Scale is a bio-art collaboration with neurobiologist/ engineer Malcolm MacIver, visual/ conceptual artist Marlena Novak, and composer/ sound designer Jay Alan Yim. It is being presented at STRP Festival, Eindhoven, Netherlands.

This audience-interactive installation involves electric fish from the Amazon River Basin. Twelve different species of these fish comprise a ‘choir’ whose sonified electrical fields provide the source tones for an immersive audiovisual environment. The interface for Scale incorporates custom-designed software, a hacked Wiimote ‘conductor’s baton’ that participants can use to ‘cue’ individual fish so their unadulterated tones (as well as digitally processed versions) can be heard through the audio system, a touchscreen panel to allow for changes in volume, and arrays of LEDs under each tank to provide visual feedback to visitors. Continue reading

Flocking Orchestra (aka DT1) by Tatsuo Unemi and Daniel Bisig: DT1 is an interactive installation that employs flocking algorithms to produce music and visuals. The user’s motions are captured by a video camera and influence the flock’s behaviour. Each agent moving in a virtual 3D space controls a MIDI instrument whose playing style depends on the agent’s state. In this system, the user acts as a conductor influencing the flock’s musical activity. In addition to gestural interaction, the acoustic properties of the system can be modified on the fly by using an intuitive GUI. The acoustical and visual output of the system results from the combination of the flock’s and user’s behaviour. It therefore creates on the behavioural level a mixing of natural and artificial reality. The system has been designed to run an a variety of different computational configuration ranging from small laptops to exhibition scale installations.

The Conductor program — computer-mediated musical performance by Stephen Malinowski.

Introduction: There are many ways people share the responsibility of making music: they can collaborate in composing and performing music, a composer can leave performing to other musicians, a group of musicians can hire a conductor, a performer can rely on an instrument maker to build a machine capable of turning musical gestures into sound. A less commonly used way to share musical responsibility is for a machine to be responsible for storing the notes of the score and playing back those notes in the proper order, leaving a human performer with only the responsibilities of the conductor — rhythm, tempo, dynamics, expression, interpretation.
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Scores of Light

: Glimmer, by Jason Freeman, engages the concert audience as musical collaborators who do not just listen to the performance but actively shape it. Each audience member is given a battery-operated light stick which he or she turns on and off over the course of the piece. Computer software analyzes live video of the audience and sends instructions to each musician via multi-colored lights mounted on each player’s stand. The piece draws from a long history of interactive music, art, and cinema, but it also engages in current issues regarding the use of technology within orchestral concerts. Many orchestras are currently experimenting with interactive handheld devices and large video displays which attempt to explain the music being performed. But many such devices ultimately create barriers to engaged listening. Glimmer challenges audiences to become active collaborators in the live performance, rather than reinforcing their traditionally passive role. The American Composers Orchestra will perform Glimmer in its world premiere on Friday, January 21st, 2005, 7:30 p.m. at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall (New York). Continue reading