arcologies

arcologies

Interface

Cells

Cells are the building blocks of arcologies. Each key of grid represents a cell. Each cell has a structure, but these structures can be changed. Structures define qualities, behaviors, and attributes of a cell. Cells do one of three things:

1. Manipulate signals.
2. Play sounds on norns.
3. Communicate with outboard gear.

Cells also have four ports, each of which can either be open or closed. Ports direct the flow of signals.

Cell

"[...] civilisations fall, sooner or later [...] and those forces which were always there, deeper than the foundations of the city walls: the desire to survive and the desire for meaning." — The Dark Mountain Manifesto

---

Each unlit key on the grid holds potential to become any structure.

— Attributes

• None

Signals

Like photons, signals are the elementary particle of arcologies. All signals are created equal: they move at the same speed, have the same attributes, and interact with the world around them exactly as each other signal would. Signals really only have one meaningful attribute: a heading.

Signals move in straight lines. Signal headings are simply the cardinal directions of north, east, south, and west.

Signals allow cells to interact at a distance. Some cells emit signals. Other cells destroy signals. Yet others multiply, divide, and change the direction of signals.

If two (or more) would occupy the same coordinate at the same time, they will all be destroyed.

Signals are destroyed when they leave the boundaries of the grid.

In arcologies the glyph for a signal is Y.

Structures

Attributes

Save

Save and load via the norns parameter edit menu.

Saving creates a .arcology and a .pset and places them in /dust/data/arcologies.

Saving does not store audio or crypt .wavs. You get to manage those on your own. However! If you contribute your samples to crypts you'll be able to share that way.

Here's a minimalist arcology to get you started:

• athens.arcology
• athens.pset
• "digi" crypt

Miscellanea

— Port Nuance

On the grid, ports are only displayed as adjacent to the selected cell. The ports are actually just attributes of a given cell/key. Each cell has 4 ports (unless the cell is along the perimeter of the grid in which case they have only 3 (or 2 for corners (sorry, I know it is complicated)).)

In other words, think of ports at little tardigrade-sized doors on the walls of the keys themselves.

This means cells can be right next to each other and talk freely between their ports. When you select a cell, that cells ports will be drawn over any adjacent cells, but the adjacent cells continue to exist.

— Cellular Memory

In general, cells will remember their attributes as they mutate between structures. This means you can have a hive with a metabolism configured, then switch it to a shrine, then back to a hive the same metabolism will remain. The shrine (which doesn't have metabolism) won't erase them.

One key exception to this is any structure with notes. Topiaries "re-roll" their notes every mutation. Fickle things, topiaries.

— Leylines

Leylines help you visualize the signal flow of your arcology. Opening a port will draw a leyline to a terminus (either a neighboring cell or the edge of the grid.) Leylines are purely decorative and have no functional impact on your arcology.

— Signal Feedback

All signal collisions are animated with a simple "blink" of the key. This means that signal-on-signal cancellations, signals-on-closed-port, and signal-on-open-port all look the same.

— Time Signature & Polyrhythms

The concept of time signatures and polyrhythms absolutely exist in arcologies - they just aren't labeled with traditional music terms. First, change "length" (on the home page) to set how many beats are in a bar. Then, select a hive (or any signal emitter: dome, maze, etc.) and set the metabolism. You'll graphically see how these two attributes interact ons-creen. With a global length of 16 and a hive with a metabolism of 10, for example, you'll be able to create a "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1-2" type of rhythm.

Finally, change the hive's offset. Note that since signals all move at the same speed concepts like irregular rests or triplets don't exist. Perhaps one day there will be a triplet structure that fires off bursts...

— Seeding

Seeding is purely random process with some opinionated boundaries for the various parameters. Your existing arcology has no impact on the result of a seed. Seeding destroys the current arcology. Seeding is arbitrarily capped to 32 cells (anything more than this felt super chaotic to me.) Seeding is not intelligent - you may generate an inert arcology with just 20 gates (unlikely), or the most beautiful symphony of all time (even more unlikely.) I find the feature a really fun way to get inspired and start a session.

— Pun?

arcologies was not a pun on monome arc. However, I do plan to add optional arc features in the future.

— Crypt Management

By default, crypt cells source files matching the pattern {1,2,3,4,5,6}.wav from /home/we/dust/audio/arcologies/crypt/*. Note this directory is a descendant of audio/arcologies/. Just drop your files in this directory and you'll be ready to play samples.

If you wish to use DLC from crypts you can configure your the source directory via the norns parameters menu. An arcology can only use one crypt at a time.

To get started, either download or clone crypts to /home/we/dust/audio (i.e. cd dust/audio && git clone git@github.com:/tyleretters/crypts crypts). If you don't want to deal with that and just want to load your own samples, simply create the directories and drop the files in.

home
 ↳we
   ↳dust
     ↳audio
       ↳arcologies
         ↳crypt
            1.wav
            2.wav
            3.wav
            4.wav
            5.wav
            6.wav

home
 ↳we
   ↳dust
     ↳audio
       ↳crypts
         ↳my_name_1
          1.wav
          2.wav
          3.wav
          4.wav
          5.wav
          6.wav
         ↳my_name_2
          1.wav
          2.wav
          3.wav
          4.wav
          5.wav
          6.wav
         ↳my_name_3
          1.wav
          2.wav
          3.wav
          4.wav
          5.wav
          6.wav
          ...

— Hydroponics

Operations work thusly: (target metabolism) (hydroponics operator) (hydroponics metabolism) = (new target metabolism). So, a hydroponics with a metabolism of 1 and an operator of add operating on a target with a metabolism of 5 would look like this: 5 + 1 = 6. If an operation would result in a divide-by-zero, then zero is returned.

Hydroponics operate on every cell with a metabolism in their territory.

The south-east territory.

— Institutions

If a signal would be "cornered" by two or more institutions with contradictory deflections the signal will destroyed. Be kind to your signals.

— Debug

There are some debug features built in. Type these into the REPL: fn.arcdebug(), fn.screenshot(), and fn.wtfscale().

— The Direct Download Isn't Working?

Rename the directory "arcologies-main" to "arcologies" and place it in /dust/code/.

— Crow Isn't Working?

If crow is unresponsive when using Forests and Aviaries, simply unplug the USB from norns and plug it back in again to reestablish communications. When a Forest or Aviary receives a signal on an open port, it will first set the ASL action on a crow output then trigger the action. With Apiaries, nb voices that communicate with crow can be used simultaneously with Forests and Aviaries, however the nb voice should also set the ASL action on crow when the Apiary receives a signal, similar to Forests and Aviaries. Mix and match, your mileage may vary.

— Apiaries and Nota Bene (nb)

Nota Bene (nb) is a norns library that plays notes well. For more information, see the thread on lines. nb is a library that lets norns scripts trigger notes on nb voices which are installed as mods on norns. There are 4 voice selectors in arcologies named nb_1, nb_2, nb_3, and nb_4. Whenever an Apiary receives a signal on an open port, it plays a note using the nb voice listed by the voice selector. The attribute NB SELECT chooses which voice selector the Apiary is using. The attribute NB VOICE chooses which nb voice the voice selector uses. When changing NB VOICE for a voice selector, all other Apiaries using the same voice selector will be changed to the new selection as well. The attribute DURATION controls the amount of time between note_on() and note_off() when playing the nb voice. In the norns parameter menu, the 4 voice selectors and the parameters associated with each selected nb voice can be found in the NB / APIARY section of the menu.

— MIDI Isn't Working?

Be sure to set up your devices in the main norns menu first. arcologies uses the 2020 norns clock. This gives you access to internal, MIDI, Ableton Link, and crow sources.

— Nerdy ERD/Code/Architecture Stuff

All cells have one-and-only-one structure. Cells have many attributes. Signals are dumb. This file is important. So is the keeper.

— Metabolism Table

 0  =  0000000000000000
 1  =  1000000000000000
 2  =  1000000000000001
 3  =  1000000000000010
 4  =  1000000000000100
 5  =  1000000000001000
 6  =  1000000000010000
 7  =  1000000000100000
 8  =  1000000001000000
 9  =  1000000010000000
10  =  1000000100000010
11  =  1000001000001000
12  =  1000010000100001
13  =  1000100010001000
14  =  1001001001001001
15  =  1010101010101010
16  =  1111111111111111 

— Cloakroom

Cloakrooms conduct pysops on all adjacent cells. Note they do not split or route singals.

The cloakroom operational territory.

Challenges

These brief challenges are a great starting point for learning arcologies.

— Chords

1. Using only one hive and three shrines, make a chord.
2. Now change the hive into a gate. Add a new hive to send signals to the gate.
3. Now add second chord by adding a second hive but only one more shrine.

— Arpeggio

1. Using only one hive and six shrines, create an arpeggio.
2. Add six more shrines to create a second arpeggio. (Hint: use the copy and paste grid interaction.)

— Interference

1. Signals cancel each other out. Use this to your advantage and create a melody that gets mutilated by a rave, dome, or maze. Perhaps hives to the west, shrines to the east, and chaos between?

— Tunneling

1. Continuing from where the "Interference" challenge left off - send a steady stream of signals from one side of the grid to the other with tunnels.
2. Add a second tunnel network.
3. Add more tunnels to each network.

— Packt

1. Using five hives and five shrines (or topiaries), create a melody but make sure you cannot see any of the signals.

— Rainy Day

1. Create a melody with topiaries and shrines that only receive signals from solariums.
2. Perform by playing the solariae's charge.

— Tales from the Crypt

1. Create (or dredge up) twelve samples.
2. Create two directories and divide the files into two sets of six.
3. Name each set 1.wav, 2.wav, 3.wav, 4.wav, 5.wav, & 6.wav.
4. Copy the pair of directories to norns at /dust/audio/arcologies.
5. Now, rename one of them to crypt and play the samples with a crypt cell.
6. While playing, swap the directory names: mv crypt crypt_tmp && mv inactive_crypt crypt && mv crypt_tmp inactive_crypt. What (doesn't) happen?
7. What happens when you adjust the index on a crypt?
8. Install crypts & relaunch arcologies.
9. Play samples with a crypt cell.
10. While playing, navigate to the main norns edit menu and change the "CRYPT(S)" parameter.
11. Share your samples!

— Syncopation

1. Using two vales with low ranges and two hives with high metabolisms, create a syncopated bassline.

— Casino Nights

1. Setup two casinos (or uxbs) but with different devices.
2. Make a recording using only the audio output from the MIDI devices.

Ecosystem

the rewilding is the name of arcologies v1.3.0. This marks the introduction of nb.

arctangents & archangels is the name of arcogolies v1.2.0. This marks the introduction of monome arc support.

eternal september is the name of arcologies v1.1.0. This marks the introduction of hydroponics, institutions, mirages, banks, autons, kudzu, and windfarms.

crypts is a community sample pack / DLC for arcologies.

Changelog

Philosophy

For monome norns and grid, arcologies is a 21st century instrument for musical composition and discovery.

The core design objective for this software is clarity. Each key and encoder on norns have a dedicated function. All the keys on the grid share the same behavior. The menus are built to be fast, intuitive, cohesive, and consistent. With a foundation that is (hopefully) quick to master, the arcologist's focus can shift to sculpting emergent and complex compositions.

The design of arcologies heavily inspired by the two-dimensionality of Orca, the polymorphism of ornament & crime, the immediacy of meadowphysics, and the uncompromising vision of cheat codes. I've always been interested in emergence and wanted to push that line of inquiry further than I have before. Other curios played a part, too: Dwarf Fortress, the tower defense genre, SimCity, and the Eno / Chilvers suite of generative applications, carbon-based life, water, the anthropocene, supply chains, The Mushroom at the End of the World, The Dark Mountain Project, Eco Futurism Corp, "seasteading", the gedankenexperiment-prompt: "sound artist's work in a William Gibson novel?", Conway's Game of Life, Garfield Park Conservatory, the Epcot Center, Buckminster Fuller, and the need to challenge myself and create something beautiful during this fucking pandemic. And, of course, actual arcologies and the architectural movement known as metabolism.

arcologies is free, open source, and licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

crypts is free, open source, and — being a community sample pack that may wind up in recordings — is under the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication license.

Contributions welcome.

Credits

Software, design, & watercolors by Tyler Etters. Logo by Theresa Berg. Glyphs by both. This project would not have been possible without the generous mentorship, support, and patience of so many from the llllllll community. You know who you are! Thank you.