What if we didn’t leave Mars settlement to the ultra-wealthy, but instead approached it as a collective, democratic project? What would we do if we could start over?

For five months, we’ve been tinkering, discussing, and imagining with you through five prototypes. Five times we've set off for Mars, and five times we've returned. Now the time has come: We're showcasing the preliminary results of your and our models in an exhibition at the ZKM. And of course, we want to open it in style—with you!

Opening Event Page

Friday 06 Jun @ 19:00 - 22:00
ZKM Foyer during GPN

Kicking off the MARS! project is our first public Prototyping session: Habitat.

Event page

23 Jan 15:00 - 18:00
24 Jan 11:00 - 18:00
ZKM Foyer 1.OG Musikbalkon

Hertzlab is going to Mars!

Join members of the Red Dust Society and expert advisers to help design our future habitat structure on the Red Planet. Design and build your own model. Are air-lock, jacuzzi, and ball-pit mandatory? You decide!

Paper and modeling material provided. The goal is to gather ideas and sketches for the project in the exhibition space, then work in groups to build habitat module models onto 1x1 m hexagonal bases, for instance biosphere, recreation, power plant, airlock. The various modules created during this and any subsequent prototype session will then be interconnected and presented.

Timeline

• Day 1 Fri: Brainstorming, idea exchange, design sketches
• Day 2 Sat: Model building

If you cannot come for day 1, no problem! Pick up a design or idea and help us build again on day 2.

Oct 24-25 2025
HKB (Bern Academy of the Arts), Institute Interpretation
Kammermusiksaal, Papiermühlestr. 13a, 3013 Bern CH

Performing Mobile Technologies. The Smartphone as a Performance Tool in Composition and Sound Arts

A research project led by Lara Stanic investigates the potential of the smartphone as a performance tool in composition and Sound Arts. The focus is on the technical possibilities as well as on the artistic and aesthetic dimensions of smartphones in compositional practice. Departing from that project, the Bern Academy of the Arts HKB's Institute Interpretation in collaboration with the Sound Arts study programme invite experts from the fields of composition, sound art, technological innovation, musicology and music education to a two-day symposium and concerts on the subject. The following questions will be discussed in academic papers, concert-lectures and concerts

I have been invited to the symposium present a series of smartphone-based sound projects including PdParty, SpeedPitch, and ShadowPlay. I will also conduct a SpeedPitch workshop and perform as robotcowboy.

Sep 26 2025
Teatro El Sauzal
Tenerife, ES

Famtàstic: ROBOTS + AI 2025

A night of short films, gastronomy, live arts, & dj music

robotcowboy will appear with a special performance and extended set at the Famtàstic festival on Tenerfie, Spain:

robotcowboy @ the Famtàstic festival "ROBOTS + AI" on Friday September 26th at the Teatro El Sauzal on the island of Tenerife, Spain. A human/machine mix of experimental computer music, custom instruments, an emotional intelligence rock vocals and guitar.

Sep 5-7 2025
School of Music
University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana
Champaign, IL USA

PdMaxCon~ 2025

A conference of research, music, and technology using the Max and PureData programming environments.

I will be attending the Pure Data / MaxMSP joint conference, celebrating the 30th anniversry of Pd and the 40th anniversary of Max, and will be presenting:

• Friday morning workshop - Introduction to Zirkonium3: ZKM’s Sound Spatialization Environment
• Saturday night performance - robotcowboy

This trip is supported by the ZKM | Hertzlab.

S.A.U.F. (Subculture and Underground Festival)

robotcowboy plays on Mar 22nd 2025
19:00 22 EUR single day ticket or 37 EUR two day pass
Alte Hackerei, Karlsruhe DE

Two day festival of local Karlsruhe bands, Fri Mar 21 and Sat Mar 22

Type Techno 2.0

Feb 28th 2025 21:00-4:00
10 EUR tickets
P8, Karlsruhe DE

Live coding dance techno + visuals by TOPLAP Karlsruhe & friends

Tending the green dome garden during a Martian sunrise

An experimental robotcowboy performance for sound dome and theremin during ZKM Open House 2025 as part of the ZKM Hertzlab's TURNS sound series in the Kubus. Sceneography by the ZKM Hertzlab.

Performance times: 11:30, 13:00, 15:00, & 17:00

ZKM Open House 2025

ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
February 2nd 2025, 11:00 - 18:00

»Open Hertzlab - Am offenen Her(t)zen«

Fri December 15:00 – 18:00
ZKM | Hertzlab, 2nd floor, above the exhibition in atrium 8 + 9. Follow the LED lights!

Let's patch, twist, and modulate! Explore the sounds of analog synthesizers.

Sound artist and theater maker Siri Thiermann gives an analog synthesizer workshop. I will support by showing a similar approach in the digital realm using Pure Data.

Check zkm.de for more info.

© Photo: Siri Thiermann

Sat 26.10.2024 | 20:00 | franz.K

SONIC VISIONS Festival //
Audiovisual Performances

Three exciting performances with elements of sound/music/visuals as well as short introductions or interviews with the artists. The artists performing are:
ALLOY (UK)
robotcowboy (USA)
10 - 01 Audiovisuelle Interferenzen (DE)

sonic-visions.de

Location: franz.K, Reutlingen DE

CAMP - Collaborative Arts and Music Project

With 15 artists from Ukraine, the USA and Germany, the 18th edition of the CAMP Festival will take place from September 4-7 at the Wagenhallen Stuttgart. In this unique art laboratory, new forms of artistic cooperation and presentation will be explored and practiced.

camp-festival.de

Location: Wagenhallen, Stuttgart DE

Individual performances: September 5th & 6th* @ 20:30
Group performances: September 7th @ 20:00

*robotcowboy will appear at the Fri September 6th show

If you are in Karlsruhe this weekend, I will be performaing and presenting at the 22nd annual Gulaschprogrammiernacht. Maybe I'll see some of you there?

Performance: "robotcowboy" 31 May 9pm in the GPN Lounge

Talk: "SpeedPitch & ShadowPlay: Two open source mobile-device apps for bicycles" 01 Jun 10am in the Lecture hall

"Goulash Programming Night" almost sounds like a cooking contest for sleep-deprived computer scientists. What started as a gathering of nerds in a basement in Karlsruhe in 2002, steadily grew into one of the largest events by the Chaos Computer Club. The topics are diverse: Hard- and software development are the heart of the event, along with cyber security. However data privacy, net politics and many other fascinating topics soon joined: How to cook the most delicious goulash? Is it possible to turn hardware waste into shiny jewelry? How does a sewing machine work? And, how to steer spaceships?

30 May - 02 June 2024
Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG)
Lorenzstr. 15
76135 Karlsruhe

https://entropia.de/GPN22/en

Put on by Entropia e.V., Chaos Computer Club Karlsruhe

Ed Kelly and I bonded over computer music and a silly sense of humor. Although I only hung out with him a few times in person and we mainly communicated online over the years, it felt like I had always known him. I know things were not always easy for him, but he would push through with creative energy. He will be missed in the Pure Data community, through which I met him. Condolences to his friends and family in the UK and around the world.

Rest In Peace 1974 - 2024

- Dan Wilcox
danomatika.com
robotcowboy.com

As part of my work at ZKM, I will be presenting at the EASTN-DC (European Art Science and Technology Network) Digital Creativity conference in Manchester UK, 25-30 Jun 2018.

robotcowboy will be presented and performed at the NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) 2018 conference, 3-6 Jun in Blacksburg, VA USA.

I will be presenting at this year's edition of the Gulaschprogrammiernacht (Goulash Programming Night) organized by Entropia e.V. (CCC Karlsruhe) in Karlsruhe DE from 10-13 May 2018.

As part of the annual ZKM "Tag der offenen Tür" (Open House), I gave a Pure Data workshop and participated in a live Next City Sounds electroacoustic set in the ZKM Kubus.

I presented robotcowboy & PdParty to Hans Koch's Synthesizing Sound class at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (KHM) on 13 Dec 2017.

I performed as robotcowboy for the Giga-Hertz Award afterparty at ZKM, 25 Nov 2017. This was the first successful show using a new "robotcowboy 2.0" setup with my iPhone running PdParty and I had the honor of meeting award-winner Laurie Anderson. Mylar inflatable capsule by Anika Hirt.

From 26-29 Oct 2017, I will be showing an updated version of the Balloon Project at the lab30 Media Art Festival in Augsburg, Germany.

On 19 Oct 2017, we opened the latest exhibition at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) here in Karlsruhe, Open Codes: Living in Digital Worlds. I have two projects on the theme of algorithmic music exploration in the exhibition: MusiCode & LindenmayerExplorer.

One of my documentation images from Heading to Mars is featured on the cover of Cabinet, a quarterly magazine of arts and culture: Cabinet #63 The Desert. (See fullsize image here.)

As the saying goes: So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good bye.

After two great years in Denver as the Emergent Digital Practices Visiting Teaching Assistant Professor, I am pleased to announce my new 2-year position as "Artist-Scientist" in the Institute for Music and Acoustics at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Live recording of a short jam session by participants using Pure Data in the MicroOrchestra workshop at the University of Denver Emergent Digital Practices program.

loaf: lua, osc, and openFrameworks

After multiple iterations over the years, I'm pleased to announce the release of loaf, a live-coding tool for openFrameworks using the Lua scripting language: http://danomatika.com/code/loaf

Trust Me: call the GOLDEN ASS on the red phone & argue for a drink

Trust Me, our cocktail robot for Roböxotica 2016, won the 18th Annual Cocktail Robot Award for Bartending Conversation. TREMENDOUS! See the project page for more info.

After years of on and off work, I’m pleased to announce PdParty 1.0.2 is available for download on the iOS App Store: http://danomatika.com/code/pdparty

PdParty is an open-source iOS application for running Pure Data patches on Apple mobile devices using libpd, supports OSC (Open Sound Control), MIDI, & MiFi game controller input, and implements the native Pd GUI objects for a WYSIWYG patch to mobile device experience.

robotcowboy will be performing at AutumnLEAF (Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival) 2016 with Oynx Ashanti, SUE-C, & Normal Ones. 7-8 Oct 2016 in Lafayette, CO (NW of Denver)

I will be busy at PdCon16~, the 5th Pure Data convention in New York City, Nov 16-20 2016:

• performing as robotcowboy performance
• paper on PdParty
• paper on the first 6 years of libpd with Peter Brinkmann
• Mobile Music Workshop with Chris McCormick (DroidParty) and Daniel Iglesia (MobMuPlat)

Thanks to a residency at the MuseumsQuartier Wien & sponsored by monochrom, Anika and I are working on a project called Auto Cucumber for Roböxotica 2016, the world's preeminent cocktail robot festival 8-11 Dec 2016 in Vienna, Austria. See you there!