Tangible Music Club #9

// Obi Blanche (FI) is an experimental guitarist, instrument builder, and music producer knownfor blending brutalist „béton brut“ aesthetics, somatic performance practices, and forward-thinking sonic explorations. With a creative approach deeply rooted in prepared, modified, and augmented guitars, his practice bridges DIY-inspired building methods and technologicalinnovation under #postdigitalpunk with a fellow researcher and collaborator Kristina Tica.  

His diverse musical journey spans over 500 performances at venues and festivals such as All Tomorrow’s Parties London, Berghain, Boiler Room Berlin, Istanbul Jazz Festival and Lowlands, as well as collaborations with artists including Thomas Azier, Anika, Isabelle Wenzel and Yuri Landman. He has held residencies at Amplify Berlin, Callies Berlin and WORM Rotterdam. Currently pursuing an MA at Tangible Music Lab (Kunstuniversität Linz), his research project „From Prepared Guitar to Post-Digital Guitar“ explores gesture-controlledinstruments, movement sensors, and innovative sound manipulation.

// Federico Visi (he/they) is a musician and researcher based in Berlin. His work explores the interplay between human and non-human agencies in music, embodiment in networked music performance, and interactive machine learning. He is interested in the broader artistic and societal implications of curating personal datasets for training models. He currently works as a researcher at Luleå University of Technology and he is a member of the TCP/Indeterminate Place networked hyperorgan quartet.

Federico Visi will perform with the Sophtar, a networkable feedback string instrument with embedded machine learning he has recently designed. By means of actuators and machine learning models, the instrument can respond to human and algorithmic players becoming a platform for electroacoustic human-machine co-improvisation.

The Sophtar is a tabletop string instrument with an embedded system for digital signal processing, networking, and machine learning. It features an array of actuators and controlled electroacoustic feedback capabilities that can be activated algorithmically by the models running on the embedded computer. These respond to the actions of the player, making the instrument a platform for electroacoustic human-machine improvisation. 
Other features of the Sophtar include a pressure-sensitive fretted neck, two sound boxes, and  bespoke interface elements. It combines conventional tactile musical affordances with recent machine learning models and digital signal processing algorithms, which are deeply integrated in the design of the instrument and have a strong influence on how it is played and the way it sounds.

// Yuri Landman (1973) is a musician and inventor of musical instruments. He achieved fame in the first decade of the 21st century by designing unique instruments for Sonic Youth, Liars, Half Japanese, Einstürzende Neubauten, Micachu and many other experimental pop musicians. From 2009 he broadened his field of work and mainly became a guest lecturer at dozens of academies throughout Europe in the field of instrument building, sound design, microtonality, history of modern instruments.
Besides his career as an instrument designer he also plays live with his collection of string instruments, kalimba’s, found objects, phone mics, amped coke bottles and noise synths. Rhythmic droney noise music. Sonic Youth meets BBC Radiophonic Workshop.