Here I am, back in Italy for some time. Next week I’ll be teaching the first lesson of a course in Sound Design for sensitive environment at LABA, Brescia Academy of Fine Arts. The course is included in the study program of a Master of Art in New Media and New Technology for Art.
Along with the usual sound design techniques the course includes excursions in soundscape studies and sound art. Students use only free software for audio real-time processing and interactive sonification such as Pure Data graphical programming environment.
The LABA MA also includes courses held by Massimo Banzi (Tinker.it/Arduino), Otolab, Luca Carrubba.

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When Davide Anni, department director at LABA, contacted me a while ago, I was positively surprised by his strong wish to bring free software inside the university program. His efforts did not start only recently, in fact the Academy already uses a free-software-based Wi-fi Internet connection, computers running Linux flavour are available to the students and events and workshop about FLOSS world take place on a regular basis, last event AgitMedia included a conference by Richard Stallman, Arduino and Pure Data workshop.

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I imagine this is probably nothing new to my international readers, but I can confirm it represents a promising exception to the hyper-conservative rule of today Italian universities, especially in this time while Italy and its culture seems to be falling in an endless black hole.
I am looking forward to start this venture and I hope to publish patches, files and texts along the way, to document this experience… so watch this space.

I have been away from the blog for a while now, my apologies. January became definitely busy since its first day and I didn’t have time to proper dedicate myself to writing. Let’s also say I deserved few holidays…

Then let’s start where we left.

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It’s December 2009 and I’m flying to Milan to participate to “AHAcktitude ‘09, the second collective meeting of the aha@ecn.org mailing list community, one of the lists hosted by the historical independent server Isole Nella Rete (Islands in the Net), and funding element of  the networking project AHA:Activism-Hacking-Artivism.
By adopting the same strategy as Hackmeetings, AHAcktitude is organised and managed directly by the participants who can propose and share seminars or projects via the aha@lists.ecn.org list. AHAcktitude began as a space for dialogue and sharing, with the purpose of learning and spreading practices and knowledge in a free environment.” via AHA website.
I contributed to the event holding a Pd workshop at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts together with Luca Carrubba – Husk and Eleonora Oreggia – xname – we presented our self-designed sofware for audiovideo processing ans streaming (C::NTR::L, Qeve and Virtual Entity) and I also had the chance to perform the latest version of ‘I C::ntr::l Nature’ alongside with Otolab and MSST (Glerm Soares, Ricardo Brazileiro and Husk).

The programme of the event was full of contents and activities, panels and workshops, you can get a glimpse here.

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.

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via Piksel mailing list:

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

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I gladly announce the publication of Vague Terrain 15: .microsound, including my piece Sand Horyzon – a composition excerpt of live improvisational computing in Pd using an augmented electric bass guitar.
The whole release brings you two compilations of fine experimental music, text and videos created by the community behind .microsound list (which has just celebrated its ten years) and selected by american composer Kim Cascone.
As Kim states in his article:

“The .microsound community, drawing from areas as discontinuous as Gilles Deleuze, Curtis Roads and the Aphex Twin, is a ‘body without organs’ in Deleuzian parlance; an amorphous object, a fluid changing shape as its poured into different containers…”
“…In order to bracket the various styles of sound art and music I used the Deleuzian concepts of ’smooth space’ and ’striated space.’ Striated space is where I put all the pieces that made use of gesture and beats while ’smooth space’ is where I put pieces that made use of texture and internal movement. But within those two categories what constitutes a .microsound-sounding piece becomes blurred…”

About .microsound: “.microsound is not a “genre” mailing list, since this proliferation has occurred largely without regard for stylistic boundary. instead, .microsound presents itself as a forum for the discussion and exploration of a more general “digital aesthetic” manifesting across a wide variety of styles and disciplines — from academic computer music to post-industrial noise to experimental ambient and post-techno.”

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“Vague Terrain is a web based digital arts publication that showcases the creative practice of a variety of artists, musicians and scholars. The project aspires to apply the focus and methodologies of academic and art journals and the tenacity and specificity of independent record labels to examine contemporary digital culture in an immediate and accessible manner. Content consists of curated visual, audio and written works, and now a companion blog. For better and worse this project is neither peer reviewed nor funded.
All work on this site is published under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike Creative Commons License unless otherwise noted.”
From http://vagueterrain.net/about

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Read the whole article about the publication and get your free copy of the work: http://vagueterrain.net/journal15
You’re also warmly invited to check the .microsound mailing list and its numerous not-only sound art projects here http://www.microsound.org/

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Featuring text & video contributions by Ben Neill, Charles Turner, Dextro, Joanna Demers, Pere Villez, Thanos Chrysakis, Thomas Bey William Bailey and William L. Ashline.

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Feature audio contributions from Mike Rooke, Lubrication, Ronnie Cramer, [ruidobello], Richard Lainhart, sound art, TomDjll, Brett Ian Balogh, Scant Intone, Yota Morimoto, Jorge Castro, Joaquin Gutierrez Hadid, Francesco Rosati, Asferico, Water Falls, Yann Novak, John Hanes, Epoch_Collapse, Jhenner Gayap Benadrilled, Skjølbrot, Markus Jones, Jon Hawken, Adern X Fades 4:38, Julien Ottavi, Vanessa Rossetto, Kim Cascone, Larnie Fox, eddie135, Di.J Crisis, shg, Cheryl E. Leonard, Noe Cuellar, Gary R. Weisberg, Osvaldo Cibils, Kotra, Gintas K, John Kannenberg, Ricky Pannowitz, ocp, TheSAD, Margaret Schedel, Pereshaped, so/on, Eric Miller, Nux Vomica, v4w.enko, UmanoidSomeday, Epoch Collapse, Umanoid and Noe Cuellar.

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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