Description

With all the music in the world at the end of our streaming fingertips, it’s sometimes hard to think of sound as something which takes up space, something with weight, something that can be built. And yet, affordable electronics, simple software, and CNC machines make it easier than ever before to design and construct a musical artifact.  

 This one-day workshop covers the basics of software, hardware, parametric fabrication and sound design. Housed in the ZÖNOTÉKA gallery in Neukölln, we will go through all the different steps involved in constructing your own sonic object, including:

—Electronics: the basics of Arduino (a hardware prototyping platform), plus how to put together a microcontroller, a storage module and an amplifier.   

—Software: introduction to the basics of programming the Arduino in order to program your own playback logic (or, as Brian Eno would put it, “semi-autonomous generative music”).   

—Fabrication: how to design parts on vector software such as Illustrator, how to cut the casing of your object with ZÖNOTÉKA’s CNC foam-cutting machine, and programming shapes with parameters for a unique result.   

—Sound design: the nitty-gritty  of audio file formats, and writing code to arrange music.

Materials

Included in cost

• Arduino Nano
  
• LM386 amplifier
  
• Micro SD Card 16Gb
  
• SD Card Reader
  
• Audio exciter Dayton DAEX19CT-4
  
• Mini USB cable
• Styrodur foam
  

Software

• Code: Arduino IDE (free)
  
• Sound: Audacity (free)
  
• CAD Drawing: Inkscape (free) or Illustrator (trial)
  
• Sample sound files

What you will need to bring

• laptop
• headphones (optional)
• flash drive (optional)

Schedule

Morning 

• Basics & Planning
  
• Introduction to Arduino
  
• Introduction to CAD design
  

Afternoon 

• Assembly & Construction
  
• Soldering workshop
  
• Hot-wire foam cutting
  
• Final assembly
  

Instructor

Pierre Depaz is a teacher, programmer and artist. A lecturer of interactive media at New York University in Berlin, he also writes software and designs hardware for galleries, museums and artists who don’t know (yet!) how to do so. On the theoretical side, his research focuses on the digitalization of public spaces and the aesthetics of source code. On the practical side, his artworks explore the computer representations of complex human interactions, and have been shown in New York City, Paris, Berlin, Montreal, Cairo, Abu Dhabi and Pori.

Booking

Please e-mail: 
zoenoteka@gmail.com