As regular visitors will be aware, I am strongly in favour of a nonlinear approach to musical composition: organising sounds in space via models of nondeterministic systems and processes, such as AtomSwarm's flocking ecosystem, The Fragmented Orchestra's soundscape neural-net, and some more recent experiments in self-organized sound (more to be published very soon).

I'm co-ordinating a workshop on such topics next Thursday (15th October) at London's Space Studios, part of OpenLab Workshops's Fall 2009 series. It presupposes basic working knowledge of Processing or Java; some experience of SuperCollider would also be useful but inessential.

Here's the blurb:

Simulating and Sonifying Natural Systems

An increasingly popular practice in digital arts is creating sonic representations of dynamical systems -- simulating natural phenomena such as insect swarms, tree growth, wind turbulence and neural networks, and translating such phenomena into sound, to create organic, dynamic audio-visual works.

Working from a basic knowledge of the Java-based Processing environment, Daniel Jones explains how to create such a simulation and subsequently connect it to the open-source SuperCollider synthesis engine, providing a valuable addition to a digital artist's toolkit.

6pm, £10 entry (or £15 also including the following Arduino Basics workshop), at:

Space Studios, 129 – 131 Mare St, Hackney E8 3RH.

Nearest transport: Bethnal Green (tube), London Fields (Overground), Buses – see http://www.spacestudios.org.uk/contact/SPACE/

..and here's the rest of the season's programme.