think it’s probably one of the most beautiful beach walks in California! And of course you should probably take a ride on the Giant Dipper at the boardwalk!
Madison enjoys a Penny ice cream at the beach
Guilty pleasures?
Penny ice cream at the beach! (Sadly it does cost more than a penny but is worth it — some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had!) Also my favorite bakery/coffee shop is Companion Bakers. Both Companion and Penny have vegan/gf options, and REALLY good regular stuff too!
Should people bring their Zoom recorders to Santa Cruz? What is the must-record sound they have to capture while they are there?
Yes! The seals of the wharf are really fun to record. If you have a hydrophone there are also a lot of interesting sounds under the water, including snapping shrimp!
Banana slugs. Why or why not?
I am very pro-banana slugs! You really have to see one in person to appreciate them and what a ridiculous creature they are. I can’t imagine a better mascot to capture the spirit of this place.
How hearing can change the world
Thanks for taking time out to talk with us, Madison! To conclude, if there were one thing you could change that you think would be of most help to other people or to society as a whole, what would it be?
To be able to listen to someone that is different than you and have understanding and compassion, and to let that act of hearing change how you operate in the world. For everyone to have more empathy, to really understand that everyone has a singular view of the world, based on so many factors like where and how they were raised, race, gender, etc. and that everyone else’s experience is valid.
A global community of sound designers & musicians meet to explore ways in which sound, music, and technology can alter state…
Sound designers, musicians, and sound-afficionados are invited to participate in the tenth annual Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS2018) in Santa Cruz California from 6-9 September 2018 when Kyma practitioners at every level of experience — ranging from beginners to experts who make their living teaching, performing, and designing sounds with Kyma — will convene to present their most recent creative and technical work related to the conference theme, “Altered States†and sub-theme, “Ecosystems”.
Whether they interpret “Altered States†in terms of state machines for cryptography, shamanic trance states, stable/unstable states in a dynamical system, states of consciousness along the path to enlightenment, hidden states of a Markov model, or the ways in which active-listening can inspire changes to the state of the ecosystem, there is one point on which all the symposiasts agree: Sound and music can alter states.
KISS2018 Program Highlights
KISS2018 will feature over 25 hours of technical sessions, discussions, and live electronic music performances showcasing some of the most thought-provoking work created with the Kyma sound design environment this year. The full KISS2018 schedule is available online.
Here are a few highlights:
Gabriel Montufar (DJ Monti) is collaborating with the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Fencing Club to present En Garde, a unique live performance in which the movements and breath of fencers engaged in a live duel are transformed into intricate sounds intended to alter the state of the fencers and the outcome of the match.
The Tower of Voices is a ninety-three foot tall musical instrument containing forty wind chimes to represent the forty passengers and crew members of United Flight 93. Artist Ben Salzman (Hamilton College) and composer Jon Bellona (University of Oregon) will reflect on the states of existence between life and death as they reconstruct the compositional processes of their late friend and mentor Sam Pellman who composed the music for this installation. The formal dedication of the Tower of Voices will be held on 9 September, 2018 in Pennsylvania as part of this year’s 9/11 observances.
Kristin Erickson (aka Kevin Blechdom), Technical Coordinator for Digital Arts and New Media at UCSC, will present the premiere of her new operetta The Dolphinarium in collaboration with film and television producer, Matthew Galvin. Based on the groundbreaking research of physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer and inventor John C. Lilly, the operetta explores aspects of Lilly’s 1965 Dolphin Cohabitation experiments and his lifelong research into altered states.
Carla Scaletti, president of Symbolic Sound Corporation and co-creator of the Kyma language for sound design, will welcome symposium delegates with a keynote lecture on the conference theme of Altered States in relation to sound, programming languages, memory, and learning.
Italian DJ/producer Domenico Cipriani (Lucretio) is performing Predator/Prey, a living sonic ecosystem in which sounds are born, move, hunt, reproduce, and die within a quadraphonic listening space, inspired by John Holland’s Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems and Daniel Shiffman’s The Nature of Code. Cipriani, whose degree is in linguistics from the University of Padua, studies the relationship between functionalism and social semiotics. Inspired by Cristian Vogel´s 2016 performance at the Decipher Language party in Berlin, Cipriani’s recent focus has been digital audio programming and performing with the Symbolic Sound Kyma system.
Korean composer Kiyoung Lee and pianist/improviser Ha-Young Park from Dankook University will present Turritopsis dohrnii, a live performance based on the process of transdifferentiation performed by the “immortal jellyfish”, a biologically immortal species that can literally alter the state of its own cells.
Franz Danksagmüller, professor at the Musikhochschule Lübeck and the Royal Academy of Music in London and creator/performer of live electronics and sound design for John Malkovich’s “Just Call Me Godâ€, will be performing emotional states — Lieder one Worte, a song cycle based on the utterances people make when they can’t find the right word or expression during a conversation.
Robert Efroymson, software developer and CEO of the high-speed optical communications firm Dynamic Photonics, will describe and demonstrate his new Cryptographic Music Sequencer modeled after the M-209 — a WWII era mechanical encryption device.
Garth Paine, Senior Sustainability Scientist and composer at Arizona State University, will present a keynote lecture on the Listen(n) project with a focus on the ways in which active-listening can inspire meaningful action toward changing the state of the environment.
For anyone who is obsessed with sound — whether a novice seeking to kickstart their career, an expert looking to take their mastery to the next level, or someone who’s simply curious about how sound and music can alter states — KISS2018 is an opportunity to be immersed in sound and ideas and surrounded by fellow sound enthusiasts for four days and nights of intensive discussion, learning, music, and forging new professional connections and lifelong friendships.
Registration for KISS2018 is open to all and includes access to the lectures, hands-on labs, lunches, dinners, coffee breaks and an opening reception and seven live performances at the UCSC Recital Hall, Digital Arts Research Center (DARC), including a special, outdoor concert among the redwoods at the Stanley Sinsheimer Glen.
Organizers
KISS2018 is being co-organized by the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Arts Division, the Digital Arts and New Media Research Center, and Symbolic Sound Corporation.
Contact information and details
For information on registration, travel/lodging information, and programming, please visit: http://kiss2018.symbolicsound.com
After the 2010 El Mayor Cucapah 7.2 magnitude earthquake in northern Mexico, seismologist Alejandro González Ortega interviewed Don Chayo, a Cucapah native who witnessed the surface rupture. When Don Chayo drew parallels to the origin stories of the Cucapah people, González began to wonder if these stories may have recounted earlier seismic events that had been passed down over the generations.
Over the next several years, González and his colleague, choreographer/physicist Minerva Muñoz, created a performance piece based on 3D seismological data collected by 12 measurement stations during the event. Muñoz enlisted the help of composer Carla Scaletti to map the data to sound using Kyma and artist David Olivares to map the data to video using Unity.
As Muñez and González conducted further research and interviews with the Cucapah elders, a much more disturbing story began to emerge — that of a displaced people whose livelihood was being cut off and whose very language was being forgotten. What had originally been intended as a science/art collaboration about seismic activity began to morph into a deeper metaphor for displacement, disruption and loss.
The result — Wà Shpá, A journey in bare feet — is a poem in movement, images, sounds and words that explores pilgrimage, displacement, change, the relationship of humans with the environment, transformation and resilience.
The sound and visuals were created from seismological data and satellite geodesics of the El Cucapah Mw 7.2 earthquake that occurred on April 4, 2010. Consistent in many details with the cosmogony myths narrated by Don Chayo that had been passed down over generations, El Mayor-Cucapah Mw 7.2 was the most intense earthquake recorded in this region over the last century.
Wà Shpá, A journey in bare feet is an elegy to the ancestors and to the women and men of today; to the people of the river, of the earth, fire and wind. It is a glimpse into a universe in which animals are gods, and meaning is associated with each of the four cardinal directions, colors, the power of nature and of the land.
“Cosmogony of an Event, El Mayor Cucapah Mw 7.2” is an inter and trans disciplinary dialog of artistic creation and research combining the myths of Cucapah cosmogenesis and the scientific studies of El Mayor-Cucapah Mw 7.2, weaving a network of collaboration, tradition, scientific research, knowledge and experiences, but above all, creating a dialog between scientists, artists, native community, collaborators and the general public who participate in this live performance/ritual.
Credits:
Direction, stage creation and interpretation: Minerva Muñoz *
Production: Alejandro González, Minerva Muñoz / La Machina Productions
Scenic Advisor: Jorge Folgueira
Lighting: Minerva Muñoz
Composition and sound design: Carla Scaletti
Visual Art: David Olivares
Video: Marco Meza, Rommel Vázquez
Aerial Video (drone): Alejandro González
Photography: Alfredo Ruiz and Rommel Vázquez
Science: Javier González-GarcÃa and Alejandro González
Audio Engineer: Rommel Vázquez
Scenography: Leoncio GarcÃa
Makeup: Rosario MartÃnez
Lighting technician: Miguel Tamayo
Communication and networks: Stephanie Lozano
Support: Juan Sánchez
The Arts Division at the University of California Santa Cruz and Symbolic Sound invite proposals for talks, live performances and workshops for the 6-9 September 2018 Kyma International Sound Symposium — KISS2018: Altered States (and Ecosystems).
Altered States
State spaces, state of mind, state of the art, deep state, state machines, state of the nation, state variable filters, topological state, head of state, solid state physics, state of grace, state transitions, spin states, state of the union — whatever your definition of state, one thing is for certain: Sound and music can alter states.
Join us in the state of California as we explore the multifaceted concept of Altered States through talks, workshops, and live musical performances at KISS2018, 6-9 September 2018 on the campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Ecosystems
Atop a forested hill overlooking the Pacific ocean and Monterey Bay, on the tectonic boundary between the Pacific and North American plates (aka the San Andreas Fault), accessible from the San Jose or San Francisco Airports, Santa Cruz is shaped by the economic/technology ecosystems of Silicon Valley, the biological ecosystems of the Pacific ocean and the Santa Cruz mountains, and a continuation of the counterculture lifestyle and political protest movements of the 1960s — hence the sub-theme of the conference: Ecosystems. Whether “Ecosystems†inspires ideas for environmental music & field recording, ecosystemic feedback control systems, the human microbiota, or more abstract political/economic/social ecosystems, we welcome proposals involving “complex networks or interconnected systems†of sound and music.
Important Dates
26 March: Deadline for submissions 15 April: Notification of acceptance & start of early registration
In partnership with Artanim Foundation and utilizing their motion-capture and VR technology, VR_I is a pioneering work in social, free-roaming virtual reality. As many as five people can enter the experience together and see their own and each other’s bodies as avatars sharing the same virtual world as the characters (the dancers).
In VR_I, music emerges from the environment: wind in the desert transitions to a humming chorus sung by giants; wind chimes in the art-filled loft organize themselves into 5/8 rhythms as columns rise up from the floor, only to dissolve back into wind chimes again as the columns recede; in the city park, bird songs are echoed in flute melodies, and cicadas transform themselves into rhythmic patterns over tambura-like drones.
Each spectator hears an individualized soundscape, and there is no way to really know what everyone else is experiencing (just like in real life). Sounds and musical elements are positioned in space and attached to objects, giving each spectator a unique mix as they move through the space, culminating in upwardly spiraling Shepard-tones that swirl around and lift up the listeners as they contemplate their own place in the continuum from infinite to infinitesimal.
In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
KISS2017 in Oslo Norway 12-15 October 2017 — a symposium on new opportunities for sound designers & musicians in virtual, augmented and mixed reality creation
Sound and music are the original augmented reality technology. Throughout human history, sound and music have played an essential role in transforming the mundane into the sublime, turning everyday events into memorable milestones, and enhancing the flow of experience.
Sound designers, musicians, museum curators, game developers, researchers and others interested in the power of sound to create and augment reality are invited to participate in the Kyma International Sound Symposium, KISS2017 in Oslo Norway 12-15 October 2017. Join fellow participants exploring the uses of sound in Augmenting Reality through talks, live performances, hands-on sessions, and informal conversations over meals (which are included with your conference registration).
Here are a few highlights from the international lineup:
• Tour and reception at the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, including a special lecture on computer music pioneer Knut Wiggen’s musical innovation during the early years of the EMS Electronic Music Studio in Stockholm (presented by NOTAM’s founding director, Jøran Rudi), followed by a science/art-themed concert at the museum.
• An evening at Norway’s premiere jazz venue Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene featuring Deathprod/Supersilent members Helge Sten & Arve Henriksen (Norway) performing live Kyma electronics on a program that also includes sets by SØS Gunver Rydberg (Denmark) and Michael Wittgraf (USA) http://nasjonaljazzscene.no/arrangement/helge-sten-arve-henriksen-wittgraf-sos/
• Presentations on designing sound for planetarium-presentation; listening to the past in museum exhibitions; learning how to listen with cochlear implants; sound and music for calming dysregulated children; cooperation between musicians and machines
• Technology talks including pitch-tracking of live audio signals to control game avatars in real time, multidimensional audio, ambisonics, head-tracking, sonifying geo-spatial data, Open Sound Control, connections between Kyma 7 and the Unity3d game engine, live performance of electroacoustic music for an audience wearing VR headgear, using physical objects to interact with digital sound synthesis and processing, using wireless sensors to control and manipulate sound, and integrating live dance with generative sound and video for mixed reality performances.
• Desktop Demo Sessions where you can speak to the presenters one-on-one and ask them questions about their work
• An Open Lab where you can ask questions and consult on your Kyma projects with fellow practitioners and the creators of Kyma 7
• Live mixed reality performances including:
• A performer running through the streets of Oslo & transmitting a live video feed to the audience as his geospatial data generates and controls quadraphonic processing of a live ensemble
• A live musical performance of a computer game where acoustic audio controls real-time decisions leading to a distinctive outcome on each play-through
• Mixed reality performances where physical objects, like Tibetan bells or balloons, control digital sound and image generation
• Performances utilizing new musical inventions like the Electronic Bull Roarer and a new input device inspired by Ssireum Korean wrestling
• Citizen journalism and crowd-sourced news as an augmented reality performance
• A performance that looks at how organizations can use language to alter reality and neutralize our position as workers
• A mixed reality performance where long-distance communications augment time and space and magnify our stories
• The sounds of writing create sound fantasies in the minds of the audience & then mutate into other sounds that augment and clash with those imagined by the audience
Summary
KISS2017 is an opportunity for anyone interested in creating sound for augmenting reality to immerse themselves in new ideas and experiences and to meet and learn from like-minded colleagues.
On April 21 2017, the 
