Bubblegum Club

Tag: Yann Seznec

  • PAINTING W/ MUSIC – Creating a visual footprint for music

    PAINTING W/ MUSIC – Creating a visual footprint for music

    When you are in the mood to dance, there is nothing better than walking on to the dance floor and feeling the vibrations of the music coming through the speakers. Cukia Kimani and Yann Seznec found a way to enhance this experience by creating visual permanence to music.

    Cukia has a background and Computer Science and Digital Arts while Yann has a background in music composition. With their project titled Painting w/Music, they let curiosity and their willingness to experiment take the lead. When asked about how this was done, Cukia replied, “Coming from a Computer Science background I know about all of these different algorithms and then I did visual arts. You know, how to put algorithms to make circles appear all over the screen based on random numbers. But then I was like ‘What happens if I just change this one value to be midi data or frequency data?’” And this was the foundation of the project.

    When Painting w/Music was originally pitched to the British Council, the idea was for Cukia to create visuals based on music that Yann would compose. This would be done by feeding the music into the programming code that Cukia had written. However, as the months passed and Cukia and Yann became more familiar with each other’s work, they decided to add in a new element to their project – a custom controller.

    The controller creates room for a performative, interactive level to their larger project. This allowed those who were interested in the project to be more than just passive observers. Instead they would be able to experiment with how the project works. When reflecting on this addition to the project Yann explained that, “The main thing was moving towards a performance tool which is something I really like working with so I guess this is what happens in a collaboration. You start with an idea and each person involved brings or pulls the project in a way that they are interested in exploring. I think we both ended up being really interested in this idea of building a tool that was kind of applying these ideas of kind of visual permanence of music to a performance. It is also fun because then it means that we can do a performance at the end which was a cool focus for the project.”

    This evolution of the project made it possible for them to be on the lineup at this year’s Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival. With Yann taking control of the music and Cukia managing the coding side of the performance, the audience was drawn on to the dance floor by flashing colours and shapes dancing across the screen along with them. “The core concept was to play a whole set of music, tunes and improvisations that were created entirely with this custom controller box that was built for the project. And then all of that, the music and my actions, the buttons I pressed and the things that I twisted and pulled, all of that created these visuals,” Yann explains.

    Excited by how far their project has evolved since their initial idea, Cukia and Yann expressed that this is unlikely the end of the project. Their curious nature will more than likely see them pushing their project even further.

    Check out their YouTube to have a look at some of the visuals they have created.

  • Cukia Kimani // making magic in the gaming world

    Having been captivated by the world of gaming from when he received a PlayStation for his 7th birthday, Cukia Kimani knew that he wanted to be part of that world. “From the moment I put it on and saw the magic on the screen, I knew I had to become one of those magicians making the magic,” Cukia explains. The Kenyan born game developer, spent primary school dreaming about how he could realize this desire but unfortunately did not have anyone close enough for him to learn from. “So, I just passively went through school waiting for some sign like ‘making games here’”.

    When he moved to South Africa his high school offered programming. This was the first step in the direction to becoming a game developer. Highlighting the difficulty of this journey, he was elated when he made it to university where he studied Computer Science and Maths. Beginning to see the world through numbers and code, the spirit of his seven year old self never left him. He decided that instead of going to work at a bank after graduating, he began to learn about game development in his spare time. After working on a few smaller projects he was invited to be part of the festival A MAZE./ Johannesburg. With the game Boxer which he created with his fellow final year student Ben Crooks won the inaugural A MAZE./ Johannesburg Award in 2015. Boxer is a top down boxing game played using only the analogue sticks. On his website the game is described as stripping out “all the boredom of boxing and gives you what you really wanted to see in any boxing match: juicy punches to the face. No hugs, no running – just boxing”. With the award as a recognition of his ability and vision, Cukia realized that he was well on his way to making his childhood dream a reality. “I was like ‘Shit, you can REALLY do this’. That festival in many ways kick started my career with access to international independent game developers to learn from,” Cukia explains.

    Curious about the indie gaming world and taking into account the way in which context influences the cultures that form from and around technology, I asked Cukia if there is a difference between African indie game development and those from other parts of the world. “Yes and No. Yes, we have a different outlook on life, different access to resources but at the end of the day with digital distribution and the internet you’re just as close to your customers as anyone else in other parts of the world.”

    Since then he started a digital art and indie games development studio called Nyamakop with Ben Myres. One of their big projects is a game titled Semblance which is described as a “puzzle platformer where your character and the world it inhabits is made of playdough.” Semblance is a game that makes the platformer, one of the most saturated and stale genres of games today, feel fresh and interesting again. Players are able to squish their character and the world they inhabit to solve puzzles in Semblance’s soft, bouncy world.

    Cukia has also been invited to be part of conferences, festivals and panel discussions focused on the thematic framework of gaming, including game design and game development as a whole. These kinds of spaces have influenced the way Cukia thinks about his own practice. “When I visit an international conference or festival I’m inspired by what everyone else is making. I just want to get back home and make cool stuff to show people. I’m motivated because other independent game developers are also struggling with the same issues I am. The more I attend you find people to collaborate with. Meaning more diverse games from all over the world!”

    He has spent time working with Yann Seznec on the project PAINTING W/ MUSIC. The idea behind this project is to create permanent visual artifacts – a digital painting – with music. Using MIDI data from the music and generative algorithms, together the two will create a digital painting.

    “We’ve developed an installation piece and performance for the Fak’ugesi festival. It’s funny to think that the original pitch of the project was 3 paintings and 3 songs on a website. Now, it’s blossomed to something that other people can interact with as well as be performed. So, developing it from that point of view has been about user experience. We developed sounds that can be tweaked at the same time as the visuals together,” Cukia explains about how the project has evolved.

    When asked about what direction he sees South Africa’s game industry going, he left me with these words: “I like to say it’s like when a star is being born. It’s small but it’s dense and HOT. It’s only going to get bigger and brighter.”

  • Music and Technology at Fak’ugesi Festival

    Now in its 4th year, the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival is a celebration of technology, creativity, collaboration and innovation from across the African continent. The festival includes a range of seminars, talks, exhibitions, workshops, hack-a- thons, films, artists, games, innovation riots and music. With highlights including the Fak’ugesi Conference, Making Weekend as well as Fak’ugesi Beat, a new curatorial partnership with WeHeartBeat that focuses on beats, music and technology.

    The Fak’ugesi Beats program is multifaceted and includes the week-long Fak’ugesi Beats Lab workshop, the curation of panels at the Fak’ugesi Conference and the Fak’ugesi Beats Bloc Party which sees the festival outcomes come to life. Red Bull Studios Johannesburg at the Tshimologong Precinct will play host to the workshop which includes Soulection’s Hannah Faith, videographer Foxy Neela, French Soulection beatmaker Evil Needle, Swiss beatmaker Melodinsfonie, alongside the local Mante Ribane and the Dear Ribane collective working on a collaborative piece the result of which will be showcased at the Block Party and also see the work pressed to vinyl.

    Two of the panels at the Fak’ugesi Conference will be examining the influence of technology on music. ‘Future Beats’ features Joe Kay, founder of Soulection and pioneer of the Future Beats sound, Evil Needle and trap jazz pioneer Masego. The conversation will look at how the digital age as influenced new genres in music and what this means for musicians and artists as a whole. The second panel discussion ‘Sonic Visions’ will be an examination examination of collaboration between film, design and music. With a panel that features singer Nonku Phiri & Rendani Nemakhavhani who collaborated together on a music film, Foxy Neela, Hannah Faith, Mahaneela Choudhury-Reid of WeAreInBloom, and Benoit Hicke of the French F.A.M.E Festival the aim is to have a playful conversation that engages with the audience.

    The Free Workshop Program at the Making Weekend allows the public to gain hands on experience in areas from programming and creating gaming controllers, to robotics and music & film. Led by French/American artist Yann Seznec, the workshop ‘Room to Play’ explores the world of DIY musical controllers and instruments. Making use of everyday objects the workshop will challenge attendees to reimagine what a an instrument is and placing limitations on its function thus challenging the design strategy of commercial controllers. “How do you make a digital instrument that’s more difficult to play? And then thus what kind of questions does that open up?” asks Yann Seznec.

    According to Seznec DIY musical controllers and instruments have had a large impact on the performance of electronic music. “It means that you can do electronic music performances that are more meaningful to an audience. One of the big changes in electronic music in the last 10/15 years was that everything could be done on a laptop. With the downside of it being pretty uninteresting. I think what’s nice about DIY instruments is that it brings new methods of performance to the world,” notes Seznec.

    The Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival will culminate with the Fak’ugesi Beats Bloc Party which will feature the outcomes of the festival’s various collaborations as well as a selection of some of the finest local and international artists including Masego, Joe Kay, MNDSGN, Melodiesinfonie, Evil Needle, Hannah Faith, Nonku Phiri, Christian Tiger School and Petite Noir. “We’re trying to setup an international beat festival and present artists that we feel are making headway internationally and deserve platforms and deserve to be heard. So we feel like we’ve put together a really beautiful lineup,” says Dominique Soma of WeHeartBeat. “We’ve worked with artists that apply the traditional analog way of music making in terms of playing traditional instruments but then creating it in a digital space or through a digital process,” she adds.

    Unique on the continent in its offering, the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival highlights the importance of the cross-over between culture, creativity and technology in Africa. With the addition of Fak’ugesi Beats the festival is examining the relationship between music and technology and this program will expand over the coming years. “We’re still looking to explore the relationship between the two spaces in the long term. Over the next few years you will see that crossover coming to life a little bit more,” notes Dominique Soma.