After flying to London Gatwick and a short visit of a friend of mine working for Google UK (which allowed me to have a sneak peak into their offices), I arrived in Cambridge on Monday, 28th of November. Tom Hall, my host here at Anglia Ruskin University welcomed me and showed me around the place. We briefly met Paul Jackson, head of the Department for “Music and Creative Music Technology” of the Department of Music and Performing Arts, and saw the campus including the Digital Performance Lab (DPL), an experimental studio space in which I will work at for the next two weeks. Later that day, we met </a href=”http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/faculties/alss/deps/mpa/staff/dr_julio_d_escrivan.html”>Julio d’Escriván</a>, a composer and reader at the department. It is nice to see that SuperCollider is extensively used here as at least Tom and Julio are part of the community.
After lunch, I set up the 8chan system at DPL (eight Genelec 8020 speakers plus a Genelec 7050 sub, driven by a combination of RME FireFace800 and an RME ADI-8 DS) and started to work on a version of DetaNocturn for eight channels. I also tinkered with the VCS3, an analogue semi-modular synth with three oscillators, noise source, a filter/oscillator unit, a ring modulator, and an envelope shaper. The 8bit sounds of DetaBlocker mixed quite well with the synth, so I thought of combining the two. We’ll see, it is all still very vague.
At 6pm, there was a CoDE talk by Rob Toulson about “Exploring Digital Culture – case studies and opportunities”. He did an interesting introduction to the possibilities for data processing analysis in the digital realm, showcasing bits and bobs around what is nowadays possible with digital technology. At the talk, I met Richard Hoadley who is a senior lecturer, currently on sabbatical, and Bronac Ferran, who is currently working on a “future of fluxus” event to be held in early 2012.
The day continued with a proper Duvel, a belgium beer accompanied by mashed potatoes with local sausages and a chat with Tom in the Cambridge Blue. We ended the day at Tom’s home, where I was warmly welcomed by Tom’s wife. All in all, a quite exciting day with lots of new impressions.