Trace Aureity by Adam Nash (aka Adam Ramona) [Needs Second Life account and client (free)] - Trace Aureity is an interactive, immersive, audiovisual sculpture located in the 3-D synthetic world Second Life. There are eighty-eight manipulated field recordings — from city streets, birdsong, to talkback radio — and ninety-six nested rotating objects densely arranged in a three dimensional grid. Avatars, either solo or in groups, generate sounds by moving through the installation. Some of the innermost nested objects, colored red, also spawn glowing spheres which fly out and bounce around inside the work, triggering sounds as they pass through other objects. Because the playable space is so dense, players are rewarded by slowing down their movements as much as possible, since even miniscule movements create differences in sonic output. Continue reading

Adam Nash is a new media artist, composer, programmer, performer and writer. He works primarily in networked real-time 3D spaces, exploring them as live audiovisual performance spaces. His sound/composition and performance background strongly informs his approach to creating works for virtual environments, embracing sound, time and the user as elements equal in importance to vision. Adam’s work has been presented in galleries, festivals and online in Australia, Europe, Asia and the Americas, including SIGGRAPH, ISEA, and the Venice Biennale. He also works as composer and sound artist with “Company in Space” (AU) and “Igloo” (UK), exploring the integration of motion capture into real-time 3D audiovisual spaces. He is currently undertaking a Master of Arts by Research at the “Centre for Animation and Interactive Media” at RMIT University, Melbourne, researching multi-user 3D cyberspace as a live performance medium; and he’s a Lecturer in “Computer Games and Digital Art” in the School of Creative Media at RMIT University. Continue reading

Fluxus is a rapid prototyping, livecoding and playing / learning environment for 3D graphics, sound and games. Extends PLT Scheme with graphical commands and can be used within its own livecoding environment or from within the DrScheme IDE. Builds for Linux (and sometimes OSX), and released under the GPL license.

Fluxus reads live audio, midi or OSC network messages which can be used as a source of animation data for realtime performances or installations. Keyboard or mouse input can also be read for games development, and a physics engine is included for realtime simulations of rigid body dynamics. Continue reading

In case you missed it, Radiohead have gone all data-aesthetic with their latest video, House of Cards. What’s more, it’s fully zeitgeist-compliant, with open access and a call for re-visualisations of a quite massive dataset: hundreds of megabytes of spatial data gathered with various 3d laser-scanning rigs. If the download stats and early signs are anything to go on, we will be seeing much more of this dataset. Continue reading

Natural magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic, ever-changing geometries as scientists from NASA’s Space Sciences Laboratory excitedly describe their discoveries. Continue reading

Laser Sound Performance (LSP] by Edwin van der Heide at Sonar2008.

On June 19, 20 and 21, Edwin van der Heide presented his “LSP”, a performance where image and sound play equally important roles. Sound / video combinations often reduce the spatial perception of sound because of the two-dimensional nature of the image. The performance “LSP” used audio controlled lasers to create a three-dimensional environment that totally immerses the audience and allows for a constant change of perspective. Image and sound originate from the same real-time computer generated sine wave composition. “LSP” represents a system of direct equivalence of image and sound, where frequency ratios in sound, de-tuning and phase shifts have their direct visual counterparts. Continue reading

Synapse: Collaboration between the arts and sciences has the potential to create new knowledge, ideas and processes beneficial to both fields. Artists and scientists approach creativity, exploration and research in different ways and from different perspectives; when working together they open up new ways of seeing, experiencing and interpreting the world around us. For the past decade, the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) has provided opportunities for artists and scientists to work together. Through Synapse, and in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts, ANAT offers residencies, the Synapse Database and now ANAT is pleased to announce its latest initiative: a moderated elist discussion on contemporary art and science collaborations in fields including bioart, artificial intelligence, robotics, climate change and space, amongst others. You can subscribe here. Continue reading

Flou by Jason Freeman, with Andrew Beck, Xiang Cao, Mark Godfrey, Jagadeeswaran Jayaprakash, Al Matthews, Rachel Ponder, Alex Rae, and Sriram Viswanathan [Needs Java 1.5+; Windows XP or Vista, Mac OS X, or Linux; Minimum 768 MB RAM and 1.5 GHz processor; Fast graphics card; Speakers or headphones]

Flou (pronounced “flew”) is not exactly a game; you do fly a ship through space, but you cannot shoot anything, score points, or win or lose. The focus, rather, is on the soundtrack: as you navigate through a 3D world and zoom through objects in space, you add loops and apply effects to an ever-evolving musical mix. You can also design your own worlds to fly through and share them with other Flou users. Continue reading

{R} A K E - A performance series of alternative and collaborative electro-acoustic music and video :: Set 1 - DJ Olive, Music; Dan Winckler, Video; Set 2 - Audrey Chen, Music; Richard Garet, Video; Set 3 - Charles Cohen and Hair Loss, Music; Josh Ott - Video :: January 30, 2008; 8 - 10:30 pm :: Monkey Town, 58 North 3rd Street (bet. Kent & Wythe), Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

For January, {R}ake stays close to its roots. We’ve paired-up musicians and video-artists who haven’t formally collaborated together to present a night of truly improvisational multimedia performances. Continue reading

filmachine - by Keiichiro Shibuya and Takashi Ikegami places the visitor inside a vortex of sound and light that transcends the traditional perspective of the cinematic experience.

Three circles of loudspeakers are suspended from the ceiling above an abstract landscape. On entering the space, the visitor starts the composition with a button at the center of the piece, triggering an immersive audio-visual experience in a 3-dimensional soundscape, enhanced by a specially designed LED lighting system. Continue reading