
This blog post was initially written for the website of STEIM, Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music in Amsterdam. In 2016 I did an artist in residency there to develop my kinetic/sound installation the Monads. Unfortunately the institute has stopped its operations in 2020.
Introduction
Each dc motor is connected to a circuit that regulates the speed with an arduino and is controlled from Max, where the composition is made using one
constant search for balance within the system between being dynamic and stable.
I spent my residency at Steim in Studio 1, which was a familiar space to me since I presented a preliminary version of my kinetic/light/sound installation ))))) repetition at my distance in 2013 during the Steim Winter party. Back then, I was happy that this studio

was already a black box that could be made pitch dark in an instant. Now I was looking forward to play with the panels on the wall that could change the acoustics of the space ranging from wet to dry – in other words reflective to non reflective.
I mainly focused on the composition with the same sound source, for which I developed more behaviours, expand the installation to six units and explore different spatial setups. I was working towards the TONE presentation on 23 January
alongside performances by Pierre Bastien and Tom Verbruggen(Toktek). During my stay there were also some open studio days where my work in progress was open for the audience. The last 1.5 week I spent on documenting the work and doing tests with light.
Residency 4-10 January 2017
I started my first week finishing some soldering connections of the three extra units
that I built before starting the residency. Instead of beginning with programming I first wanted to know how the behaviours that I wanted to make could possibly sound or look like. I created a schematic where I took the basic rules of flocking behaviour as titles for my pieces: separation, cohesion and alignment.

rules that I made up myself, such as ’sleep’ and ‘murmur’. I accompanied the titles with drawings that served as speculative graphic scores and questioned what atmosphere I would have liked to express. Regarding the spatial setup I chose to hang the units in two rows of three so the audience could walk in between and around them.
The Monads
My idea to make this installation, which integrates complex interactions between entities, was mainly inspired on the essay the Monadology by philosopher of mathematician Leibniz (1646-1716): http://home.datacomm.ch/kerguelen/monadology/monadology.html
He devised the modern binary number system, which is the foundation of virtually all digital computers. According to Norbert Wiener, Leibniz was considered as the precursor of Cybernetics
https://monoskop.org/Cybernetics -a transdisciplinary science from the 40s exploring the control of biological and mechanical systems. Leibniz’ ideas were of great influence on the origins of our digital universe and therefore the beginning of the development of our information society.
Rather than Leibniz’ application of his ideas in our modern digital technologies today, I am more interested in his motivation to construct a universal language through scientific and metaphysical concepts that comprise life and consciousness.
The Monadology could be seen as a philosophical system to describe the nature of reality. It presents the universe as an infinite number of substances called monads. He believed that everything, including plants and inanimate objects, has a mind or something analogous to a mind. More specifically, he holds that inside all things there are
simple, immaterial, mind-like substances that perceive the world around them: monads. Also, there is a hierarchy in types of monads where only some of them are aware of what they perceive and can possess consciousness. This universe is unchangeable and comprises a perfect world with a pre-established harmony that is determined by the creator, in Leibniz’ words: ‘God’.
I interpret Leibniz’ universe as a metaphor for a world of ecologies that can exist on many different levels exposing underlying structures of complex behavior between entities on a fundamental level. This universe could manifest itself in any life form such as human, biological processes, but also in society or an algorithm.
Residency 11-23 January 2017
Besides using only one single type of sound, the mechanical design of a Monad had to look elementary like as well, where only the necessary parts for it to function are visible.
I implemented Leibniz’ idea of the Monads having a pre-established harmony in programming the composition where each unit is in a sense pre-programmed, even when coincidence is involved: as a whole they seem to interact with each other, but actually they contain each their own behaviour that doesn’t have anything to do with the interaction between them. I noticed that an object oriented approach was needed for the development of this piece in order to control each unit more from a meta level in which the entities could move freely in a system of conditions. A way of working I was not yet familiar before, but a

logical step, since most of my previous installations consisted of multiple entities. Therefore I invited software artist Marcus Graf to work with me on creating a logical structure, a valuable partner with whom I already have been collaborating on several projects since our Master studies at the Artscience Interfaculty in the Hague.
Starting from the first behavior that I already had and named as Flight, I created 4 more different behaviours: murmur, sleep, separation and cohesion. The structure was created as a hierarchy of objects that control one or more objects within each behavior. Each behavior contains a clock that determines how long it will play. When it ends it sends a message to a patch that could be seen as the central conductor that commands to switch to another behavior at a given moment.

This patch derived from the drawn diagram that I made in the first week of the residency.

When Murmur is triggered
– a clock sends every 20 seconds a new value: the behavior within this Murmur will
change and you will notice variations in how many ‘tick’ sounds you hear from which
speaker, the length of ‘tick’ sounds combined with noise, how loud and if the
movement of the speaker will react to it. It repeats this procedure 3 times for the
following objects per unit:
– trigger density of the ‘tick’ sound: how fast trigger the beginning of the sound file.
This sound was coincidently recorded at the beginning of the soundfile, which was
me pressing the record button. It ended up becoming a prominent element for the
composition.

These values are sent to another subpatch called ‘murmurboid’ where the value that
is received is put again in a random generator that outputs a number within a certain
range of the input value. Therefore what you hear and see is never the same, but also
not totally random, because of the conditions that have been made. You can still
experience changes in time within this particular behavior of the whole group.
3.
Finally, each behaviour sends their messages to one of the:
– 6 Motor faders that regulate speed (PWM)
– 6 Audio players > play the sound file: when and where start, stop and through
which filter
– 6 Audio gains: volume of the sound file

How was it to be at Steim?
I had a great time at Steim and felt very much at home. It was nice that I had my own studio where I could concentrate well on developing the work, but I was also happy to share the building with a dynamic and inspiring community where there was always someone working on their projects, whether in the late evening or weekend.
It was inspiring to see and hear sounds in every corner of the house. I enjoyed the conversations with the staff, the Instruments&Interfaces students and fellow resident Mark Ijzerman, but also the dinners and late night drinks together.
I found it sad to realize that this would probably the last time that I would be working in this building
– a place that carries such a long and rich history in Electro Instrumental Music – since Steim had to move out by the end of the year. I also won’t forget the Mafalda cartoon hanging on the wall of the Electronic workshop, which I understand as an inside joke on what is music and what not.
Thank you so much Steim for everything! Hopefully until next time in your new building!
