Bass, Art and Mad Science: How to use robotics to make electronic music

In this workshop, sound artists and robotics engineer Moritz Simon Geist gives an insight into the sound creation of small robotic systems and mechanics. The field of Robotic Electronic Music is a futuristic and visual way of producing music combining the craft of DIY Instrument design with the love for electronic music, techno, and sound art. In Robotic Electronic Music, all the sounds that are normally produced by computers or synthesizers are instead created with by physical objects: drums, metallic objects, motors, relays, and robotic devices. This introduces an error and nearly human touch into the musical structures, at the same time retaining the repetitive structures that can only be achieved with machines.

Moritz Simon Geist aka Sonic Robots is a performer, musicologist, and robotics engineer. He started this project because he wants to invent the future of electronic music – with robots!
Geist’s projects range from robotic music performances to robotic sound installations. His robotic instruments and performances have been shown in numerous European festivals and
exhibitions throughout the last years. He collaborates with performers such as Mouse on Mars and Tyondai Braxton and teaches on the progression of technology and society at the NYU Berlin. He was awarded the Artist-In-Residence-Stipend for the Free State of Saxony, the Visual Music Award 2017 and severl working grants from the Kulturstiftung Germany. His background is both as a classical musician and a robotics engineer, with an expertise in prototyping technologies and 3D-Printing.