Workshop given by Peter van Haaften
Saturday, November 22, 2014, noon-5pm
Price: $25 regular / $21.25 members
To reserve your place, please email lab@easternbloc.ca
Warning! max 12 participants

Composers have experimented with formal processes in music for more than 2500 years, beginning first with Pythagoras. Modern advancements in statistical analysis, artificial intelligence, and computer processing have together led to increased accessibility and interest in the diverse field of algorithmic composition.

Using the free Pure Data language, we will begin by learning the fundamental concepts of data-flow programming, and move on quickly to create real-time streams of data, which can be routed via MIDI to control virtual or external instruments. We will explore together a few practical algorithms implemented in famous works by composers Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, and John Cage during the mid-20th century.


ARTIST BIO
Peter van Haaften is a composer and sound artist currently located in Montréal, Québec. His compositions explore themes of social transformation, the necessary shifting of morals for survival in a post-modern world, and the increasing role that technology will play in this regard.

His work looks to examine how art and technology can work together to effect this kind of positive change, through diverse fields including algorithmic composition, live performance, radio art, and fixed media for speakers.