ALMAT @ BEK - Thresholds of the Algorithmic by Hanns Holger Rutz

Exposition for the workshop-in-exposition taking place in Bergen, Norway, June 2018. This event is a collaboration between Almat and BEK Bergen for Electronic Art, and part of BEK and Notam’s ongoing series of workshops for advanced users. It is a hybrid format that places the workshop inside an exhibition context, where the exposed works and artefacts form the basis of the workshop’s activity. Instead of “closed works”, what is exposed to the general public are objects, sounds or installations that are open to engagement and reconfiguration during the workshop. Theme: Thresholds are locations of transitions, points where one modality becomes another, where a qualitative change occurs. In physics the point where an aggregate state changes—the phase transition—is a distinguished transitional location where the properties of the adjacent states become evident. Similarly, in this workshop-in-exposition we want to study the properties of the algorithmic by putting ourselves in threshold positions and actively shape them. More than merely separating two sides, one can spend time on a threshold, move along a ridge, performing a tightrope walk while trying not to fall to either side.

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Kosmas Giannoutakis

about

Music emerging from self-organizing systems is the focus of the artistic practice of Kosmas Giannoutakis. He situates compositional, performative and algorithmic agencies as non-hierarchical, decentralized networks, which exchange information in multiple time-scales through the medium of sound. His artistic output includes experimental music forms that identify and catalyze unpredictable and unrepeatable music qualities.

Kosmas’s works have been presented in various international festivals and conferences, such as inSonic and next_generation in ZKM Karlsruhe, Junge SIGNALE concert series in Graz, Soundislands Festival/2nd International Symposium on Sound and Interactivity in Singapore, Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium 2016, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2015 and ICMC 2016 in Utrecht, REAL/UNREAL BEAST FEaST 2016 in Birmingham, klingt gut! 2016 Symposium on Sound in Hamburg, 13th Athens Digital Arts Festival, Linux Audio Conference 2017 in Saint-Étienne, xCoAx 2017 in Lisbon, “The Digital Body” International Exhibition in Bucharest.

Born in Thessaloníki Greece, he has studied piano, percussion, composition and computer music at the University of Macedonia, University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar, University of Music Freiburg and the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics – IEM of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.

{kind: biography, persons: Kosmas Giannoutakis}

Project proposal

For the workshop-in-exposition “Thresholds of the Algorithmic”, I would like to reflect and experiment on the described threshold of agency/non-agency. My proposed installation “Sonic Current” addresses this point by situating an non-autonomous system in an environment.

The system can be driven by external acoustic stimuli which subtly influence the generative audio network. The output is thus shaped by the internal agential dynamics and from the environment, creating an ambiguous behavior that can raise the questions: does the installation sense the environment? Does it behaves genuinely or intelligently? Does it achieve a state of a sonic self? During the workshop, I would like to experiment with feeding audio inputs from or to other installative or performative works. Will these questions become intelligible or irrelevant? Especially, if the other coupled systems does not exhibit this ambiguity and demonstrate clear traits of agency and non-agency.

{function: proposal, keywords: [agency, system, environment, feedback]}

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meta: true
date: Jun-2018
author: Kosmas Giannoutakis
event: Thresholds
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