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Paul Miller: If many of you
are aware of my music
over the last 20 or
15 years or so,
I have always... kind of
engaged with the idea that
digital media is about this
notion of a global vocabulary.
And I firmly believe that
as we move further
into the 21st century,
one of the major issues
facing us is climate change.
I don't think it's a debate,
I don't think it's something
where the numbers
and the science is unsettled.
It's very clear that
this is a major issue.
But I also think it's
very clear that the arts have
an incredible and
very powerful role to play
in raising awareness.
So, tonight what I want to do
is walk you through
some of the issues
that face me as a composer.
And I also want to kind
of walk you all
through my hard drive here,
some of the issues
that I'm thinking about
as I look at the role
of the composer and the artist
and the writer and this era of
just very, very radical change
in the environment.
So, what I want to do
is walk you guys
through some of the material
that drives,
why I think the Arctic is
so important.
I ended up writing
a book about
the Arctic and Antarctic,
but mainly from
the viewpoint of science.
First, we looked at
proto-scientists.. .
Galileo and Kepler.
And Johannes Kepler,
in 1611 he was on his way home
and a snowflake landed
on his sleeve.
And essentially
this is considered to be
one of the first mathematical
treatises looking at how...
mathematics in nature
are in dialogue.
And I love thinking about that
because he ends up
writing this essay,
Six Sides Of A Snowflake.
And what ends up
happening is...
that set the tone for
how we think about
geometry in nature.
So let me just show you...
kind of what that looks like
as I think
it's always important.
Here... when you see
an ice piece of crystal here,
you are seeing essentially
permutation of form.
You are seeing a geometry
at work,
a very beautiful precise
sense of nature.
And above all,
what ends up happening is...
this is pure mathematics.
So the song
you are about to hear
is called "Ice Sonification"
and it's based on this idea
that Johannes Kepler's essays
and his equations generated
a whole sensibility that...
here we are
in the era of algorithms.
Next thing you know,
we can take that math
and make it become music.
So, let's lead you through it.
This is what they call
Max MSP patch
and this is the music
and software
that you're going to be hearing
in a moment.
Essentially what we do is
take the equations,
plug it into the software
and use it to generate
mathematically correct,
very specific sound patterns
and again you are going to be
seeing, that basically
the mathematical
equivalent of ice.
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My next book actually is
about apps and design
and I was really
interested in the tension
between those instruments,
which are incredibly
beautiful instruments.
The cello has been around
for several hundred years,
the violin also has
a long history.
How do we figure on
the role of apps and design
in a modern sensibility
with a composer
who is very intrigued by data?
So, I came up with an iPad app
and what we are
going to be doing now is
essentially
as a virtual string quartet
with two turntables,
violin and cello.
So when I was
in the Arctic Circle
with the Sierra Club crew,
we ended up meeting
this incredible tribe
called the Gwich'in people
and they are
one of the oldest nations...
first nations
in North America.
They are over
20,000 years old civilization.
And I took a long walk with
one of their tribal elders
and they would just look...
pointing at the landscape,
I said,
"this is quite beautiful,
it's really amazing,"
and the guy was essentially
like "well, we don't know
how to describe this,
it shouldn't be green,"
you know.
I was like, "Oh!" you know.
So for me as a Southerner,
you know someone from DC,
going to one
of the most remote
northern parts of the U.S.
and seeing green,
I thought that was amazing.
For them,
it was a sign of disaster.
So this next piece is
dedicated to the people that
think that there's no
debate about climate change.
So, this next piece
is called...
"Check Your Math."
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Paul Miller: Thank you.
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