The concepts of generative art and (programmed) computer art were assimilated right from the start. With the recent appearance of art using methods drawn from A-Life, as used in the community concerned, has acquired biological overtones.
In biology, the key word is common in discussions of morphological development and growth in plants and animals, and in references to reproduction.
One or both of those meanings is/are sometimes explicitly stressed by self-styled generative artists whose work focusses on emergence, self-organization, and/or evolution.
Automatonism is the name of both the modular synthesiser in Pure Data and the creative output of its developer, Johan Eriksson. A PhD student at Birmingham Conservatoire, UK, Eriksson works at the intersection of composition, performance and instrument design.
His research explores new ways of making music with modular synths by highlighting the partnership between human and the automaton.
His first modular project, Xodular, arrived during a new wave of interest in modular synthesis and gained notable popularity for a freeware instrument.
Automatonism builds on Xodular, adding more modules and features for greater performability and expressiveness, while also encouraging players to delve into the making of generative algorithms.
"Pd is a visual programming language created by Miller Puckette, who was the original developer of Max when he was at IRCAM. Over the years, Max has grown into a rich ecosystem of libraries and external objects, with its core program and API maintained by Cycling ‘74, a company recently purchased by Ableton. Pd is superficially similar to Max, but Pd is an open source project, so there are now tons of extensions available beyond its original code. It’s also really cool in that it runs on just about any platform — Windows, GNU/Linux, Android, iOS, and of course macOS."
- John Baccigaluppi
credits
released May 14, 2022
All sounds made with modular patch / Automatonism in Pure Data
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