Papernoise Sketchbook

I haven’t been posting for a while here. These are busy times. I’m working a lot for synth manufacturers lately, a new world of exciting projects just opened up and I’m really glad about it!

A project I’ve been involved in lately is a module by Canadian modular synth maker hexinverter.net, in collaboration with Jason Amm aka Solvent (ghostly.com/artists/solvent). It’s a distortion and compressor effect in eurorack modular format made to promote and fund the documentary film I Dream of Wires (idreamofwires.org).

For more information on the module, check this thread over at muffwiggler:
www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1073170#1073170

Available for pre-order here: http://idreamofwires.org/ (you need to click on the “batteryACID module” in the menu, since there’s no direct link to the page…

Be sure to check out the trailer below, because the film is going to be epic! And I think they still need your help to finish it… check the website for details.

“I Dream of Wires: Hardcore Edition” 2013 official trailer from I Dream Of Wires on Vimeo.

While working on Music Makers of the World (and of course thanks to my work at helios), I often stumble over the complicated topic of sustainability in consumer electronics.

There’s a lot of talk about sustainability in general these days (to the point where the word itself stated to loose meaning due to the constant misuse), yet somehow there seems to be little interest for it of it in the field of consumer electronics. We could say that the very nature of of these products is unsustainable. Most have been designed to last only a few years, either because the marketing machine makes us want to buy a newer model, because the parts have been engineered to break or degrade quickly or because the ecosystem in which the device “lives” has changed its standards (this is often referred to as planned obsolescence).
Production is usually based in countries like China, where worker rights are still a very sketchy concept, and due to the production methods and logistics have a pretty heavy CO2 fingerprint.
Last but not least, electronic devices often contain very toxic substances and recycling them is in many cases problematic.

So far I think that it’s quite obvious that the unsustainability of consumer electronics is mainly a culturally rooted problem. The people in the industrialized western countries (the so called “the consumers”) have learned to treat these devices as something to consume, i.e. something you use, and throw away once performance starts to degrade. It should be noted at this point that performance, when talking about consumer electronics, is not only intended in a strictly practical sense, but in a more cultural one. A smartphone has to deliver a certain practical performance, by enabling the user to call people, surf the web and execute software at a decent speed, but also has to perform as a fashion and lifestyle object. Also many of the needs associated with them are often artificially created or enforced by the economic actors (mainly by means of marketing and advertising), which in turn enforces what could be called the obsolescence cycle.

I find it very interesting how the worldwide hacking and making movement (which of course is not strictly one movement) has the potential of indirectly influencing the perception of this whole topic.
For example: If you learn to hack a toy you will gain a completely different approach to electronic devices, the whole thing looses its “magic” and given a bit of experience you might even learn to repair things on your own (something the companies seem to fear most).

Among musicians (especially the ones that deal a lot with electronic instruments) there’s a lot of talk about G.A.S. (which stands for Gear Aquisition Syndrome). It’s quite common for people to buy a lot of devices, and sell many of them after a short time to buy some new ones. The phenomenon is not really negative from a sustainability point of view, since the gear just changes owner and usually gets used until it really won’t work anymore  If a device is built to last, it can have a lifetime well over 10 years (people still buy and sell equipment from the 70s). Open Hardware instruments, that come as D.I.Y. kits have the interesting side effect to increase the knowledge and relation to technology for people who build them (so for example it’s more likely that they will be able to service the devices themselves, or even provide repair services for fellow musicians) but it also radically changes the relationship with the object. Something you have built with your own hands, with a bit of hard work, stops to be something you just consume because you’ve somehow created it.
The good thing is that music and art have a strong communication-related part. If this changed relationship with technology can be communicated through one’s creative work, it will spread to other people, and we will slowly see a cultural change, which will positively impact the world.

To close this discussion, here’s an extract from an interview I’ve made with Patrick McCarthy from Roth Mobot in comic form (recently published by the magazine PILLS).

It’s finally done! The new Mutable Instruments website, on which I’ve been working for the last months is finally online!
This is just the first step of the redesign I’m currently working on for them.
The dingbats and Indian-style decorations have been created by Elisabeth Busani. Thanks to Plangger Patricia for helping out with the logo tweaks and the typography and to Rudy Troger for the programming… and of course to Olivier Gillet for being creator of wonderful machines and for all the input he gave me (of course since this is his website, a lot of ideas came from his side).

check it out at:
http://mutable-instruments.net/

Photos by Sara Masè

I did an interview with Patrick McCarthy from Roth Mobot some time ago (actually ages ago). Now I’m finally working on first comic version of this interview. For now I am making only one page, I have a magaine who’ll be publishing it (but that’s all they gave me) and it was really hard to squeeze so much interesting thoughts into one page… but I think I managed to do it somehow.
Anyway… here’s a little preview from what’s to come.

IT: Il Secret Media Lab, in collaborazione con la Musikbörse12, organizza un workshop di Circuit Bending (modificare circuiti di apparecchi e giochi elettronici allo scopo di generare nuovi suoni e rumori). Il workshop consisterà di una parte introduttiva teorica e di una parte principale pratica nella quale si modificheranno i circuiti di strumenti musicali giocattolo. Non è necessario portare materiale proprio: abbiamo giochi elettronici, componenti e saldatori. Alla fine del workshop, ogni partecipante potrà portarsi a casa lo strumento che ha modificato.
Per quelli che hanno già un saldatore o altre attrezzature: portate pure tutto.

..,-?~*°º°*~?-,..,-?~*°º°*~?-,..,-?~*°º°*~?-,..,-?~*°º°*~?-,..,-?~*°º°*~?-,.

DE: Das Secret Media Lab, in Zusammenarbeit mit der Musikbörse12, organisiert einen Circuit Bending Workshop (dabei werden elektronische Geräte oder Spiele so modifiziert, dass sie neue Klänge produzieren). Der Workshop besteht aus einer kurzen theoretischen Einleitung und einem praktischen Hauptteil, wo jeder Hand an den Schaltkreisen legen darf. Es muss kein Material von zu Hause mitgebracht werden, wir haben alles da: Elektronische Spiele, Komponenten und Lötkolben. Am Ende des Workshops kann sich jeder Teilnehmer das Modifizierte Gerät mit nach Hause nehmen.
Wer schon einen Lötkolben, oder anderes Werkzeug hat, darf es natürlich gerne mitbringen.

Il Secret Media Lab in collaborazione con la MusicBörse 2012 presenta:
la prima edizione di Music Makers South Tyrol, un’edizione indipendente e inufficiale di Music Makers, il design party per il futuro della musica (http://musicmake.rs/). Questo potrebbe essere solo l’inizio…

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Das Secret Media Lab, in Zusammenarbeit mit der MusicBörse 2012 präsentiert:
Die erste Ausgabe vom Music Makers South Tyrol, eine unabhängige und inoffizielle Ausgabe von Music Makers, die design Party für die Zukunft der Musik (http://musicmake.rs/). Das ist hoffentlich nur der Anfang…

This post is dedicated to John Cage and here below is a little portrait I’ve made of him.
As most of you know yesterday was his 100th birthday anniversary (and this year is also the 20th anniversary of his death).
If you want a nice little roundup about his work and the celebrations, head over to createdigitalmusic and see what Peter Kirn has to say about it: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/09/john-cage-at-100-a-celebration-in-words-listening-and-prepared-piano-iphones/

A lot of what Cage did (and represents) is very important for my project. If you think about it, his prepared piano is basically a mechanical/acoustic version of circuitbending. And besides that his experimentations largely lead the way to a lot of contemporary experimental music, so maybe this comic project wouldn’t even exist the way it does without his work.

A quick sketch I made, while doodling around for my new comic project.

I should be on holidays, sun bathing and taking a swim in the pool. But what am I doing? I’m sitting here thinking about this project of mine Music Makers of the World . 

So what’s the current state of the project: I’ve drifted away from my initial idea a bit. At the beginning I wanted to make a reportage comic with fictional elements. The problem is, no matter how hard I try, it’s not something that works for me, I need to be 100% committed to the project and the whole reportage thing just won’t cut it.
The second problem was: I was starting to make a comic just for the insiders, and that’s not something I’m very comfortable with. I chose the topic because I sense something universal in it, something that goes way beyond the boundaries of the phenomenon (or the phenomena if you will).