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Here you are the second issue of my online newsletter: New Media/Open/Free/Software/Hardware/Culture/Audiovisual.
Read it here http://www.thesaddj.com/newsletter/nov09/

I just came back from Brescia where I held a two-days PureData workshop. Our class featured 16 students from North Italy and for almost all of them was the first time they get their hands dirty with a graphical programming environment.
I introduced the Pd language, therefore we went through an introduction to sound creation with sonic dataflow processes.

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The most interesting aspect of the workshop has been to open up the student’s minds to the unknown field of free creation. Some of them were already doing music and few experiments in sound with proprietary softwares, but none of them was actually aware of the potential of a free environment for sound design and music production and the completely different approach it requires.

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Their reactions has been diverse, but in general most of them were pretty excited about the idea to be – so unexpectedly – free to practically draw on a canvas the ideas they had in their mind. One becomes aware that he doesn’t have to do what Ableton or Reason tell one can do, instead one can take over these closed paths and re-think from scratch his own  concept of “creation”.

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These two days were only the first half of the whole workshop we planned together with Husk (Italian Pd developer and hacktivist). On 5 and 6 December he’s going to introduce the Pd video libraries, i.e. GEM, PDP and Gridflow. In the end of the four days participants should have a basic, solid knowledge about Pd environment and hopefully some of them will bring forward the project they started during the course.

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Special thanks to Davide Anni and Anna Guzzi (Ualuba Association and LABA) for their awesome hospitality and their great efforts in making this workshop happen. Unfortunately most of the italian educational institutions still seems to be allarmingly blind towards open/free tools for artistic creation, even though they are nowadays commonly used by many artists in different fields of research. I hope someone “up there” will finally open his eyes from now on, setting italian students free to learn.

I’m delighted to announce I just enjoyed as blog contributor the community at the web based digital arts publication Vague Terrain. My aim is to present and possibly discuss works, events, festivals related to FLOSS practice within the new media artistic environment.

You can check my first entry here and a kind introduction to myself written by Greg J. Smith here. I would be glad to know what you are doing out there and potentially write about it, so don’t hesitate to get in touch and introduce your work.

Vague Terrain also manages a monthly journal issues which has been recently programmed by many interesting guest curators such as Kim Cascone, Paul Prudence, CONT3XT.NET and Carrie Gates.

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via Piksel mailing list:

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Piksel09 :: f[re](e){op}[en]able

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Berlin. Wonderful as always.

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I visited again the city 3 weeks ago to play the  audiovisual concert ‘I C::ntr::l Nature’ -  selected for the day program of Netaudio Festival.

I went there together with Joanna M. Stacewicz for few days and we had the chance to live one of the (probably) last days of full warm sun before the winter.

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Our expectations about Netaudio Festival were pretty high… probably too high. Wait… i’m not talking about the organization but about the musical offer.
The event was really well organized and it was clear the amount of efforts the staff had to face in order to make everything work. I want to thank all the staff for making this happen. People were great and we all had nice times, but the only thing that i found unsatisfactory was the line-up policy of the event.

Probably i just wasn’t considering the complete  spectrum of a “netaudio-only” event. The line-up was almost completely dedicated to dance live acts (or dj sets), dancy electronica, dancy idm, dancy dubstep, techno, and some live pop bands.

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Don’t misunderstand me… i like to dance, but i largely prefer to discover new sounds, new approaches to music, innovative reflections of sounds and technology.

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This actually made me think a lot about Netaudio scene and how I relate myself to it. Why do i listen to free music? Because it’s free – free as in beer? Because i don’t want to spend my money for music?
No, i don’t think so. Probably i listen to free music ’cause i seek for an added value that can somehow guarantee a different approach to music composition, and hearing experience.
Probably i would like to see a Netaudio festival dedicated to music free as in freedom. The freedom to create music and sounds that are going beyond my everyday perception of techno-glitch, pop-kraut-rock, hip-top raggae dance-hall. Music is much more than this, music is not only something to have fun with, but i believe it is a relevant aspect of our everyday learning process, so that it doesn’t have to be undervalued.

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Anyway, excluding my personal complains, I happily performed the 3rd version of the audiovisual concert for augmented bass guitar and butterfly and introduced the free software C::NTR::L. Thanks Georg – from Pure Data mailing list – for dropping by!

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We had the pleasure to meet many old friends after quite a time. The almighty Dr.Nojoke was there (thanks for hosting us and being our light in Berlin!) – he played a really interesting live set under the moniker Trioon together with the common friend Servando Barreiro and JLab -  and the omnipresent Visual Berlin collective  was contributing to the event with quality live visual shows by Flux, Fred, Oigovisiones, E-Gruppe, Pixelnoizz, Yagama.

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We had also the chance to get to know Fernando Fonseca (Public Spaces) who played one of the most interesting acts in whole the festival. A weird coincidence made me play exactly before his set, thus we met and found out many common ideas. Finally we had also the time to go out for dinner altogether and release our minds from too high thoughts hanging around Kreuzberg for 40′ looking for a place where to eat.
Actually i’m forgetting about another interesting project developed by Netaudio organization: The Berlin Wall of Sound. People were invited to record field sounds around the Berlin Wall to create a Berlin Wall sound map. The map was physically available as touch screen installation inside the main room of the venue ( http://www.netaudioberlin.de/berlin-wall-of-sound/ ).

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All in all i’m glad to have participated and contributed to this event. All critics and doubts expressed in this article don’t have to be perceived as a provocation, not at all. I only try to stimulate constructive discussions and thoughts, since this is what we are here for…
Should i sit all the day long mesmerizing myself thinking how beautiful is life?

Nahh… that’s not for me. Please, feel free to write few lines about your idea of free music and whatever could be related to it. I definitely wish to know your opinion and keep on the conversation.

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