020090429 00:15 • 
Last week I attended the very first Expo ‘74. While I would have travelled anywhere in the multiverse to take part in this confab of Cycling ‘74 citizens, programmers and patch masters, it was held right here in my faerie kingdom on the bay, a scant skip and two jumps from my home in Potrero Hill.
From the opening night party at Cycling ‘74 headquarters to the first email I picked up on my return from the wild and wonderful closing concert at CNMAT, it was an intense and thoroughly energizing experience. The rush of the week seems to have printed a lasting effect. I’m altering routines to bring more camaraderie and interplay of ideas into my working methods, finding ways to be open and connect by default rather than need to consciously push outwards.
The high percentage of audience members familiar with the tools we all use was the absolute best aspect of the entire Expo. When you’re an artist using electronic media and programming to accomplish your goals, when you create tools for yourself and other artists to use, it is genuinely difficult to explain yourself to people. The Expo put ~120 Max lovers plus Cycling ‘74 staff together for three days and four nights, and all of us speak the same language, swim in the same technological flow. You could tell someone about the custom musical system you have created and not just expect them to understand… you could expect them to be genuinely interested in the details.
I’ll be posting more on the amazing presentations. I was so inspired by each and every one of them a short synopsis cannot do it justice. Cycling ‘74 captured footage of the entire event, so perhaps it will surface online for those who could not attend. For the time between, here are a few important things I saw, learned, re-learned, remembered or was reminded of by, from and with my co-attendees:
- Typing on a French keyboard is difficult, even for a native. (Olivier)
- Everyone loves massive granular synth patches. (Clifton and Mike)
- It’s cool to use the term “...back at the turn of the century”. (Peter)
- Art is created between the artist and the experiencer. (Seon)
- It is almost possible to make Max 4 look entirely like Max 5. (Barry)
- An mlr control page for loop lengths is a wonderful necessity. (Kevin)
- Sometimes your friends must push you into the arms of love. (John)
- Metadata is where “it” is at. (G. Craig)
- You can walk on the sky. (Freida and Robert)
The evening party at CNMAT was an exceptional Friday finale: food, friends, musical technology everywhere. Many of us were downstairs in Adrian Freed‘s edification field learning about manufacturing alternate controllers from various off-the-shelf toys when the ceiling literally began to throb. We raced to the main room to find Bob Ostertag and Pierre Hébert creating an incandescent world of audio and video. I slid into a prime seat next to their working area and was almost as fascinated by the on-screen Max machinery as the creations pouring out of it.
Returning home, I found a sent link to a spectacular video awaiting my eyes. There is a sign outside Cycling ‘74’s San Francisco office telling the world they do not sell bicycles. This video is not about Cycling ‘74, but rather the bicycles they claim not to sell. For me, it summarizes the Expo experience perfectly. Cycling ‘74 may truly not sell bicycles but it sure as hell feels like they come along with every Max patch I build. Watch the whole video and you will know what it felt like to attend Expo ‘74.
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