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

“We all love driving down a open road with music on the car radio, at times there seems to be an almost magical synchronization between the music playing and the passing landscape, the speed, the hum of the motor, sounds harmonize with the machine…” This was the impetus for Peter Sinclair’s AutoSync. With AutoSync, the music played on the car HiFi is generated entirely by the car itself: vibrations of the car on the road, recognizable movements (accelerations, gear changes, bends etc.) and the passing landscape. Continue reading

Once the domain of the few, creating and customizing sophisticated DIY controllers is now more accessible than ever. That means, if you can’t find what you want, and you’re ambitious and knowledgeable enough, you go make your own. Josh Boughey was impressed by the Monome enough to buy one — but the Monome, a grid of on/off buttons, doesn’t provide any kind of variable control. So Josh built his own, combining a series of parallel touch strips with LED indicators. (The lights are the tricky part, requiring an obscene number of connections.) Continue reading

Visit pank.tv (click on DNA)to see a video and hear the sonification of GENE - LUXR :: ORGANISM - VIBRIO :: FISCHERI TRANSLATION - CNA :: It’s a one-minute sample and quite beautiful.

According to the very limited information on the site, DNA, mRNA and Protein sequences are translated into MIDI to generate the sound and control the image variables in realtime. When presented in live performance a MIDI controller is used. The gene information and sequences are available here. Other audio samples are available here.

LEMUR announces ReSiDeNt, a major new residency and performance/installation series :: Open Call for Submissions: Deadline: December 17, 2007. Artists from all performing and installation disciplines are encouraged to apply, including musicians, composers, dancers, choreographers, video artists, interactive installation artists, performance artists, multimedia artists and others.

In January 2008, LEMUR will inaugurate ReSiDeNt, a unique new creator-in-residence program, hosted at LEMUR’s Brooklyn space in Park Slope. Each month, we will award three artists a month-long residency at LEMUR, enabling them to create a work utilizing LEMUR’s resources, including robotic musical instruments, MIDI audio/video controllers, video projection and tracking system and more. Each group of residencies will culminate in a public show at LEMUR at the end of the month. Continue reading

Arduino Sound - Part 1: This is the first in a series of articles about generating sound with an Arduino. The goals are to generate good quality sound which can be used to play simple tones, stored music, sampled sound, and even act as a MIDI synthesizer. I will cover the basic design, including code and hardware that anyone can use to add sound to Arduino microcontroller projects.

Arduino Sound Part 2: Hello World: This is the second in a series of articles about generating sound with an Arduino. In this article we take a small step; “Hello World” for Arduino sound. We prepare for our future experiments by hooking up a PC or powered speaker so we can hear the Arduino sing. Also see Arduino Sound Part 3: Playing a Melody.

Ingrid Bachmann (Canada) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the complicated relationship between the material and virtual realms. Bachmann uses redundant, as well as new technologies, to create generative and interactive artworks, many of which are site-specific.

Symphony for 54 Shoes is a kinetic artwork that involves 27 pairs of shoes collected from a variety of second hand and thrift stores. Each shoe has a toe and heel tap used in tap dancing attached to it. The shoes move or dance independently of each other. The mechanical motion of tapping is created using solenoids (tubular magnetic sensors) that move up and down when activated by a switch. Each switch, 52 in total, is controlled by a microcontroller and software that activates the sequence of the tapping of the shoes. Continue reading

Aside from it’s wii-like accelerametor ( movement gestures as data for controlling software ), the iPhone’s touchscreen interface and hard-drive with internal operating system, makes it a potentially awesome device for manipulating software. Say hello then, to the i3L MIDI BRIDGE for the iPhone by artificialeyes.tv, software developed to work with their upcoming 3D software 3L (‘thrill’). Software that translates the sliding and pressing on the touchscreen into midi information, which is sent wirelessly to a small piece of software on the desktop, which in turn can be routed to the software application of your choice. In my case below, this was VDMX. Is it fun to use? Hell yeah!

Though they developed it to work on their upcoming app, full credit to artificialeyes.tv for releasing it as freeware to work with any software. More details and download over at artificialeyes.tv. [posted on Skynoise]

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

We see all kinds of novel controllers and input devices for music on CDM, but don’t always get the chance to see how these are used in actual music making. Uraguay-based Gustavo Bravetti is a master of live laptop performance with alternative controllers. (See previous video of him from Colombia.) He talks to Liz (aka Quantazelle, a laptop virtuoso herself) about the scene on the other side of the Americas and how he’s able to fire up crowds with unusual performance techniques, via three-axis light control and the P5 interactive glove. And, really, we didn’t put him up to all the plugs for this site — I’m much more excited to find out how people are able to use some of these resources in front of an audience! So, Gustavo, we’re thrilled to learn about what you’re doing.” Read Interview: Gustavo Bravetti, Playing Music with Light and Interactive Gloves by Liz McLean Knight, Create Digital Music.