Update: entries are closed. Stay tuned for the official contestants, and lots more details as the challenge unfolds!

In science fiction and science fact, music has been central to finding a common language to speak to the universe. Music from Bach to gamelan — a mix curated by “DJ” Carl Sagan and his committee — has traveled into space on the Voyager spacecraft. In the digital age, musical interfaces are also often the best way to understand how to interface with technology and information.

Musicians have led many of the most innovative digital technological breakthroughs — the first digital synthesizer (at Bell Labs in the 50s), breakthroughs in modular electronic systems (modular synthesizers of the 60s), pioneering advances in digital storage and processing, unusual wireless interfaces and gestural controls decades ahead of the Nintendo Wii, and touch- and multi-touch tools years before the iPhone and Microsoft Surface.

But that’s all in the past. This is a design challenge for the future. We want to hear the best, most forward-thinking, generally coolest, Second Space Age-worthy instruments and digital music interfaces. If aliens land — as they did when met by a classic ARP synthesizer in Close Encounters — we want to be able to give them a great show.

Need extra incentive? The grand prize winner will take home a Yamaha Tenori-On.

Image: Voyager’s “golden record.” Source: NASA.

Yuri’s Night Bay Area: 2 PM - 2 AM Nasa Ames Research Center, Moffett Field CA

… and around the planet

Bay Area information:

• Tickets
• Event site
• Events schedule

In a collaboration between CDM and Yuri’s Night Bay Area, I would like to welcome you all to YuriCDM.com. Here we will be showcasing the musicians, artists, speakers, and innovating technologies that will make this year’s Yuri’s Night an event unlike any other.

Yuri’s Night is a celebration of space exploration—and mankind’s curiosity, scientific ingenuity, technical achievements, and spirit of collaboration that have made it all possible. Each year, in over 120 places world-wide, Yuri’s Night commemorates mankind’s first venture into space, by Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, and the launch of the first Space Shuttle by NASA exactly twenty years later. This year, NASA’s 50th anniversary, the Bay Area will be home to the largest Yuri’s Night celebration ever, with 8,000 people joining astronauts, artists, scientists, engineers, and musicians to pay tribute to our global space heritage and to celebrate how much more is out there to be discovered!

Electronic music by:

Amon Tobin in Gent; photo: volume12 (CC) via Flickr.

• Amon Tobin (Ninja Tune, Montreal)
• A special twilight downtempo set by Tipper (HI)
• John Tejada (LA/palette recordings): live set
• Lusine (Ghostly Intl., Seattle): live set
• Scuba (Hotflush Recordings, UK)
• Digitonal vs. Posthuman (UK): with live violin
• [a]pendics.shuffle (LA): live set
• Deru (Merck, LA): live set
• Tycho (Ghostly, Merck): live set
• Mr. Projectile (Merck): live set
• Dr. Toast (False Profit) vs. Ganucheau: live

Live vocal and instrumental music by:

Cellist Zoe Keating, by ekai. (CC)

• Telstar (Featuring: Phil Lesh, Steve Molitz, & John Molo)
• Freezepop (Rykodisc, Boston): indie synthpop / new wave
• Particle (LA): instrumental space-disco-dance
• BLVD w/ Souleye (LA): hip-hop, house, & breaks
• Zoë Keating: avant garde looping cello
• MJ Greenmountain (Hamsa Lila) vs. Yossi Fine (NY): global fusion and afro-tribal funk
• Christopher Willits (12k, Ghostly Intl.): processed guitar soundscapes
• Gamelan X: the intergalactic 17-member percussive melodic marching troupe
• Lulacruza: Argentinan percussion, guitar, and vocals

Speeches by:

Will Wright at the NASA podium. Photo: MysteryBee.

• World-renowned video game designer Will Wright.
• NASA astrobiologist Jonathan Trent.
• leader of the new NASA G.R.E.E.N. team for green technology research Saul Griffith.
• MIT-trained mad scientist and founder of one of the most innovative green power companies today, Makani Power.

Live performances by:

• 60 minutes of heart-pumping, high energy airplane aerobatics by Aeronautika
• Aerial performance and dance by Capacitor.
• Alien insects by Bad Unkl Sista, featuring breathtaking costumes by Anastazia Louise
• Gravity-defying stilt performances by The VonStilt Family

… and this is not even the full list! Stay tuned for more to come.

- matt

Composer/sound designer Matt Ganucheau is one of the organizers of Yuri’s Night Bay Area. He’s co-editing the Yuri’s Night site for createdigitalmusic.com and createdigitalmotion.com.