Originality is one of those words that feels self-evident until you try to define it. Few concepts are invoked more confidently in art, and few collapse more quickly under closer inspection. Artists are expected to be original. Works are valued for their originality. Legal protection hinges on it. And yet, anyone who has seriously studied or practiced art knows how fragile this idea is.
What’s a sound designer doing in Mozart? In Don Giovanni at Aix, the collaboration with Sir Simon Rattle and Robert Icke led to an unusual rehearsal process — and one clear insight: an idea is not enough. You have to carry it through all resistance.
The CORPUS project, which I initiated, puts artists at the center of AI development. Musical works are deliberately contributed to train AI systems — legally, with fair compensation, and under ethical conditions. It’s not about fear of technology, but about new artistic possibilities — and more controllable AI. CORPUS aims to show how AI can become a partner, not a threat.
With the Sonic Presence SP15 microphone, high-quality sound recordings can be made without effort: you always have the microphone with you, you don't need a tripod, your smartphone serves as a recorder. It captures the sound impression at the position of the listener in a credible way. A review.
Almost 10 years of wow&flutter removal with Celemony's Capstan! Time to reflect on its history and compare it to the newest offering by Izotope. Audio files included.
The just intonation differs clearly from the usual equal temperament in its sound but also in its practicability. On this accordion a third C-E sounds clear and free from beating, while the third B-D, for example, sounds totally sloped and crooked. This offers not only the possibility of playing particularly pure sounds, but also, in a particularly charming way, to play wonderfully iridescently "wrong". This "wrong sounding" is not the result of a randomly detuned accordion, but is determined in an audibly conscious and concrete way.
Already in 1990, musical experiments with analog neural networks have been made. David Tudor, a major figure in the New York experimental music scene, collaborated with Intel to build the very first analog neural synthesizer.
Justified criticism of the regents mixes with dangerous trivialisation of the virus, existential fear can no longer be separated from the fear of the health risk, highly interesting ethical questions come to a radical head and are buried under a wave of opinions and assertions. Out of this serious confusion - once again - a good book has helped me. I took the crisis as an opportunity to re-read one of the books that is most important to me, "The Modern Death" by Carl-Henning Wijkmark, under the light of the Corona pandemia. Reading it has brought me peace with the restriction of freedom. Read in my personally colored book review why:
How I managed to get an audience for an independent experimental music-theatre piece and enjoyed applying creative entrepreneurial strategies to a publicly funded art project. I hope this report to be inspiring and motivating to fellow theatre makers. An adventure report.
