Category Archives: collab

Keith Rowe: Extended

 

Keith Rowe: Extended is organized on and around the work of renowned experimental guitarist Keith Rowe, and in celebration of the publication of Keith Rowe: The Room Extended [powerHouse Books], the first official biography of the guitarist by Brian Olewnick.

Curated by Jason Brogan and Ed Keller, the event will include commentary, discussion, and performances. In addition to Rowe himself, musicians Clara de Asís, Marcia Bassett, Maria Chavez, Sandy Ewen, Lucie Vítková, and Barry Weisblat will perform.

Keith Rowe: Extended is supported by the Center for Transformative Media at Parsons School of Design, the Innovations in Education Fund, and Mannes School of Music.

PROGRAM

10am – 12:30pm: Morning Session

FREE

Coffee

Introduction by organizers Jason Brogan and Ed Keller

Reading by Rowe biographer Brian Olewnick

Discussion and Q&A with Olewnick and Rowe, moderated by Steve Smith (Boston Globe, National Sawdust, New York Times)

Keith Rowe solo performance

[copies of the book will be available to purchase]

4pm – 6pm: Afternoon Concert

$10 suggested admission

Clara de Asís (guitar) and Lucie Vítková (accordion and varia)

Maria Chavez (turntable) and Sandy Ewen (guitar)

Marcia Bassett (guitar) and Barry Weisblat (electronics)

Organized by Jason Brogan (Fellow) and Ed Keller (Director) Center for Transformative Media at Parsons School of Design on Saturday, October 13, 2018

POST PLANETARY FUTURES: Symposium


 

Full conference brief:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2070465049860240/
Speakers included Rory
Rowan,  Stephanie Wakefield, Tamara Álvarez, Kathryn Yusoff, Nigel Clark, & Ed Keller.  This  symposium  was held as  a free ranging  survey and meditation  on the cosmopolitical implications  of existing planetary material relations, as  reframed in the context of emerging energetic  and computational systems [‘the stack’].

By  contrasting  [post] planetary  material systems with  the emerging technoscape  we hoped to expose feedback  loops and communicative systems  which modulate agency and awareness. Such  feedback mechanisms – ecologies of feeling-  may offer a belated hope for a coordination of  life and mind across multiple timescales, resulting  in a possible post/trans/inhuman ethics.
-Ed Keller.

Ed Keller moderated/introduced  event. CTM hosted.

Convened to  follow-up the 2014 Post Planetary Capital symposium.

Women of Guitar: Symposium

A full day event featuring internationally renowned guitarists and luthiers discussing their work and art, in conversation with Fabi Reyna of She Shreds Magazine and WNYC’s John SchaeferGuests included Sharon Isbin, Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn, Erika Anderson (EMA), Ava Mendoza, Xenia Rubinos, Rachel Rosenkrantz, Mamie Minch, Chloe Swantner, et. al.

Curated by Fabi Reyna, David Spelman, and Ed Keller; In collaboration with NY Guitar Festival and She Shreds magazine. Sponsors: NYGF & CTM [host]

Privatizing the Cosmos
: Lecture by Rory Rowan

CTM hosted Rory Rowan for this CTM guest lecture. Stephanie Wakefield [Lang] responded.

The SPACE Act of 2015, which recognized the right of US citizens to engage in the commercial exploitation of resources in outer space, may prove to be one of the lasting legacies of the Obama administration with profound implications for the governance of extra-planetary space. The SPACE Act – or the Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Act to give it its full name – marks an attempt by the US government to facilitate the expansion of private enterprise in extra-planetary space, so-called NewSpace, in order to reshape the human presence – and US dominance – off-earth. Yet the clamor for ‘space resources’ is not simply an American tale as other states eager to claim a stake in the speculative cosmic bonanza rush to produce their own legislation.

This paper will explore these new extra-planetary geographies through four lenses: the ‘neoliberalisation’ of outer space governance; the expansion of capitalist extractivism off-Earth; the neocolonial rhetoric of astro-frontierism; and the contested questions of property and sovereignty in outer space. It argues that despite the media fanfare around speculative projects for Mars colonization the already existing, and rapidly transforming, entanglement of off-earth activities with earthbound social processes deserves critical attention given the potential stakes around questions of who can and should do what in outer space.

Acid Architecture: Symposium


With Warren Neidich, Ken Wark, Sanford Kwinter, Ed Keller, and Nora Khan.

In cognitive capitalism the mind and brain are the new factories of the 21st century. We are the cognitariat, mental laborers: our daily searches, likes and dislikes creating the lifeblood of vectorialist platforms. Originally denoting shifting relations of labor characterized by performativity, virtuosity and immateriality, cognitive capital’s current material mutations, especially those occurring in uncounted populations of neural synapses, now embody and extend networked cultural relations across our habitus.

This conference begins with these provocations and explores the ‘architectural’ implications of such changes. We introduce the notion of Acid Architecture as a term that, on the one hand, delineates a state of psychedelically induced mind warping resulting from excitation of alternative serotonergic active sites and, on the other, the resulting wall paintings, hive minds, design initiatives and architectures that emerge from the fanciful imaginings of this alternative state of consciousness. Acid Architecture can be hypothesized to function at all physical and temporal scales as a means of escape from the processes of normalization and governmentalization at hand in neurocapitalism’s contemporary forms of subjectivization.

Ed Keller moderated, spoke, and served as co-organizer with Warren Neidich.

Future of Mind: Symposium

Ed Keller, Bill Hibbard, Nick Land, David Weinbaum, Ben Goertzel.

The symposium explored the future possibilities of intelligence in the broadest way possible. What kinds of minds will future AGIs and robots possess? What kinds of collective intelligence will emerge among humans, cyborgs, robots, and AIs? What new types of complex self-organizing dynamics will arise, stretching beyond our current concept of “intelligence”? What will our current notions of “ethics”, “consciousness” and “creativity” look like from the perspective of 2050 or 2200? 


The day featured a series of panels moderated by Dr. Goertzel and Prof. Keller, combining contributions of expert panelists with those of audience members. Five minute ‘lightning talk’ presentations by panelists were followed by discussions encouraging all participants and audience to develop a day long conversation.


Guests included Cosmo Harrigan, Natasha Vita More, David Weinbaum, Nick Land, Bill Hibbard, Reza Negarestani, Patricia Reed, Pete Wolfendale, Peter Watts, Ben Bratton, et al. 
Convened and moderated by Ed Keller and Ben Goertzel.

We partnered with The New Centre to host one day of their week long, parallel, #AGI seminar, and were joined by them in one panel. http://conversations.e-flux.com/t/live-blog- the-new-centre-2016-nyc-summer-residency-july-18-22/4077

SCHEDULE

9:30-10 AM: Workshop Introduction

10-11:15 AM: SESSION 1: The Future of the Individual: AGIs, Cyborgs, Uploads, and …

Epistemological horizons of the individual and collective mind. Rethinking the ethics and politics of mind beyond individual or gender.

◦   Panelists: Cosmo Harrigan, Natasha Vita-More, Amy Li, & by videolink Peter Watts

11:30-12:45: SESSION 2: Economies of Intelligence

The economics of intelligence; and the intelligence of economies.  Continuing thoughts on the relation between emerging ‘radical economies’ and the role of cognitive & computational platforms. Infrastructure, complexity, collapse.

◦   Panelists: Ted Goertzel, José Cordeiro

12:45-2 – lunch break

2-3:15: SESSION 3:  Ethics, Ethologies and Ecologies of the Emerging Global Brain

Non-anthropocentric models of cognition and intelligence. Blockchain and tech-ecology as platform for a ‘noosphere’. The absolute limits of the human. Critically unpacking various computational models and a broader definition of life and ecology. Addressing the human/non-human/alien relationship.

◦   Panelists: David Weinbaum, Nick Land, Bill Hibbard

3:30-4:45: SESSION 4:  #AGI: Accelerate General Intellect

[organized with the collaboration of The New Centre]

◦   Panelists [TBC]: Reza Negarestani, Pete Wolfendale, Patricia Reed

Panel Abstract: What does it mean to accelerate the general intellect in the age of artificial intelligence? #AGI begins from the investigation of distributed networks from which thought assembles and into which it disperses. Unlike in the past, general intelligence, algorithms, and networks are together becoming as irreducible to the efforts of “universal” intellectuals as cultural and political movements have become to “universal” leaders. Will the future enable a more radical, integrated, but also more complex mode of cultural and political engagement? One predicated upon what Marx describes as, “the conditions of the process of social life itself… under the control of the general intellect.”*

#AGI explores the new intensifying developments in the field of AI that are making possible subjectless modes of the general intellect, more collective and more general than any single individual or network.

* Karl Marx, Grundrisse (London: Penguin Books, 1973), 706.

5:00-6:15: SESSION 5: Mind Beyond Mind

The relations linking radical invention, aesthetics, biological networks, and cognition. The Stack.

◦   Panelists: Vlad Bowen, Elliott Sharp, Ben Bratton [by videolink]

6:15-6:45 : Workshop Wrap-up

Morning session video

Afternoon session video

The Future of Guitar and Instrument Design

2013-14-15 CTM Lecture, workshop and performance series
TrueTemp

In 2013-14, CTM presents a series of lectures, workshops, & performances focusing on the cutting edge present and future of guitar and instrument design. Organized and coordinated by Ed Keller, and co-sponsored by Mannes School of Music, the series functions as a platform to build cross divisional collaboration at The New School, and opens exclusive external collaborations. Internationally renowned luthiers, designers, builders, materials innovators, composers, performers, theorists, and sound designers come together to explore points of connection between the traditions of musical instrument design and sound production, and new forms of design thinking facilitated by materials science, emergent materials, parametric design, the internet of things, physical computing, networked sound, and the politics of ‘noise’.
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In the Fall 2014, our guests include master luthiers Michihiro Matsuda and Florian Vorreiter;
CTM
Artist Fellow Elliott Sharp; and more TBA.

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In the spring of 2014, our guests included guitarist/teacher/technologist Joe Ravo, architect, designer and coder Ezio Blasetti. Guest performances and workshops will be linked to the lecture series via our  Collab course ‘The Radical Future of Guitar‘.

In the fall of 2013, our first guests in this project included some of the most internationally recognized and innovative guitar designers of recent decades: Ken Parker, Ned Steinberger, Ola Strandberg, and Gary Lee. Each lecture was accompanied by panel discussions, performances and demonstrations by internationally acclaimed artists including Allan Marcus, Charlie Hunter, Fred Hand, Charles Yang, Barry Salmon, Dom Minasi, & Ratzo Harris. Theorists and performers speaking on the current and future envelope of instrument design join these events; Martin Rosenberg was our guest in December in this capacity.

 

 

LECTURERS and GUESTS in the series:

matsudaJazzGtr

Michihiro Matsuda
Pairing traditional woodworking skills with an innovative sense of design and construction, Matsuda builds around ten to twelve guitars each year at his lutherie studio in Oakland California. His instruments integrate fine materials with organic shapes and graceful lines.

 

 

 


florian

Florian Vorreiter
The emphasis in Florian’s work is on traditional construction methods and state-of-the-art knowledge from research as well as elaborate measuring procedures (Chladni-modes, FFT-Analysis, deflection measurements). The unique sound of Vorreiter-Instruments is accomplished by combining intuition and scientific procedures.

 

 

 

ezioEzio Blasetti, registered architect TEE-TCG, is the co-founder of maeta design (2011), ahylo studio (2009), apomechanes (2009) and algorithmicdesign.net (2008). He has taught generative design studios and seminars at Pratt Institute, the Architectural Association, Sciarc, RPI, UTS, PennDesign and Columbia University.  His work has been exhibited and published internationally and is part of the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou.

 

joe-ravo
Joe Ravo
A native New Yorker, Joe has performed with jazz greats Dave Brubeck and Stanley Turrentine and worked in the orchestras of various hit Broadway shows including, A Chorus Line, 42nd Street, Secret Garden, City of Angels, and Dancin’. As the guitarist of Johnny Rodgers Band (JRB), Joe has toured around the globe as a cultural ambassador for the United States. When MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was introduced, Joe exploited his engineering background to develop software for Korg USA as a contract programmer. As well as serving as director of technology for Mannes College the New School for Music since 2000, Joe is currently on the faculties of the music conservatory’s preparatory and extension divisions.

 

KenAndYoYoFINAL

 

Ken Parker Currently building world class, innovative jazz archtop guitars in his personal shop Ken Parker Archtops, Parker was the founder of Parker guitars in 1991, a company which developed radically innovative electric guitars utilizing cutting edge manufacturing and materials.

 

 

 

 

ned

Ned Steinberger Today designing and building both electric classical bowed instruments and electric guitars and basses with his company NS Design, Steinberger was renowned in the 1980s for his use of carbonfiber in his eponymous Steinberger ‘headless’ guitars and basses from that period.

 

 

 

 

ola

Ola Strandberg’s line of ergonomically designed instruments extrapolate the design ideas seen in other ‘headless guitars’, and his innovations in neck profile design, CNC milling, materials, fanfret and tempered fretboards- as well as Creative Commons licensing much of his design work- make him one of the most exciting designers/builders today. CTM & Parsons will be partnering exclusively with Strandberg in Spring 2014 in a collab course studying the ‘Radical Future of Guitar’.

 

 


Gary Lee
Trained as a research scientist with a Ph.D. in biochemistry,
in 2007 Gary launched Lee Guitar Works and the transition to building guitars full-time. Gary’s research background inspires creativity, thoughtful design and exacting execution. His handcrafted classical guitars incorporate the best of traditional design with contemporary features such as adjustable-action necks, elevated fingerboards, double top laminate soundboards, bridges with 12-hole tieblocks, and rigid sides with solid linings for excellent projection.

 

As part of the series, CTM  presents theorists and performers speaking on the current and future envelope of instrument design.
What is at Stake with Ergonomics in Guitar Design, Martin E. Rosenberg [link to event description]

MartinMartin E. Rosenberg wrote his dissertation on the cultural work across the arts of the scientific concept of “emergence,” beginning with Henri Poincaré, Henri Bergson, and Marcel Duchamp, and ending with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Ilya Prigogine, Francisco Varela and Thomas Pynchon.   He recently published on emergent behaviors, visible in music notation, in jazz improvisation and composition, and currently researches the cognitive neuro-science of improvisers. Originally trained in jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music, he has returned (after thirty years) to performing in the Pittsburgh area.

 

 

A Rogue Frequency: book and record launch

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Yume Cyan, Last Dance of the Fairies, Nagoya City, Japan (June 2013)

punctum and the Center for Transformative Media, Parsons The New School for Design are co-hosting A Rogue Frequency on Saturday, September 28th, from 5:30-8:00 pm @Kellen Auditorium, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center (66 Fifth Avenue), to celebrate the launch of punctum records and to feature a reading/sound/music mashup with musical artist Taft, plus Katherine Behar + Emmy Mikelson, Jamie “Skye” Bianco, Andreas Burckhardt (author of punctum’s A Sanctuary of Sounds), Rachel Cantor, Oliver Kellhammer, Léopold Lambert, Marget Long, Dominic Pettman, Allen W. Strouse (author of punctum’s forthcoming My Gay Middle Ages), and Marina Zurkow. Books will be available for purchase and there will also be a reception. The Facebook page for the event is HERE.