Cyberbirds: Audio | Video Peacock are mobile multimedia screens by Benoît Maubrey — The Audio Peacock is a wearable electronic instrument constructed out of polycarbonate (plexi-glass) equipped with loudspeakers, amplifier, battery and different sound-making devices (microphone, sampler, radio receiver, interactive sensors). As Video Peacocks, the costume functions also as a mobile screen onto which theme-specific visualizations (movies, pictures, internet blogs, interactive computer images, webcasts and closed circuit camera views) are projected.

This wearable electroacoustic instrument is shaped into a peacock’s fan-like plumage and is highly directional — projecting the sound into a space like an oversized radar dish. Much in the same way that the courtyard peacock “strutts his stuff” in front of a pea-hen and imposes with his awesome cry, so does the Audio Peacock stalk his architectural domain — using sound as a scalpel that cuts through air and sculpts it, transforming it to into his new realm. Continue reading

The Sound Jewelry concept occurred to co-author Toru Iwatake, a composer, a few years ago. Since then, its realization has become a collaborative project with co-author Takuya Yamauchi, an interaction designer. Sound Jewelry is an evolving project, therefore the actual method of its realization may differ in one way or another with each use, but the essential concept of creating an interactive sound environment using sensing capabilities remains the same. Video >>. Continue reading

University of Minnesota West Bank Arts Quarter In partnership with the American Composers Forum Call for Works: 2009 Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts :: February 17 – 22, 2009 :: Minneapolis, MN :: Submission Deadline: October 31, 2008.

Now in its seventh year, the Spark Festival invites submissions of art, dance, theater, and music works incorporating new media, including electroacoustic concert music, experimental electronica, theatrical and dance works, installations, kinetic sculpture, artbots, video, and other non- traditional genres. Although Spark does not force submissions to adhere to a annual theme, we are especially interested this year to feature wearable and mobile technologies, and events will include the first Spark Fashion Show. Continue reading

The Voice by Art of Failure (Nicolas Maigret and Nicolas Montgermont) – The Voice arises from the diversion of a software for blind people, allowing to transform a video image into sound. The concept is used to design a tool for a performance / installation, where some objects chosen on the place become a series of instruments producing tones according to their shape and color. The performers stage objects of everyday life in a concert where the spectator is immersed « in an almost utopian relationship between visual and sound ».

The Voice software has been designed by Peter B. L. Meijer to propose an alternative way of perception for blind people. With the use of a webcam or a mobile phone, a sound transcription of the visual scene recorded by the device is synthesized. After a learning phase, this set-up allows blind people to recognize some elementary objects, and then a real space movement (link). Continue reading

“Sonic City is a wearable system that turns the city into an interface for real time electronic music making. It enables its user to create a personal soundscape of live electronic music by walking through and interacting with urban environments. The prototype consists of a small laptop computer, a microphone, headphones, a micro-controller, a MIDI interface, and a number of sensors (sensing light, metal, movement, proximity, sound level, etc). The system gathers information about the user’s actions and surrounding context with sensors worn on the body and a layer of context and action recognition. This data controls the audio processing of live urban sounds collected by the microphone. Resulting music is output through headphones in real time and in the context in which it is created, as the user is walking. Mobility through shifting urban context becomes a large-scale musical gesture… Continue reading

Video Pool Media Arts Centre is pleased to host Freestyle SoundHack, a performance / workshop led by Toronto-based artist, Jessica Thompson :: September 13, 2008; 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. :: at Video Pool, 300-100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg, MB.

Jessica Thompson will present Freestyle SoundHack, a collaborative performance in the form of a workshop. The performance / workshop involves building Freestyle SoundKits – wearable sound pieces prototyped by the artist – that generate and broadcast electronic beats as users move through the urban environment. During the performance, the artist will give her project to the public by teaching workshop participants how to make their own Freestyle SoundKits, which they can distribute as they wish, using whatever sounds they choose. Continue reading

April ReSiDeNt Show: New Works, New Instruments, New Artists :: Featuring new works by Dafna Naphtali, Andrew Schneider and Simon Morris :: at LEMURplex, 461 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, between 9th & 10th Streets :: Friday, May 2nd :: 8 pm – 11 pm :: $5 at the door

Dafna Naphtali is a sound-artist and improviser-composer from an eclectic musical background. As singer/guitarist/electronic-musician she performs and composes using custom sound processing of voice and other instruments. Besides her composing and improvised projects, she co-leads the digital chamber punk ensemble What is it Like to be a Bat? with Kitty Brazelton (http://www.whatbat.org) and has collaborated/performed with Lukas Ligeti, David First, Joshua Fried, Continue reading

Freestyle SoundHack – a workshop and performance with Jessica Thompson :: January 26, 2008; 1 – 5 pmM :: p|m Gallery, 1159 Dundas Street East, Suite 149, Toronto, Canada.

Freestyle SoundKits are wearable sound pieces that generate and broadcast electronic beats as users move through the urban environment. Freestyle SoundHack is a collaborative performance in the form of a workshop. During the performance, the artist will give her project to the public by teaching workshop participants how to make their own Freestyle SoundKits, to distribute as they wish, using whatever sounds they choose. Material fee: $20 (full kit), $10 (kit-amp). Continue reading

Noisy Instrument by Jun Murakoshi – What has not been done by using rapid prototyping technique? My answer is making sounds. It must be difficult to make music but it could be possible to make noise. When you put a seashell on your ear, you can hear something strange noise. It is noise but it makes us feel good. This product is a wearable instrument for listening the noise like seashell makes.

Jun Murakoshi was born in 1978 and grew up in Saitama, Japan. He obtained a Master of Engineering in Industrial Design, at Chiba University, Japan. He completed his MA in Design Products at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2007.

Soft Architecture: WYSIWYG – As an extension of the research work conducted with the Topological Media Lab (TML), Sha Xin Wei and his team are creating textile objects such as wall hangings, blankets, scarves, and jewelry that create sound as they are approached or manipulated. These sonic blankets can be used for improvised play.

A phonetic pun on the old acronym for What You See is What You Get from the era of the Graphical User Interface, WYSIWYG (for wearable, sonic instrument, with gesture) draws on music technology, dance, children’s group games, textile arts, and fashion. Created first and foremost to sustain social play for people of all ages, WYSIWYG allows players to express themselves whether enjoying time in a park, dancing at a club, passing the time during a long car trip, or just playing at home. Continue reading