About Ad Hoc
Ad Hoc is a reformed hacker and software engineer, who builds chaotic permutations of familiar and unfamiliar sounds using an array of self-built systems. Treating digital loops as an analogue DJ would treat an entire track, he creates complex micro-collages across the spectrum of cultural media, from club-orientated live remixes to avant-garde treatments of found sounds.
After a youth spent sampling mysterious rave and hardcore songs from Radio 1 broadcasts on his Amiga 500+ (aided by its 1Mb trapdoor RAM expansion), and transforming them into peculiarly geometric takes on these embryonic scenes, it was inevitable that he would eventually return to his own beat-orientated productions. He is now engaged with a workflow which embraces elements of studio recording and life performance, producing sections of club-orientated music and melding them together in real time using his homespun Sicknote interface.
His current engagement with What They Could Do, They Did of the burgeoning South London art community has resulted in a number of more conceptually-driven works, including What They Could Do: retrospective remix, an audio-video remix of a four day mixed-media exhibition.
Technologies
Hardware
- monome 40h is an OpenSoundControl interface
- Faderfox LD2 provides MIDI knobs and buttons
- Novation Remote 25 is a Real Keyboard
- plus MacBook Pro, USB touchscreen, Fostex monitors, etc.
Software
Ad Hoc's live performances are produced using a number of custom digital systems, which are themselves the product of an ongoing body of research and development focused around open-source technologies and novel human interfaces. Key components of these systems will be released into the public domain as their development progresses towards a usable standard.
- Sicknote is a modular platform for performance using the monome 40h controller. Its key modules are orientated towards live loop manipulation and aleatoric processing, real-time rhythm sequencing, and interaction with cellular automata.
- Rbox is an extension module for Sicknote which interfaces via the Faderfox LD2. It is used for triggering samples, generating synthesis effects, and extending and manipulating the existing Sicknote effects chain.
- Videostack is Sicknote's video counterpart, which can be used for live video cutups using an analogous process: sound loops are assigned to corresponding video clips, which are projected in synchrony with the audio output.
- AtomSwarm is a framework for improvisation using a swarm of artificial agents.
Collaborations
- Mixpaste applies cut-and-splice techniques to video, recombining moving images in real-time as a narrative counterpoint
- Urlaubshits rocks the ravebox with a storm of sirens, shrieks and beats
- Platnik is the electronic pop noir duo formed of Ad Hoc and Mimi Leung, who debut Fear of Electrons EP is available now as a free download.
- Mimi's site & her online sketchbook
- What They Could Do, They Did have hosted several Ad Hoc performances as part of their London- and Edinburgh-based shows.
- Waveswarms, an occasional night of sonic performances
- La Supercool Discotheque put on parties that leave you for dead and then come back for more. Based in Leamington Spa (with their spiritual home in "Smack" club, formerly "Sugar") and London, they are top notch.
Press
Media
High-resolution photographs coming soon.
