Son[i]a #301 David Burraston
- 00:01 Digital ontologies
- 06:16 Intro
- 09:07 Rainwire. Contemporary rural art practices and rainfall research
- 25:00 From classical piano to algorithmic composition
- 30:24 Creative practice & complex systems
- 32:18 Cellular Automata (CA). Origins, functioning and behaviour
- 35:52 Modelling complex systems. Research applications for CA
- 39:48 Visualization, mapping & musical implementations for CA
- 45:13 Prior sound approaches to CA
Technology and science are widely used to make art, but that rarely happens the other way around. Dave Burraston’s approach to creative practice binds the three together to yield surprising results – so he accordingly describes himself as an artist/scientist.
His PhD thesis on Generative Music and Cellular Automata (CA) opened up new approaches for a key unsolved problem in the CA arena, as well as being the sequencer source for many of his generative experimental electronic music releases. Likewise, his rainwire project, an environmental sonification system, is proving to be both a potential method for more accurate measurements of rainfall as well as exquisite sound material for several of his compositions.
Since 1981, either under his name, as one of his many monikers (NYZ, Bryen Telko, Dave Noyze), or through his independent art/science studio (Noyzelab), Dave has been actively working on experimental research-based projects, ranging from sound synthesis and electronic music to field recording and landscape-scale sound art.
In this podcast, Dave Burraston talks about his rainwire project and how using rain as a creative medium has led him to an ongoing research that could overcome some recognized shortcomings in the field of rainfall measurements. He also talks about complex systems and creative practice in science, with an overview of CA and its applications, including his findings on CA rule space self-organization using modular synthesizers and CA sequencers.