ZooZBeat is a gesture-based musical studio, simple enough for non-musicians to immediately become musically expressive but rich enough for experienced musicians to push the envelope of mobile music creation. Start playing with just a click or select among background beats in a variety of styles. Use shake and tilt movements, tap the screen, or press the keypads to create and modify rhythmic and melodic lines. Based on years of research, our musical engine will interpret your actions into beautiful music that fits your style.

About ZooZ: We are musicians, gamers, coders, and designers. We are a small group of graduates and faculty from the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology who decided to bring some pretty cool projects from our labs to the hands of everyone. We believe that passion for music making is an innate and universal trait. We create technology to unlock musical expression and creative potential for everyone. We believe that passion for game playing is an innate and universal trait. We create technology to facilitate the most intuitive and expressive game experience for everyone. We believe that if more people played music and games, the world would probably be a better place. And this is just our preliminary goal for this quarter.

The Sound Of Games features: live performances and DJ sets from 8-bit music makers gwEm vs Counter Reset & Random and Game Boy DJ Jellica of the Kittenrock label (streamed live from his studio in Cambridge); a live ‘remote’ performance of Arcangel Contantini’s interactive online animation project bakteria.org (controlled by Arcangel from Mexico City); an exhibition of Stanza’s soundtoys.net project - a repository of exciting new works by a growing community of audio visual artists; interactive playful works from digital artists Nipplecat and Julian Baker with Adam Hoyle; as well as screenings of innovative short films and animations.

Fluxus reads live audio, midi or OSC network messages which can be used as a source of animation data for realtime performances or installations. Keyboard or mouse input can also be read for games development, and a physics engine is included for realtime simulations of rigid body dynamics.

The built in scheme code editor runs on top of the renderer (see screenshots), which means you can edit the scripts while they are running. As well as making live coding possible, it’s also gives you a very fast feedback way of experimenting or learning about graphics and animation. The core graphics and synthesis engine is written in C++ for speed, and it’s high level language is PLT Scheme, chosen for creative flexibility.

You may also be interested in an experimental video texture extension for fluxus available here.

Tutorial Movies: There are a series of tutorial livecoding movies, to give you some ideas about livecoding strategies using Scheme and fluxus. See the fluxus secrets page.

David Steinberg: mobile music machines - Lots of interesting musical software have been developed more or less recently for portable videogames consoles (Gameboy, PSP, etc.), PDAs or other similar platforms. I’ll present many of these applications (for Nintendo Gameboy, Palm OS, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, Gamepark consoles, etc.), explain what’s needed to use them, who created them, what are the advantages and disadvantages of developing musical software for each platform and of course show some examples of what can be done with these new instruments.

Sam Pluta: data structures/monoliths ii (for chion) - Video samplers. Software as musical scores. Data structures as musical materials. Copyright laws. Data loops. Why Chewbacca is not in the OS X spell checker. Blocks of sounds. Laptop improvisation. And Michel Chion. All this and more will be discussed as Sam Pluta presents his work, data structures/monoliths ii (for chion).

Christina McPhee: Shake Stations - California-based filmmaker and artist Christina McPhee is ‘outback’ in earthquake country this summer, shooting HD video at Parkfield, California with new media installation artist DV Rogers (New Zealand / Sydney). DV is building and activating a major land art work- a hydraulically activated, remote -sensor activated seismic intervention table. DV’s PIEQF installation reacts to mini-tremors and shakes in realtime.

Following DV and crew as they install the project this summer and fall, Christina’s documentary takes on the gradual installation of the table as an elaborate time-based performance, with ironic and playful resonances to land art and the highly saturated dramatic space of sixties nouvelle vague (new wave) film. Via abstract drawing, experimental video and photomontage, Christina makes performative recordings at generative ‘moment-tensors’ where biological systems clash and meet with technological, and often security-challenged, sublime landscapes at the urban edge.

At places of emergence, at folds or ‘tesserae’ in landscapes of latent energy, her methods involve meditative engagement in remote sites like Parkfield, and also this year at live geothermal plants over the San Andreas Fault, next to the declining aquifer of Salton Sea, near the Mexico / California border. Her work slips past the indexical to trace dynamic loops between biological and technologically emergent states, making connections between human traumatic memory, disturbed terrains, and bare life.

There will be a fundraiser on Saturday night, 6 pm to midnight, at Castle Clinton in Battery Park ($10 donation). Everyone is invited!

FIGMENT is a celebration of creative culture from June 27-29, 2008 on Governors Island in New York Harbor. It provides an open forum for artists, helps build a creative community, and fosters participatory and public art. A broad spectrum of arts are represented, including sculpture, performance, music, installation, dance, costuming and activities. Figment is free and open to the public. Everyone can participate — with whatever inspires them! There will be almost every conceivable option. Come, engage, build, paint, sing, experience, think, wonder, listen, create, dance, wander: In short, the public can participate in a vast array of imaginative experiences that over 200 artists of FIGMENT have conceived — or bring their own games, costumes, activities, or small works of art.

FIGMENT has moved art from the pedestal onto the front lawn for everyone to enjoy, with over 200 artists to celebrate creative culture and non-commercial art with the public.

• Among the projects planned for this event are:

Starlight on the Island—A series of solar panel powered, spherical steel sculptures that will absorb sunlight to light the island at night.

• The Art of Skateboarding, an art installation and talk with homemade ramps constructed of recycled materials.

• “Circus Sideshow”, an interactive art installation and performance

• The Rose Petal Pool, children of all ages can interact with this rich sensory experience (multi-media sound installation)

• Maroguzcaju Theater Puppet Show, “Silencio, Silencio!,” about finding happiness in life’s details

• “Planetary Dance,” participatory rhythmic circular dance

And many many other events and performances, including a lecture schedule which includes discussions on Interactive and Participatory Art.

FIGMENT 2008 will also offer a range of offerings by video and film artists sharing both their personal and collective expressions—often influenced by Governors Island— including the documentation of the construction of an elaborate reclaimed wood sculpture and one NY native’s 1979 marriage in the island’s Trinity Church.

Other FIGMENT art installations will incorporate such innovative materials and resources as telescopes, a teepee, 2,000 silver colored flags, and a pair of five-foot tall wooden lips! The majority of sculptures and art pieces are touchable and climbable—resulting in much art that is interactive and child-friendly.

The work of both emerging and established choreographers will be featured as part of the many dance performances taking place throughout the 3-day event. Similarly, FIGMENT 2008 will have a range of performance art offerings, including such original and unusual unions as the merging of creative writing with art and improvisational drama exercises with therapeutic movement, sound, and role-play. In addition, visitors to the island can participate in the creation of pop-trash poetry done karaoke style, Ukrainian body painting, private readings at the “Poetry Brothel,” and the “intrepid” use of cameras to record various urban explorations.

The musical offerings of FIGMENT 2008 are extensive, as well as exceptional in their variety and innovation. They range from boogie and classic rock to futuristic Brooklyn hip-hop to the “healing” sounds of electric keyboards to traditional bawdy German songs about murder, madness and mayhem—to the accompaniment of an organ grinder! Many of the performances are also representative of the collaborative spirit of multiple disciplines working together: a sound installation incorporating restaurant kitchen recordings, live electric flute accompanied by modern dancers, a mix of acoustic and electronic dance music resulting from remixes of Rwandan mass and folktronica.

Finally, humor permeates many of the offerings, as probably best represented by the Celtic vocalist who will be singing her heartfelt songs about love, loss and indigestion.

For more information on the highly interactive and collaborative art exhibits, performances, music and dance events, and workshops encompassing all media, go to http://figmentnyc.org/2008/participate.html or contact Rosemary Siciliano :: rosemary [at] FIGMENTnyc.org :: 207.332.9008

Flou (pronounced “flew”) is not exactly a game; you do fly a ship through space, but you cannot shoot anything, score points, or win or lose. The focus, rather, is on the soundtrack: as you navigate through a 3D world and zoom through objects in space, you add loops and apply effects to an ever-evolving musical mix. You can also design your own worlds to fly through and share them with other Flou users.

Flou is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. for Networked_Music_Review. It was made possible with funding from the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

BIOGRAPHIES

Jason Freeman uses new technology and unconventional notation to break down barriers between composers, performers, and listeners, creating music that “stands as an example of the Web’s mind-expanding possibilities” (Billboard) and helps to “bring composition into the Xbox age” (Wired). Recent projects include “Flock”, a full-evening performance for saxophone quartet, dancers, and audience participation commissioned by Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in Miami; Graph Theory, a solo violin and web-based work commissioned by Turbulence; “iTunes Signature Maker”, a software artwork commissioned by Rhizome; and “Glimmer”, an audience-participation piece commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra. Freeman received his B.A. in music from Yale University and his M.A. and D.M.A. in composition from Columbia University. He is currently an assistant professor at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, where he teaches in the Music Department in the College of Architecture. [Read an interview with Jason]

The students in Freeman’s Networked Music course at Georgia Tech (Andrew Beck, Xiang Cao, Mark Godfrey, Jagadeeswaran Jayaprakash, Al Matthews, Rachel Ponder, Alex Rae, and Sriram Viswanathan) are currently pursuing M.S. degrees in music technology, digital media, and human-computer interaction, and they have diverse backgrounds as composers and performers of experimental and popular music, as computer scientists, and as engineers. Over the course of the fall 2007 semester, they collaborated to develop the concept for Flou, to design its user interface, visual components, and sound worlds, and to write, test, and deploy the software. They are currently creating a live-performance version of the work for presentation in spring 2008.

Sonic Wargame will be running for two days: On January 29 there will be 3 rounds with 4 different teams in each round - On January 30 there will be 2 rounds with the best teams of the previous day, plus a final round with the best 4 teams of all.

If you are interested in participating please send an email to: sonicwargame[at]clubtransmediale.de

Please provide us with the following information:

- your name and email address
- how you want to join the game: as a musician, DJ or gamer or team
- which instrument, style or genre you usually play
- a link to a website with some information about yourself (if you have one)

After you have been selected you will get an email with the details for participation.

More information:

http://www.sonic-wargame.net
http://www.clubtransmediale.de/club-transmediale/sonic-wargame.html

On January 28, Xavier van Wersch will also play a solo performance within the festival, performing on his self-built electronic
instruments. More information on Xavier van Wersch.