Robert Henke
Robert Henke is a composer, artists and software developer known for his contributions and influence on electronic music and works, and as co-creator of the music software, Ableton Live. Working with audiovisual installations using self-writing software and code, utilising coded chance to create complex visuals and endless variating sounds. His project Monolake inspired new electronic club music and culture after the fall of the wall in berlin. he lectures about the creative use of computers and has taught at CCRMA/Stanford University, IRCAM and the Studio National des Arts Contemporains. Creating audiovisual installations at the Tate Modern in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Palazzo Delle Esposizioni in Rome, Le Lieu Unique in Nantes, PS-1 in New York, MUDAM in Luxembourg, MAK in Vienna, Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia, KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, STRP Biennale in Eindhoven, and on countless festivals including Unsound, CTM, MUTEK, Sonar, New Forms Festival.
Doing something that seems utterly useless but insisting on its significance.
In 2016 he came across a commodore CBM 8032 in a bar in Athens. this was the computer he learnt to program on. When he got home he bought one and started using it. With 5 of these computers, he creates audio visual performances, Making a grey area between engineering and art. This audiovisual concert was entirely based on CBM 8032 computers; all of what he is doing could have been done in the 1980s, needs multiple computers and external audio processors from that era and is entirely based on self-written code on custom hardware.
The Commodore CBM 8032 he works with is an early personal computer from the 80s and is the grandfather of the commodore 64 home computer. It ran on an 8-bit processor which was also used in synthesisers. This computer is the origin of the black and green hacker aesthetic.
Using PetASCII you can create images on the computer screen. This is how 1960 computer art was created.
Using a circuit board and modifying the computers, allowed the computer to be a sequencer.
He creates sketches of the stage and what imagery he wants to be on screen. After this, he then attempts to recreate this.
His audio processor rack consists of a reverb module, gated reverb and chorus module and 2 channel pitch shifter with loop freeze function and reverses playback module.
Whilst I didn’t understand the entire talk, due to its focus on electronics and circuit boards. I found his artistic approach, not just as an artist but as an engineer, fascinating, and absolutely adored the visuals that the synchronised CBM 8032’s were creating
Q: What technology and processes to do you see being the next “big thing”?
A: I tend to be a bad prophet. But I see some great potential in AI and neural networks have to offer, because of the fact you can search for sounds and classify sounds in a new way, drawing connections to sounds and finding ways to manipulate them in a new way which could become really exciting. Everyone nowadays has a huge library of sounds, but you always use the 10 folders you use best. If there was an easy way to search for something similar it would allow new ways of thinking. If it just adds onto an existing toolset, I believe then it will be extremely useful. The synthesisers won’t change us, but the things that can help us create a larger shape of sound.