Another walk and talk hosted by Shuoxin Tan, one of the members from collaborative algorithmic network-music ensemble [ _ _ _ ]. The topics were improvised as usual, and they listened to each other while recording it simply via Jitsi. Meanwhile, the recorded sound events could never be heard as the same by each individual – how could we define a place by articulation through networks?
*Listening with headphones is recommended.
»Three placeholders sitting in a room between empty spaces.« This is how the ensemble [ _ _ _ ] describes itself. It was founded in 2020 by the artists Shuoxin Tan, Li Song, and Jia Liu, to compose music for the network. Shuoxin Tan was born in Beijing and works as a composer and sound artist in Cologne. She researches algorithmic acoustics, sound ontology and Lacanian topology. Li Song is a musician and software developer based in London. He composes music for computers and acoustic instruments. Jia Liu is a composer and computer music performer. She lives in Karlsruhe and is currently working on algorithmic music and composition for autonomous systems.
The three members share the same interest in algorithmic acoustics and composition, SuperCollider and live coding. Can algorithms be collaborative? What happens when the Borromean knot is applied to network structures for collaborative algorithmic composition? The data communication mechanism was developed from scratch during the Covid lockdown in 2020, adopting the programming language SuperCollider.
Every month the ON Podcast offers a new perspective into the independent scene of Cologne. What it is about and who it is with is entirely up to the host: in two episodes they give us insights into their life and work within the experimental music scene and share conversation, stories and music.