www.x-tet.com » Current works

Baby Reindeer

norbert — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 19:31:55 +0000

“Baby Reindeer” is a generative music app for iPhone and iPod Touch.

The “baby reindeer” is actually a toy—the Fisher-Price “Ocean Wonders Soothe and Glow Seahorse.” It was a gift to my son, who cuddled with it at night and enjoyed the mix of classical melodies and ocean sounds. When my daughter saw it for the first time she squealed with delight, saying, “Oh look! It’s a baby reindeer!” It was soft. It lit up when you squeezed its belly. Everyone was fond of the “baby reindeer.” I was fascinated with the way that, as its batteries ran down, the melodies and ocean sounds would detune and garble. Short, micro-recordings of these sounds comprise many of the parts heard in this music.

In 1996 Brian Eno invented the term generative music to describe a sound experience that is unique upon every listening. Simple compositional rules unfold to make each ‘performance’ distinct within a range of possibilities. This app uses the processing capabilities of your device to play continuous music that drifts within a mood and is unlikely to be repeated.

MP3 rough sketch of “Baby Reindeer” (initial rough sketch from April ’11)

Sound Art at Waveforms

norbert — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:00:55 +0000

The gradual accumulation of additional layers or matter (Norbert Herber & Rowland Ricketts, 2011) can be seen & heard as part of Waveforms, “an exhibition of interdisciplinary art works showcasing sound as the principle component. This exhibition explores, through an examination of creative and artistic practices, the interface of sound and new media technologies. The works in the exhibit include a number of trans-disciplinary interactions and collaborations that include sound in the context of visual and spatial artistic practices, including sound sculpture, installations, and performance works.”

Other artists include Carrie Bodle, Jacob C. Hammes, Tesia Kosmalski, Lou Mallozzi, Shannon McMullen/Fabian Winkler, Stephanie Rowden, and Jesse Seay.

Waveforms will open to the public with a reception Friday, October 21, 6:00 – 8:00pm and be on view through Friday, November 18, 2011. An “illustrated conversation” (symposium) will be held Friday, October 21 from 2:00 – 4:00 pm followed by a performance by Chicago sound artist Lou Mallozzi from 4:00 – 6:00pm. For full details, see the Grunwald Gallery of Art.

Technoetic Arts 7.1

norbert — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 01:12:11 +0000

(originally published July 2009)

I wrote a paper “Dérive en Mille Sons” for the 2009 Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts. It has just been re-published as “Dérive entre Mille Sons: a psychogeographic approach to mobile music and mediated interaction” in Technoetic Arts: a journal of speculative research. Much thanks to journal editor Roy Ascott, publishers Intellect, and Guillaume Ansart for his help with a more precise title translation.

Abstract: Dérive entre Mille Sons (Drifting in a Thousand Sounds) is a musical work that uses mobile media technology to artistically examine the relationship between music and the listener. Contemporary media technologies, be they at work, home or in your pocket, emphasize playback. These devices are designed to facilitate the storage and retrieval of pre-made media assets. This work leverages the processing capabilities that rest dormant within these technologies. Drawing from the writings of Guy Debord and the situationist/surrealist practice of the dérive, ‘drifting’ becomes a metaphor for instrumental performance in which the openness and emergence of interactivity is articulated through sound, as music.

Technoetic Arts requires a subscription. Check to see if your library has online access or print copies of the journal. My original Spark paper is available online.

MP3 sample of a Dérive recorded in July 2010

Sanding

norbert — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 01:06:12 +0000

I’m currently experimenting with some guitar recordings I made with an EBow. The music is produced with two long drones that are fed through a variety of signal processes. Of these, the most important is the NeuroGranular Sampler designed by John Matthias and Nick Ryan for use in their larger piece The Fragmented Orchestra created with Jane Grant.

The NeuroGranular Sampler simulates the process of neuronal spiking and, “…reproduces the spiking and bursting behavior of known types of cortical neurons. The neurogranular sampler works by taking short segments (or sound grains) from sound files and triggering them when any of the neurons fire” (MUSE).

I find that the sound grains “fly off of” the drone recordings like sawdust stripped from a piece of wood by sandpaper. The sonic sawdust can be routed to filters, delays, and a battery of other effects to produce incredibly interesting and varied textures and melodies. There are currently no specific directions for the project, but stay tuned.

Listen to Sanding rough edit

First-, Second-, & Third-order Cybernetics for Music and Mediated Interaction

norbert — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 01:23:06 +0000

Implicitly or explicitly, Cybernetics plays a role in works of Experimental, Ambient, and Generative music. This talk will introduce Amergent music, a genre that draws from these musical traditions and creates a third-order cybernetic stipulation in works of technoetic and media art. Drawing on the work of Maturana & Varela and Martin Heidegger, Amergent music establishes a new relationship between listeners, generative systems, and the musically mediated environment that is created in the course of interaction, play, and presence. Some recent projects, including Londontown and Dérive Entre Mille Sons, will be used as examples of this approach in the music of virtual worlds and mobile device applications.

This talk was given:
Thursday, Oct 07 / 2010
12-1 pm
IDAH Conference Room, Wells Library E170D

Download the slide deck.

PhD Thesis Progress (in IOGraph)

norbert — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:21:09 +0000

The full text of my PhD thesis is TOP SECRET until the entire thing is complete and the viva voce has been passed. But there is progress nonetheless! Here is some “proof” that work is moving forward.

IOGraph “…is an application that turns mouse movements into a modern art.” All mouse movements are captured as trails and all points of rest as circles. Large circles represent the places where the mouse sat for longer periods.

I’ll continue to expand this gallery as writing continues, as it must.

FOUND

norbert — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:23:46 +0000

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 7PM @ 101E. 6th Street
Bloomington, Indiana
7PM – 1AM / All ages welcome
$5 / Beer and wine cash bar

A globally cool, local evening of art, design and creative industries celebrating sustainable practices.

FOUND is an extravaganza of sights, sounds and interactions with artists, designers, creatives, musicians, DJs, VJs and performers supporting sustainable practices in art, design, culture and commerce. Creative work and performances in FOUND use hand-built, programmed, open source, DIY, hacked/bent, found or recycled elements and consider sustainable practices.

“Practical Lessons in the Use of English”
by Norbert Herber & Eric Rensberger

An improvisation of words as sound; sounds and words as image. “Practical Lessons in the Use of English” was written by Mary F. Hyde in 1896.

Eric Rensberger has lived in Bloomington, Indiana since 1979. He is a local poet whose collected works may be found at www.ericrensbergerpoetry.net.

Norbert Herber is a musician and sound artist whose research and practice explores the relationship between people and sound within mediated environments.

Also featuring:
Analog Zebra and Snebtor, Younsuk Altieri, Andrew Brennan, Sara Brooks, Amy Burrell, The Canary Project, The Collaboration Room, Laurel Cornell, Terry Dame’s Electric Junkyard Gamelan, William Huster, N_DREW, Caleb Levell and Derek Hopf, Robert Lyon, Andrew Maurer, Edward Morris, Jordon Munson, Annie Murdock, Rob Off, Susannah Sayler, Leslie Sharpe, Mariana Tres, Rachel Weaver, Fabian Winkler

Find Found on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136939366670

x-tet.com redesign

norbert — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:50:18 +0000

Look Mom! WordPress! This represents the first major design overhaul of x-tet.com since 2003. Sure, I still like Japanese action figures, but a revised look and structure for this site was long overdue… Thank you Upstart Blogger for the very cool Minim theme—it’s just what I wanted.

Converting an existing web site to a blog may seem to go against the core ideas of blogging, but this redesign process placed its emphasis on looking forward rather than backward. All entries from the “old” site have been posted without the option to leave a comment. It’s not that feedback and discussion are unwelcome, but most of the older matieral links to work that is done and finished. I’m ready to move on. Plus, this scheme allows me to start new conversations about current projects and launch the site with the most relevant details up front.

Sound Garden

norbert — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:48:53 +0000

Asynchronous improvisation by me, you + others. Following Perturb, Sound Garden is the second work in a series of musical installations that explore the relationship of people, location, and audio relative to technology. Sound Garden was composed for Arts Week 2007 at Indiana University, Bloomington. The project originally ran from 21 February to 7 March, 2007. Most recently, Sound Garden was part of the 2009 SPARK Festival of Electronic Music and Arts at the University of Minnesota, February 17–22, 2009.

Launch the Sound Garden project site

Sound Garden online and in the press:
“Cultivating the Sound Garden” from the IU News Room
Attention from networked_performance
Post in the Audio Cookbook

Composition-Instrument Studies

norbert — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:46:30 +0000

A musical exploration of space, with reference to Henri Bergson, Guy Debord, Kevin Lynch, and Henri Lefebvre. These studies require the arrow keys of a standard computer keyboard and the Flash player.

Launch first study: Dérive
Launch second study: Mazes

This research has taken me to some unexpected and very interesting places. “Psychogeography” in the writings of Guy Debord (1955) and the idea of “city imageability” by Kevin Lynch (1960) have helped me come to the latent realization of a conceptual spatiality in the way I organize sounds in a musical work. My approach is to first conceptualize the core ideas of a project as different sounds. I then arrange these within a conceptual territory (similar to Henri Lefebvre’s socially produced space (1991)) that is then given over to exploration. Debord’s psychogeography, Lynch’s imageability, and Lefebvre’s social space are all constructions of consciousness. They may make reference to actual physical space, but they are immaterial. These spaces are only real to us as a means of facilitating communication and understanding. I am interested in making music that can be experienced in this way. By conceiving of a subject spatially I find the freedom to explore that subject in all its nuance and complexity. When rooted in sound, spatial concepts can acknowledge potentiality. Movement through space then becomes a kind of instrumental performance where the openness and emergence of true interactivity is articulated through sound, as music.