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.

Sometimes a keyboard for control is not enough, you require a tangible interface to communicate with your parameters. Recently the importance of the midi controller with generative systems has been proven, but a new kid on the block is the Wii controller (Wiimote). Designed for gaming but easily hackable to control your favourite software – be it Processing, Max/Msp or VVVV. Its motion sensing capability in 3D space is perfect for mapping into your X, Y and Z’s resulting in a fun and novel way of controlling your animations

Bringing together 3 Software’s - VVVV, Max/MSP and Reason the WiiWiiWiiWii thesis project provides a system allowing for a set of Wiimotes to become a syneasthetic musical instruments. Continue reading

Dene Grigar’s Virtual DJ Networked Performance has been developed to allow two geographically-removed performers to interact simultaneously with Steve Gibson’s piece, Virtual DJ. With the help of the programmers from APR, Inc. a version of the tracking software has been developed to allow positional information to be delivered over a high-speed network, thus allowing the users at each site to hear and see the results of the remote person’s motions. The network performance between Gibson and Grigar was tested in the summer 2005 between Gibson’s studio at the University of Victoria and Grigar’s lab at Texas Woman’s University. Continue reading

The Octopulse shows that noise is music. With this cuddly ‘alien bagpipe’ you can control analogue sound synthesis through unconventional means. The ‘tonetacles’ of the Octopulse react to movement and light, transferring movements into information for an analogue synthesiser to convert into cacophonous noises. Continue reading

One of the most compelling performances at the NIME 2007, Concert 1, in New York City this past week was EyeMusic v1.0, an eye-controlled composition. The project makes use of an eye tracking device (the LC Technologies Eyegaze Communication System) that reports where the performer is looking on the computer screen, as well as other parameters pertaining to the status of the eyes. It reports these data in real time to a computer program (written using Max/MSP/Jitter) which then generates and modifies sounds and images based on these data. Continue reading

SOUNDSCAPE 2007: a synergistic interaction of sight, sound, and crowd motion :: September 14 and 15, 7-11 pm :: 368 Congress Street, 5th floor, Boston :: And admission is free! :: 617.669.5690.

Sixteen musicians perform simultaneously, while linked in a chain that winds through an 8,000-square-foot architectural labyrinth. Each musician improvises only in response to the two neighboring musicians. The walls that separate the musicians function as both sound barriers and interactive environments for site-specific artworks of video, sculpture, architecture, sound and light installation. Works are created in response to the music and the space. As the audience moves throughout the space to experience the artwork, the sound modulates and transforms from area to area.

Created by Jason Freeman, Flock is a full evening performance work for saxophone quartet, conceived to directly engage audiences in the composition of music by physically bringing them out of their seats and enfolding them into the creative process. During the performance, the four musicians and 60-80 audience members move freely around the performance space. A computer vision system determines the locations of the audience members and musicians, and it uses that data to generate performance instructions for the saxophonists, who view them on wireless handheld displays mounted on their instruments. The data is also artistically rendered and projected on multiple video screens to provide a visual experience of the score. Continue reading

Non-Event: Laetitia Sonami & Joel Ryan w/ Inventmusic :: April 21, 2007 @ 9:00 pm :: Killian Hall at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

LAETITIA SONAMI was born in France and settled in the United States in 1975 to pursue her interest in the emerging field of electronic music. Her work combines text, music and “found sound” from the world, in compositions which have been described as “performance novels”. She is creating and utilizing some of the most sophisticated technologies in order to create an intimate, spontaneous art form which transcends technology. Since 1991 she has developed and adapted new gestural controllers to musical performance and composed works with these materials. Her unique instrument, the lady’s glove, is made out of black lycra and is embedded with sensors which track the slightest motion of each finger, the hand, and the arm. The performance thus becomes a small dance where the movements shape the music. She lives in Oakland, California and is currently guest lecturer at the San Francisco Art Institute, and Milton Avery Summer program at Bard college. Continue reading

Jost Muxfeldt uses Audio Kinematics to create virtual audio sculptures, utilizing the spatial relations and proportions of a mechanical structure to determine various parameters of a sound composition.

The motion in the current realization is based on the principle of a mobile, a binary tree structure combined with circular motions. Since the motions of the individual nodes are always circular, they can over time be described with a series of sine waves added to each other. The motion of one node is thus described by the amplitude modulation of the sine wave of the parent node. Thus the motion is closely related to one of the most basic principles of audio synthesis. Continue reading

A Virtual Space “Sings”

RPM’s Remixed is a telematic, transdisciplinary performance based on remixing Alvin Lucier’s RPM’s score - integrating dance, video and sound improvisation between artists in New York, Tampa, and San Jose.

Alvin Lucier, a well-known composer of music and sound installations that explore natural phenomena and resonance, is renowned for making spaces “sing.” This piece explores the possibilities of using one of his scores to make a virtual space “sing” by using improvisational techniques as well as the natural feedback and delay created by streaming. Continue reading