Lemurs Over Laptopia: Will new performance interfaces rejuvenate live electronic music? asks Thomas Bey William Bailey on Vague Terrain:

For roughly 160 years since Richard Wagner published his Artwork of the Future, Western audio culture has been forced to take sides on the issue of music and its relation to the other arts: should music be just one element in a fully-integrated artistic program, or should ‘absolute music’ unfettered by lyrics (let alone other sensory effects) run the show? … Continue reading

Audio Cubes: Tangible Interface for Audiovisual Creation workshop with AudioCubes designer Bert Schiettecatte :: November 10 and 19, 2009; 9:30 am - 5:15 pm :: Brussels, Belgium.

The Audio Cubes: Tangible Interface for Audiovisual Creation workshops are about exploring the possibilities of tangible interfaces for audiovisual artwork, in particular in sound design, music composition and live performance.

The participants will be introduced to the AudioCubes musical interface and its applications. AudioCubes are a new way to create audiovisual work through gestures and phsyical interaction with a network of intelligent wireless objects. Continue reading

Making Fun Serious at Futuresonic 2009 :: May 13-23, 2009.

Featured artworks - The Knitting Scanner by Azusa Murakami reads patterns in knitted garments and translates them into music; Chromophone by Benjamin Newland allows people to make music from the colours that they see; Fabien Cappello turns type into beautiful music using a modified traditional typewriter; an installation of porcelain bowls by Jozephine Duker people play using their hands or everyday objects like a pen; a comfortable lounge chair by Vahakn Matossian houses an audio processing ‘brain,’ microphone, joystick and sound horns; Giuseppe Guerriero’s instrument has fifty sensors around its surface to allow body movements to compose and play music; Lucia Massari turns an ordinary book into an extraordinary musical instrument; Matthew Plummer-Fernandez has created a wind-up human-powered electronic instrument; Yiting Cheng and Ting-Chung Cheng have devised a wearable instrument with which body movements execute a symphony of buttons, zip fasteners, velcro and pins. Related: itSpace by Peter Traub.

Thursday Club: noise=Noise: Mind Body Brain :: January 21, 2009; 6:30 - 9:00 pm :: Great Hall, Richard Hoggart Building, University of London, New Cross, South East London.

Mind Body Brain is an evening concert exploring noise (music) through research into new interfaces for musical expression and perceptions of noise. The evening will be split into two segments. In the first segment each artist will give a synopsis of their current work and research. The second segment will be a live concert. This event brings together artists from music, computing, design and psychology. Through the course of the evening you may hear ghost voices and mains electricity through Disinformation; a brain playing music through Mick Griersons’ brain computer interface, and strobe-ing lights and sounds with John Bowers’ infra-instruments. Curator: Ryan Jordan. Continue reading

Doubles is an electronic music instrument with a tangible user interface. Using two physical objects on a table, several simultaneous performers can interact with the instrument which registers the speed, distance, and motion of the objects. The surface of the table is paved with beads that roll when the physical objects are moved. This creates a sliding effect of acceleration and a centrifugal force is created to compute the audio and visuals in the installation. Check out the video below to see the visuals and hear the strange sounds produced by the instrument.

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Enrico Costanza, PhD student at the Media and Design Laboratory of Lausanne’s Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale, has focused his research on designing objects that can bring digital and physical worlds closer. His Audio d-touch project, developed with Simon Shelley, is a clear example of this approach. It consists of three tangible interfaces that are used for musical composition and performance. They have been suggestively named, Augmented Stave, Tangible Drum Machine and Physical Sequencer.

The latter has been used in two live performances by the Sicilian cellist and composer Giovanni Sollima. Using the sequencer Sollima is able to record audio or voice samples and organize them in variable length loops. Continue reading

The Telephone Game: Oil/Water/Ether by the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) is an exploration of a real-time collaborative composition local network. All of the performers have identical performance/composition programs — a custom flexible step-sequencer — that invite play with rhythmic cycles of various lengths and timbres. The real fun starts, however, when the players begin spying on their neighbors, secretly, via the network, and stealing their ideas with the click of the mouse. Unplanned structures begin to emerge, like oil on water, as riffs propagate and evolve, sometimes returning unrecognizable to their creators. Continue reading

Ajay Kapur - Electronic Sitars, Robotic Tablas, and Sarawati’s ElectroMagic :: April 3, 2008; 5 - 7 pm :: Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA.

TABLACENTRIC is thrilled to present Ajay Kapur, whose work revolves around one queston: “How do you make a computer improvise with a human?” Using the rules set forth by the north Indian classical tradition, Ajay strives to build new interfaces for musical expression by modifying the tabla, dholak and sitar with added microchips and sensor systems, while building robotic musical instruments which can be programmed to perform along with the human performer. Continue reading

CALL FOR WORKS: Futuristic Music Design Challenge - A live competition at Yuri’s Night Bay Area presented by createdigitalmusic.com :: Deadline: April 7, 11:59 PM EST (No exceptions!)

Online submission: Web entries accepted from around the world for the Web showcase. Limited entries will be chosen to compete live — To compete for the prizes, those entries must be present at Yuri’s Night Bay Area, Saturday, April 12. Submit DIY music performance projects – using custom software and/or hardware – for a live performance battle at the Yuri’s Night Bay Area party on April 12, sponsored by Yuri’s Night and createdigitalmusic.com. Compete for awards including a Yamaha Tenori-On grand prize. Continue reading

N.I.P. - New Interfaces for Performance - N.I.P. is an interdisciplinary touring presentation, network and workshop series, developed by Teresa Dillon of the Bristol based media arts and research collective Polar Produce. As an artists lead initiative, N.I.P. currently exists as a three-year project and involves twelve artists drawn from across the UK, The Netherlands and Portugal. The current focus of the project is on gesture and movement based interfaces within live performance and interactive, mixed media installation.

N.I.P. artists at Pixelache 2008 Helsinki are: Teresa Dillon (UK), Kathy Hinde (UK), Torsten Lauschmann (UK), Ivan Franco (PT), Rudolfo Quintas (PT), André Gonçalves (PT) and Tom Verbruggen (NL). Continue reading