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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’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.

I’m spending these last days preparing the material for the upcoming workshop in Brescia, Italy on 21-22  / 5-6 November.
Together with the dear friend Husk we conceived a intensive workshop about real-time audiovisual processing in Pure Data to be held during the event Agit Media – organized by Ualuba.org. Agit Media is promoted by Centro A&T (Arte & Tecnologie) with partnership of LABA Academy of Fine Arts, Brescia and curated by Davide Anni.

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The event is structured with multiple happenings focused on digital creation with free and softwares: speech with Richard Stallman, Davide Tanzj, Melih Bilgil, Dvasgamerteam, an interactive intervention by Sapolab, plus our Pure Data and Arduino workshops (with Massimo Banzi).

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The Pure Data class is dedicated to professional musicians, videomakers or passionate with no previous experience in programming includes a 4-days in-depth exploration of the audio and video dataflow and processing for the creation of live media works.
On 21-22 November I will talk about Pd and its community, later I’ll introduce the audio objects and the most common idioms for sonic processing. Therefore together with the participants we will build up a collaborative sonic laboratory, creating simple processes ( i.e. real-time audio synthesis, custom processing strctures, sequencers and sample players) which will be then implemented in the structure of a couple of more complex softwares.

The second part of the workshop held by Husk on 4-5 November will follow a similar structure focused on the video libraries of Pd and the manipulation of video streams.

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Program:

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21-22 November (Audio – Marco Donnarumma)

• Pd and its Community
• Pd works review
• Pd Language
• Audio objects and idioms
• Sonic Laboratory
• Principles of audio video interaction 1
• Collective briefing
• Collaborative software development

5-6 November (Video – Luca Carrubba)

• Video Libraries introduction
• Video Review
• Video reproduction and basic manipulations
• Video Effects
• Generating visuals and advanced processing
• Principles of audio video interaction 2
• Collective Briefing
• Communication protocols
• Sofware production Laboratory

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The feedback to the call for the workshop has been really great – we had to increase the number of participants to 20 – and at the moment only 8 places are still available. Subscription costs 30 euro for students and 60 euro for professionals, if you wish to catch the last positions available please write to info at ualuba.org.
More infos: Ualuba.org

Looking forward to meet some of you there!

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For those of you who hang around Berlin, I’ll be participating to the almighty Netaudio Festival – day program – with a showcase of my audiovisual performance for augmented bass guitar ‘I C::ntr::l Nature’ (check the project here) entirely made and performed with PureData.
I’ll be performing on Friday from 14.15 to 14.45h and for the remaining 30 minutes I’ll be explaining the functionality of ‘C::NTR::L’, the free software I developed for the performance . The software allows you to transform your standard musical instrument in an augmented audiovisual controller, it’s published under GPL license so free to be used and modified. If you’re interested you’re very welcome to drop by.
The festival will take place from 8th to 11th October at the wellknown Maria am Ostbahnhof (Mao).

I was really glad to get to know about my selection since Netaudio festival is the bulwark of free CC-licensed music, so it represents kind of _must_ for me.
Here you are the statement of this Berliner edition – via Netaudio website:

From the 8th to the 11th of October 2009, Netaudio Berlin will be gathering the international netaudio community for a four-day music and conference festival in Berlin, under the title “East meets West”. 2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain. We recall pictures of hands reaching out to pull people from both sides up onto the Berlin wall. The event will take place at Maria, a venue situated immediately on the former Berlin ‘death strip’ once dividing the city and the world into eastern and western hemispheres.

In recent years a netaudio landscape has emerged in the countries of Eastern Europe. Speakers, artists and netlabel managers from Eastern and Western Europe as well as from the USA are invited to find out more about the needs and possibilities, challenges and chances of netaudio under the various cultural frameworks and to discuss new opportunities for networking and collaboration across borders and cultures.

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The line-up of the festival is generously eterogeneous, providing a day program including:

• Netaudio Fair
• Showcases
• Lectures
• Workshops
• Discussions
• Films

… and a night program too broad to be described in this article. Plenty of artists and genres – electronic, drum’n'bass, dubstep, hip hop, techno. Be sure to check the full program here. The live visuals will be curated by my dear friends Visual Berlin, don’t miss it!

Thanks Bologna!
I had definitely great days in there. The roBOT festival – organized by Shape Association – took place at Palazzo Re Enzo – Bologna – one of the most beautiful ancient building in Bologna and probably in whole Italy.

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Look at the ‘Sala del Podestà’ picture below to get a glimpse about the rest of the building. Something awesome.
The festival is more clubbing oriented, but since this year they established a call for works located in the experimental audiovisual field.
That’s how i got to participate alongside with Ape5+Eraser, EricaIlCane, Saul Saguatti, Teatrino Elettrico and Pixelnoizz.
I could enjoy a warm and quiet atmosphere and nice chats with the technical staff (in the picture).
You know? one of the best thing that can happen to an artist going to perform somewhere is to get in touch with professional, friendly technicians who understand his needs… and that’s what has happened.

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On Wednesday, the opening was reserved to Carl Craig and his SHAPE project. Highly acclaimed musical project connecting and blending techno and classical musical languages. On Thursday has started the experimental section of roBOT with the first three performances including me, Pixelnoizz and EricaIlCane.
I made a shorter performance, trying to understand how to relate with the space of the huge concert hall.  It hasn’t been easy to understand how to play in such a space, where the sound jump from one side of the roof to another, like playing in a big Gothic church.
EricaIlCane and his crew has showed ‘Piove, Governo Ladro’ an evocative imagery, sometimes more decorative sometimes more dreamy. Playing inside of a semi-transparent box they have spread some interesting noise with four audio channels surrounding the installation.

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In between on Friday i had the chance to get to know the american artist John Duncan. Incredibly he was holding an informal meeting with some young artists at the same place where i’ve been hosted (Nosadella.2 – residency for artists and curator).
So i participate to the meeting with him and Melissa Pasut and in the end we spent the night together with a lovely dinner and other friend Elisa DelPrete. It’s useless to say it has been an inspiring meeting.

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Finally on Saturday I’ve met a lot of old friends and I’ve also met for the first time the Italian artists Ape5 and Eraser. They proposed their latest performance ‘Future sounds like Past Toys’ mixing the ethereal music of Eraser (heavy circuit bending on old toys) with a glitch visual imagery provided by Ape5.

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Then i repeated my performance ‘I C::ntr::l Nature’ - audiovisual improvisation for augmented electric bass guitar, butterfly and self-designed software C::NTR::L, Pure Data based - and i have to say it has been one of the best performance I’ve ever made since I’m traveling around with this project.
I was feeling this kind of emotive tension who often push a creative mind to get out his best.
The sound was finally as i wish it would have been and a lot of people showed up to attend to the concert.
I’m usually really critic towards my concerts but this time I’ve felt something too good around, maybe the presence of many friends, maybe the great location, maybe the proper astral plane connections… anyway the show was strong and impressive.

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My friend Carlotta Piccinini from Visuallab has been so kind to shoot almost all the performance with an excellent camera, so be patient and expect a new video reel from the performance.

After the performances (including also Byetone who was performing at my same time, I would have loved to attend) everybody has moved to the Link for the last club night of the festival. Nice time in there supporting old good friends Vj Hash and Sapo during their vj set, and around 5am everybody has jumped in the car driving back home.

Once again Sunday has come and I’ve taken the last tour around the city, sitting in a park and enjoying the last rays of sun – because in Milan the rain was waiting for me.
I end the report with this picture: a public park in Bologna dedicated to the 11st September 2001.
I’ve the maximum respect for that event (and also a lot of doubts and anxiety), but could you tell me why in Italy we should dedicate a park to this date???
Sorry but i cannot agree with that.

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Thanks to all the people from roBOT staff – Marcella, Federica and all the technical staff – and thanks also to all the people who showed up for my concert. It means a lot to me, especially here in Italy.

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I’m really glad to share with you the live recording of my most recent audiovisual concert I C::ntr::l Nature at Pure Data Convention 2009, Sao Paulo, Brasil. The only sonic source is my bass guitar augmented by the self-designed software C::NTR::L v.1.3.

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Many thanks to Henrique Iwao for his efforts during the convention and for being so patient to record and order (all?) the performances at Pd Con.

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You can listen to the concert with the player below. If you want to download it for free check my download page.

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TheSAD – I C::ntr::l Nature Live @ Pure Data Convention 23-07-09 by TheSAD

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Besides you may be interested in visiting the unofficial archive of Pd Convention performances at this address http://sussurro.musica.ufrj.br/pdcon09/material.html.
All the material is kindly hosted by sussurro.musica.ufrj.br – Biblioteca Musical Digital do Laboratório de Música e Tecnologia da Escola de Música da UFRJ.

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Multimedia artist Ioann Maria just came up with a really dark short film, an elegant and intense 1.26 mix of footage, animation and symbolism.

She chose my track  ‘Entering…’ as soundtrack for this work. The audio track is included in my first album ‘Home’ released back in 2007 by italian historical netlabel Sinewaves.it.

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If you like the mood of this work, be sure to check the HD version here, and if you enjoy the sound – old but still one of my most inspired works IMHO – and you want to hear more check the album free to download here.