TECHNE presents at the 2017 Girls Rock Camp Alliance Conference

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TECHNE founders Bonnie Jones & Suzanne Thorpe have a longstanding relationship with Girls Rock camps across the United States where we present our electronic music workshops and projects each summer.

The camps gather each year to take part in the Girls Rock Camp Alliance Conference (GRCA). This year from March 31 – April 3rd at Appel Farm in Elmer, NJ, Bonnie presented an interactive demo and presentation  “Pioneering Women in Electronic Music” on the history and impact of pioneering women in electronic music. We discussed major areas of electronic music activity in the US and abroad and discussed female pioneers and practitioners within those nodes.

The ORIGINAL Nic Collins’ Hardware Hacking Manual!

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Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking  by Nicolas Collins provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction to the craft of making – as well as creatively cannibalizing – electronic circuits for artistic purposes. With a sense of adventure and no prior knowledge, the reader can subvert the intentions designed into devices such as radios and toys to discover a new sonic world. At a time when computers dominate music production, this book offers a rare glimpse into the core technology of early live electronic music, as well as more recent developments at the hands of emerging artists. In addition to advice on hacking found electronics, the reader learns how to make contact microphones, pickups for electromagnetic fields, oscillators, distortion boxes, and unusual signal processors cheaply and quickly.

This revised and expanded second edition is extensively illustrated and includes a DVD featuring eighty-seven video clips and twenty audio tracks by over one hundred hackers, benders, musicians, artists, and inventors from around the world, as well as thirteen video tutorials demonstrating projects in the book. Further enhancements include additional projects, photographs, diagrams, and illustrations.

download a previous version of the book here 0r buy the newest shiniest version with DVD from Nic’s site.

TECHNE at Johns Hopkins University, Digital Media Center for “New Forms/New Paths”

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A weekend of new electronic music and ideas comes to JHU.

March 3-5, 2017

The sounds of electronically produced music are the most common sounds one hears in popular culture and media. What was once rare and only available to avant-garde composers and music industry producers, is accessible to millions in the form of thousands of synthesizers, samplers, software and phone apps. New Forms, New Paths is a weekend-long event sponsored by the JHU Digital Media Center, which focuses on new directions and ideas at the cutting edge of electronic music. The potential of digital distribution and the excitement of intuitive software and hardware “hacking” offer the chance for artists to engineer their own technology – bending and stretching the outer limits of sound and style. But what does this mean for musical culture and have we reassessed music history in the brave new world? How have electronics shaped our minds and bodies? What is “new music” in this complicated present? How are we finding new forms and paths through our digital reality?

New Forms, New Paths will feature a diverse group of artists and researchers ranging across age, race, and gender. Rather than focusing only on tools and technological concepts, New Forms, New Paths also considers personal history, identity, and global economic and political changes as the combined materials of contemporary musical innovation. Including a concert, a circuit building and composition workshop, and a panel discussion, this event will connect JHU students and Baltimore’s art community with emerging ideas in contemporary electronic music regarding style, aesthetics, politics, and personal growth.

New Forms/New Paths Events:
Evening Concert: Friday, March 3rd, 8-10:30pm, Mattin Center, Jones Building 101
A night of mind-expanding sounds pushing the edge of improvisation, jazz, avant-composition and virtuoso instrumental performance.

Bonnie Jones (electronics) and Suzanne Thorpe (electronics, flute); Convergence and Divergence, 3 Movements
Sarah Hennies (solo percussion, computer, sine waves)
Mind over Matter, Music over Mind w/Thomas Stanley (computer), Jamal Moore (Tenor Sax, electronics), and Bobby Hill (turntables, electronics)

Sounding Points of Light Workshop: Saturday, March 4th, 1-4pm. Mattin/Offit, DMC MakerSpace.
Limited to 8 – 10 JHU student participants, register with BookIt.

Spend the day with TECHNE https://technesound.org/ creating and musically experimenting with your very own light controlled oscillator instrument!

In a 3.5 hour workshop, participants will learn how to make a simple oscillator that is controlled by light via a photoresistor. Knowledge of basic circuitry and signal flow will be explored, with ample opportunity to experiment with different components. No prior knowledge of electronics or sound/music is necessary. We encourage anyone interested in experimenting with sound, light, and electronics to join us and explore!

TECHNE was co-founded in 2010 by internationally active and critically acclaimed electronic musician/composers Suzanne Thorpe and Bonnie Jones. We are a national arts education organization tasked with a mission to give rise to distinct and divergent female voices in the realms of technology and the arts. We accomplish our goal via a series of programs that introduce young women and girls to technology and creative music making.

Panel Discussion: Sunday, March 5th, 2-4pm, The LaB, JHUnions, 3003 N. Charles St
Enjoy an in-depth discussion with some deep thinkers and electronic music performers from Baltimore and Washington!

Bonnie Jones and Suzanne Thorpe of TECHNE
Thomas Stanley, PhD
Tara Rodgers, PhD

AMT Festival, San Diego Art Institute

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TECHNE was honored to join the amazing roster of artists, technologists, and musicians for the inaugural AMT Festival (art, technology, music), a pilot initiative of the San Diego Art Institute (SDAI) in collaboration with the Fleet Science Center and Southwestern College.

From February 2-4, 2017, AMT featured panel discussions, lectures, demos, DIY educational workshops, and artist performances that reflect themes at the forefront of electronic arts/music, data visualization/sonification, and the confluence of arts, technology, and music.

We presented our Sounding Points of Light workshop, where participants learned how to make their own light controlled oscillator. Afterwards, the instruments were presented as an installation that audiences could explore and interact with in the SDAI gallery space.

Installation at AMT
Installation at AMT
Installation at AMT
Workshop Ready!
Testing synths with flashlights
Testing synths with flashlights
Photo-synth gardens!
Photo-synth gardens!
Workshop in action
Bonnie and Suzanne perform with David Rosenboom

 

TECHNE at ProArts with Bay Area Girls Rock Camp & Mills’ David Tudor Residency Photos

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In October/November of 2016, TECHNE headed to the west coast for a week of workshops, lectures, and concerts. We worked with ProArts Gallery in downtown Oakland to present a Teach the Teachers workshop to Bay Area Girls Rock Camp volunteers and administrators, teaching them how to build and run an Electronic Music: Powered by Girls workshop. We followed up with a concert with local collaborators Marshall Trammell, Nava Dunkelman, and Jeanie-Aprille Tang.

Then it was on to Mills College for a 3 day workshop, lecture and concert as part of their prestigious David Tudor Artist in Residency program. Together with undergraduate and graduate students we presented Sounding Points of Light, a workshop that allows participants to build and perform with light controlled oscillator instruments.  The students presented their instruments on a double bill with Suzanne and Bonnie for the final day of the residency.

Marshall Trammell set up at ProArts
BAGRC Teach the Teachers, ProArts
BAGRC Teach the Teachers, ProArts
BAGRC Teach the Teachers, ProArts
BAGRC Teach the Teachers, ProArts
BAGRC Teach the Teachers, ProArts
BAGRC Teach the Teachers, ProArts
Bonnie & Suzanne Duo in Littlefield Concert Hall, Mills
Mills College Student Concert in Greek Theater
Mills College Student Concert in Greek Theater
Mills College Student Concert in Greek Theater
Sounding Points of Light, Mills College
Sounding Points of Light, Mills College
Sounding Points of Light, Mills College
Sounding Points of Light, Mills College
Sounding Points of Light, Mills College
Suzanne assisting
Breadboards in action
Sounding Points of Light, Mills College
Sounding Points of Light, Mills College
Bonnie in workroom explaining breadboards
Suzanne in workroom
Littlefield Concert Hall, Mills College

Photos courtesy of 
Genevieve Neumuth
Dani Leventhal

Natalia Mount

TECHNE at Mills College – David Tudor Residency

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TECHNE is heading to Mills College for three days of workshops, concerts and lectures. We’ll be creating light controlled oscillator instruments with students as part of the Sounding Points of Light workshop, then presenting a concert with the students and a duo of Bonnie Jones & Suzanne Thorpe.

More concert details below!

BONNIE JONES AND SUZANNE THORPE
(David Tudor Composers-in-Residence)

Saturday, November 5, 2016 8:00pm
Littlefield Concert Hall

Part 1:
SOUNDING POINTS OF LIGHT
presented by Mills College students

Mills students will present an improvised piece using electronic instruments developed in a workshop with Suzanne Thorpe and Bonnie Jones. The piece uses light controlled oscillators and field recordings of found sounds sourced from Mills campus. This part of the program will be presented in the Greek Theater outdoors behind the Concert Hall.

Part 2:
BONNIE JONES AND SUZANNE THORPE
(David Tudor Composers-in-Residence)

Confluence & Divergence, 3 Movements
featuring
Bonnie Jones (Electronics) and Suzanne Thorpe (Flute, Electronics)

TECHNE at Prattsville Artist Residency Summer 2016

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TECHNE spent a month in July at the Prattsville Art Center & Residency developing and researching their new workshop “Sounding Points of Light” a photo-oscillator instrument building workshop where participants create a light sensitive electronic instrument using basic circuit building tools.

As part of the residency we worked with NYU students demonstrating the instruments and performed as a duo in the art center’s Headed for the Hills Music Festival.

Here’s a sample of the instrument we developed while in residence!