About this event

Most music these days is made using computers and dedicated software for composition, recording, performance and distribution.  Creating tools for artists is in many ways different from building tools for engineers.  Often enough technically perfect solutions are not as inspiring as imperfect setups that allow for creative abuse, show nonlinear behaviour and offer controlled uncertainty.  The nightmare of the technician might be a wonderful source of delight for the creative user.

Professor Robert Henke provides insight into some of the most fascinating and contradictory aspects of the creation of tools for musicians and the usage of these tools. Topics include subjective and objective sonic fidelity, the role of the interface design, random, chance and deliberate abuse of functionality. 

Our speaker will also present concepts on how to artistically deal with the ever growing abundance of options provided by current music software.

About the speakers

Robert Henke studied computer science at the Technical University of Berlin and film sound engineering at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen in Potsdam-Babelsberg.  With Behles, he founded the electronic music act Monolake.  He is Professor for Sound Design at the Berlin University of the Arts, a multidisciplinary thinker, composer, sound designer, software developer, installation artist and audiovisual performer.

His art is focused on carefully shaped details behind the surface and gradual changes of repeating structures in different time scales. Henke places equal importance on the interaction between audiovisual arts, and the physical spaces in which they take place. He is currently exploring new technologies such as wave field synthesis and ambisonics, and makes use of large-scale, high-resolution projections to create situations of total immersion and either decouple the spatial experience from a given space or enhance its inherent properties. Many of his works are defined as potentially endless and slowly evolving states, thus inviting the audience to immerse themselves completely for a freely defined amount of time. His sonic explorations are rooted in academic sound research and computer music as well as in contemporary club culture. With his collaborative musical project, Monolake, he helped shaping what later became 'the sound of Berlin techno music', whilst his more conceptual works are frequently performed or exhibited at art galleries and festivals.

Henke’s interest in the combination of art and technology is further evident in his contributions to the development of the music software, Ableton Live. Since Ableton’s founding in 1999, he has been central to the development of Live, which became the standard tool for electronic music production and performance,  and is currently used by more than 100.000 people world wide. Henke also writes and lectures about sound and the creative use of computers, and holds a professorship in sound design at the Berlin University of Arts.

Henke has released more than twenty albums, with his work, Layering Buddha, receiving an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica in 2007. Currently, he is working on a laser-based audiovisual installation, on a commissioned piece for the Acousmonium, the INA/GRM multiple speaker system, and on preparing for a world tour with his Monolake project.

His next album as Monolake, Ghosts, will be available in February 2012 on his own label, Imbalance computer music.

 

Gerhard Behles studied electronic music at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague and studied Computer Science at Technical University in Berlin.  He released music with Robert Henke as "Monolake", and co-founded music software company Ableton in 1999.  He has since served the company as CEO.

 

Images courtesy of Robert Henke - Monolake.

Poster

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