rand()% was a collaboration with Joe Gilmore.
rand()% is an automated net.radio station streaming realtime generative music. All musical content is generated by computer software algorithms and streamed over the Internet. The station existed as a platform for broadcasting generative sound works created by audio artists, composers, musicians and software programmers. The project was commissioned by The Media Centre, Huddersfield and was launched in November 2003 at the Ultrasound Festival.
Artists
? Alku (Spain)
? Dextro (Austria)
? Dieb13 (Austria)
? Lia and Miguel Carvalhais (Austria, Portugal)
? Jason Kahn (UK)
? Kenneth Kirschner (USA)
? Mijim (UK)
? Nullpointer (UK)
? Muio.org (UK)
? Plank (UK)
? Ferrari (UK)
? Thor and Runar Magnusson (Iceland)
? hostprods (UK)
? Fehler vs. Pimmon (N. Ireland, Australia)
? Adrian Ward (UK)
? Dennis McNulty (Ireland)
? Eude (Netherlands)
? Peter Plessas (Austria)
? Eric Skogen (USA)
? Karlheinz Stockhausen and Georg Hajdu (Germany)
? Sonicvariable (Republic of China)
? Steinbr?chel / Brusa (Switzerland)
? Tom Davis (UK)
? Renox (France)
? pix (Australia)
? Elektronengehirn (Germany)
? Douglas Repetto (USA)
? Mark Pilkington (UK)
Exhibitions
? Dots and Lines, Cut and Splice Festival / BBC. May 2005. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/cutandsplice/online_ex.shtml
? rand()%lab, Medialounge, The Media Centre, Huddersfield, UK. November 2004.
? Algorithmsche Revolution, ZKM (Zentrum f?r Kunst und Medienteknologie), Karlsruhe, Germany. October 2004 – October 2005. http://www.zkm.de/algorithmische-revolution/
? Microwave Net Art, curated by Casey Reas, Exhibition Hall, Low Block, Hong Kong, China. October 2004.
? Sonic Acts, Paradiso, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. September 2004. http://www.sonicacts.com/04/
? Numusic, Stavanger, Norway. August 2004.
? Read_Me Software Art Festival (Run_Me Dorkbot: City Camp) in ?arhus, Denmark. July 2004. http://readme.runme.org/
? Audio Generativo, curated by Alku, Sonar Festival, Barcelona, Spain. June 2004.
? Cyberlounge, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico. May 2004
? Machinista Online Arts and Technology Festival. 2004.
Talks/Presentations
? Hive, FACT, Liverpool, UK. 13 November 2005.
? Cybersonica, Dana Centre, Science Museum, London, UK. 28 April 2005.
? Verbindingen/Jonctions, Brussels, Belgium. Joe Gilmore & Roc Jim?nez de Cisneros (performance). December 2004.
? Sonic Acts, Paradiso, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. September 2004. http://www.sonicacts.com/04/
? Ultrasound, The Media Centre, Huddersfield, UK. November 2003.
Reviews
Every night, I dream of a vast machine. It eternally shuffles quantum states; it churns all the integers of a complex equilibrium. It’s sound that is at the same time landscape; pure extension and span. This condition has persisted for weeks, and I blame it on artists Tom Betts and Joe Gilmore, whose rand()% project seems to have commandeered my RealOne Player. Commissioned by Huddersfield England’s Media Centre Network, this internet radio station devotes itself entirely to generative and algorithmically mediated music. Every program rand()% plays is composed afresh in real time; in essence, it’s a soundbot. With talents like Itialian digital artist Lia
(sic – Lia is Austrian) and late (sic) German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in the mix, I’m finding it very hard to sleep.
Lewis LaCook, ‘Movin’ with rand()%’, Rhizome
http://rhizome.org/netartnews/story.rhiz?timestamp=20040623
The ‘sound machine’ myth of the black box which can produce never-ending music, originated in the ancient world, but it periodically resurfaced during human history as a wonderful object which can play ecstatic sounds. In the last thirty years, thanks also to sci-fi suggestions and Very Large Scale Integration microchips, this object changed its status from legend to prototype. The algorithms to generate music have introduced the possibility to create autonomous musical entities, perceived as almost ‘alive’. It’s a primeval, maybe illusory, stage of artificial intelligence which, in rand()% is coupled with the on-demand distribution of Internet radios. The project, developed by Joe Gilmore and Tom Betts, collects the streams realized using this technique by electronic musicians which make available their never-ending, never-repeating music. It’s the next stage of fruition of this kind of compositions, where the peculiar originality of software machines is streamed sequentially. This way, the user listens to the parametric compositions of the machines across the network through a continuous and programmed broadcasting. Thus, after many centuries, the ‘sound houses’ imagined by Francis Bacon in his New Atlantis and the musical pieces for dices, described precisely by Mozart in his ‘Musikalisches Wurfelspiel’, take shape in this project which exploits the amplifying potential of TCP/IP
packets to endlessly offer its musical horn of plenty.
Neural.it
http://www.neural.it/english/
An online radio station that plays music created by software may sound like
a plot device from a William Gibson novel. But now it is actually here. Taking its name from the randomise command in the computer language C++, rand()% is the first online radio station to devote itself exclusively to generative (meaning self-generating) music. This alluring net station plays only music produced by software, although musicians and artists have a hand in setting the programme’s parameters. On the hour, a speech synthesiser reads the news from BBC online, complete with snatches of the HTML code. The success of London’s Resonance FM, which is struggling for funding but not for an audience, proves there is an appetite for this kind of avant garde radio.
Sean Dodson, ‘iRadio’, The Guardian, December 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/webwatch/
A similar idea is the raison d’etre behind online radiostation rand()% (www.r4nd.org). A self-styled generative music radio station, rand()% exists as a host for computer driven audio programming that is entirely automated, where all transmissions are composed in real time by computer. All audio is generated on demand by a series of artist-developed software programs. A crop of techies including Nullpointer, Josef Plank and Felher vs Pimmon are currently have software to be experienced on the site, and, ironically, whenever i’ve tuned in, it sounds a bit like On Land on repeat play.
Anne Hilde Neset, The Wire (issue 239), January 2004
http://www.thewire.co.uk
Centre International d’Art Contemporain de Montreal.
Grafik (issue 119).