I’ve been chosen to be the first sound artist in residence at the Open Data Institute headquarters in London, part of both their Data as Culture programme and Sound and Music‘s Embedded composer development programme. This is a really exciting opportunity, and I was astonished to be picked. My application didn’t really say what I’d do on the residency; part of the reason why I was so astonished, but also partly why I’m so happy to be doing it.. I really need some time to reflect and develop something new without too much planning. The residency will be spread over nine months, so it’ll be good for that.
I did develop some vague ideas in my application, though. After reading Tim Ingold and Peter Gärdenfors, I want to use the time to explore open data not as interconnected networks, but through the process of making music interfaces, think of the sharing of data as interwoven threads. I also got interested in the notion of “Data Anthropologies” that the Data as Culture theme has been exploring, wondering whether exploratory computer programming could be described as “Data Ethnography”, as a way (again thinking of Ingold) of exploring the seams between imagination and reality, through the act of writing code. This train of thought made me think about the critical engineering manifesto.. I think this will continue from various collaborations (weaving codes, sonic pattern) around pattern, the ODI context helping me work through for example the notion of pattern that runs through machine learning, and the growing tradition of using textile patterns as data sources for sound.
Big thanks to ODI and SaM!
