About

The page text does not contain a professional biography or detailed background information about Professor Curtis Roads. It primarily describes the activities, research focus, publications, and events related to the Tague Team Lab at the University of California Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. There is no specific biographical content provided for Professor Curtis Roads.

Research topics

• Art
• Computer Science
• Visual arts
• Physics
• Operating system
• Programming language
• Human–computer interaction

Selected publications

• La légende de Xenakis

  transcript Verlag eBooks · 2024-12-31

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This is a personal account of the impact Xenakis had on my life over several decades. 1 To be clear, I am not an expert on Xenakis's life.These recollections view Xenakis through the narrow lens of my encounters with him.It has been wonderful to sift through my memories to reconstruct this narrative.To begin, it is important to describe the historical milieu of my earliest encounters with Xenakis.In 1970 I was a 19-year-old musician living in a commune in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois (home of the University of Illinois) with 24 other people.I was learning a great deal about the music business and becoming more and more disillusioned.At the same time, my aesthetic perspective was rapidly evolving.I was going to concerts of classical music at the university but also concerts of new experimental music.On my own I was experimenting with new sounds using available equipment.By chance, in this period the University of Illinois was a pioneering centre for research in computer music.At the invitation of a graduate student friend, I started working in the EMS (University of Illinois Experimental Music Studio).The EMS was an excellent facility with an API mixing console, 4-track tape recorders, a large Moog synthesizer, and quadraphonic playback.This was a state-of-the-art analogue studio.My friend and I started making tape music pieces that we would play in various venues

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 25. La Légende de Xenakis

  Open Book Publishers · 2024-10-09

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This is a personal account of the impact Xenakis had on my life over several decades. I am not an expert on Xenakis’s life. These recollections view Xenakis through the narrow lens of my encounters with him. The story begins with his course in Formalized Music at Indiana University in 1972. This encounter was life changing. It gave me clear focus and direction, which was crucial in my university studies. The idea of using algorithmic processes in music composition attracted me from an intellectual standpoint as a formidable design problem. In 1973 I flew to Paris to attend the Festival d’Automne. The main goal of my visit to Paris was to experience Xenakis’s sound and light spectacle Polytope de Cluny in the medieval Musée de Cluny. Returning to California, I was determined to synthesize granular sound by computer. I left CalArts for the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) where they had a working computer sound synthesis system. In 1981 I visited the CEMAMu in Issy-les-Moulineaux to see a demonstration of the UPIC system by Xenakis and his assistant Cornelia Colyer. Guy Médigue, the lead engineer of the UPIC, was also present. In the summer of 1987, I had a residency as a visiting composer at the CEMAMu, working with the UPIC system. In 1993 I left IRCAM to teach at Les Ateliers UPIC in the suburb of Massy. It was in this period that I came to know personally Xenakis and his circle.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• La musique électroacoustique d’Horacio Vaggione

  Revue Francophone Informatique & Musique · 2024

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Art
  • Physics

  Introduction Figure 1. Vaggione et Roads, Porto, 2001. Je n’ai connu Horacio Vaggione qu’en 1994, mais mes liens avec l’Université Paris 8 remontent aux années 1970. En tant que rédacteur en chef du Computer Music Journal, je connaissais le Groupe d’Art et Informatique de Vincennes à l’Université Paris 8 (GAIV 1969). J’étais en contact avec plusieurs membres de ce groupe, dont le prédécesseur de Vaggione, le professeur Giuseppe Englert. Quand je déménageais à Paris en 1991, celui qui était devenu mon ami me fit visiter leur campus1. Je savais que Schall de Vaggione marquait un tournant après l’avoir entendu pour la première fois lors d’un concert de l’Académie Internationale de Musique Électroacoustique de Bourges en 1994. C’est lors d’un trajet en train entre Bourges et Paris que je fis personnellement la connaissance du maestro. Nous discutâmes de mon départ de l’Ircam, et il m’invita à venir enseigner à Paris 8. Plus tard, il me fit remarquer que la synthèse granulaire, sur laquelle j’avais fait des recherches au cours des années 1970, était un sujet important. Il me suggéra d’écrire une thèse de doctorat sur ce thème. Voilà un exemple classique du pouvoir du mentorat, car cette conversation changea ma vie. Elle conduisit à une recherche documentée dans le cadre de ma thèse qui fut finalement publiée dans mon livre Microsound (Roads 1999, 2001). Thèse et livre n’auraient jamais été écrits sans le conseil du professeur Vaggione. Avant cela, j’avais toujours pensé à la synt

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The electroacoustic music of Horacio Vaggione

  Revue Francophone Informatique & Musique · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Art
  • Visual arts

  Introduction Figure 1. Vaggione and Roads, Porto, 2001. I came to know Horacio Vaggione in 1994, but my ties to the Université Paris 8 go back to the 1970s. As editor of Computer Music Journal, I was aware of the Groupe d’Art et Informatique de Vincennes (GAIV) in the 1970s (GAIV 1969). I was in contact with several members of this group, including Vaggione’s predecessor Professor Giuseppe Englert. When I moved to Paris in 1991, Prof. Englert showed me around the campus1. I knew that Horacio Vaggione’s Schall was a landmark when I first heard it in a concert of the Bourges Académie Internationale de Musique Electroacoustique in 1994. It was on a train ride from Bourges to Paris that I came to know the maestro personally. We discussed my departure from IRCAM and he invited me to teach at Paris 8. Later he pointed out to me that granular synthesis, in which I had done pioneering research in the 1970s, was important. He suggested that I write a doctoral thesis on it. This is a classic example of the power of mentoring, as the conversation was life-changing. It led to the research documented in my thesis in 1999 and eventually published in my book Microsound (Roads 2001). The thesis and book would never have been written were it not for the encouragement of Professor Vaggione. Prior to this, I had always thought of granular synthesis as a technique with much potential, but I did not have a clear concept of how to compose with granular materials. After I heard Schall and Life in

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Architecture for Real-Time Granular Synthesis With Per-Grain Processing: EmissionControl2

  Computer Music Journal · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Human–computer interaction

  Abstract EmissionControl2 (EC2) is a precision tool that provides a versatile and expressive platform for granular synthesis education, research, performance, and studio composition. It is available as a free download on all major operating systems. In this article, we describe the theoretical underpinnings of the software and expose the design choices made in creating this instrument. We present a brief historical overview and cover the main features of EC2, with an emphasis on per-grain processing, which renders each grain as a unique particle of sound. We discuss the graphical user interface design choices, the theory of operation, and intended use cases that guided these choices. We describe the architecture of the real-time per-grain granular engine, which emits grains in synchronous or asynchronous streams. We conclude with an evaluation of the software.

  PublisherDOI

• CREATE Studio Report 2016.

  The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association · 2016-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Embracing the shores of the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara, the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE) serves the Music Department and the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).The Center provides a dynamic environment for students, researchers, and media artists to pursue research and realize a wide array of works.The UCSB AlloSphere is a unique immersive R&D instrument with a 54.1 Meyer Sound system.

  Publisher

• The Evolution of Spatial Audio in the AlloSphere

  Computer Music Journal · 2016-12-01 · 5 citations

  articleSenior author

  Spatial audio has been at the core of the multimodal experience at the AlloSphere, a unique instrument for data discovery and exploration through interactive immersive display, since its conception. The AlloSphere multichannel spatial audio design has direct roots in the history of electroacoustic spatial audio and is the result of previous activities in spatial audio at the University of California at Santa Barbara. A concise technical description of the AlloSphere, its architectural and acoustic features, its unique 3-D visual projection system, and the current 54.1 Meyer Sound audio infrastructure is presented, with details of the audio software architecture and the immersive sound capabilities it supports. As part of the process of realizing scientific and artistic projects for the AlloSphere, spatial audio research has been conducted, including the use of decorrelation of audio signals to supplement spatialization and tackling the thorny problem of interactive up-mixing through the Sound Element Spatializer and the Zirkonium Chords project. The latter uses the metaphor of geometric spatial chords as a high-level means of spatial up-mixing in performance. Other developments relating to spatial audio are presented, such as Ryan McGee's Spatial Modulation Synthesis, which simultaneously explores the synthesis of space and timbre.

  PublisherDOI

• Aesthetic foundations

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2015-08-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Chapter 2 presents a number of fundamental aesthetic issues confronting the field of electronic music. One theme is the principle of economy of selection. Economy of selection means choosing one or a few aesthetically optimal choices from a vast desert of unremarkable possibilities. Yet why is something aesthetically optimal or beautiful? It is not something that we can always articulate; we just know. Aesthetic perception is dominated by subliminal and unconscious forces.

  PublisherDOI

• Sonic narrative

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2015-08-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Chapter 10 examines the important concepts of sonic narrative, including narrative function, sonic causality, nonlinear narrative, narrative context, humor/irony/provocation, narrative repose, and hearing narrative structure. Certain composers follow strategies that are intentionally anti-narrative, and the chapter also considers these along the way. Every level of structure, from sections to phrases, individual sounds, and even grain patterns follows its own narrative. Individual sounds come into being and then form complementary or opposing relationships with other sounds. These relationships evolve in many ways, until eventually, all the sounds expire, like characters in a sonic play.

  PublisherDOI

• Sound transformation

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2015-08-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• John Strawn

  6 shared

• Bob L. Sturm

  KTH Royal Institute of Technology

  5 shared

• J.J. Shynk

  4 shared

• JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  3 shared

• Giovanni De Poli

  University of Padua

  3 shared

• Aldo Piccialli

  3 shared

• Aaron McLeran

  3 shared

• Laurent Daudet

  3 shared

Labs

• AlloSphere Research LaboratoryPI

Awards & honors

• John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Visual Arts (2016)
• Making Visible the Invisible (permanent installation at Seat…
• Creative Capital Foundation support
• Daniel Langlois Foundation for the Arts, Science and Technol…
• Canada Council for the Arts support