The repurposing of consumer technology is a growing trend for artists and technologists in the DIY genre exploring circuit bending, hardware hacking and retro-engineering. Artists who have used the mechanics of printers for producing sound include Paul Slocum with his dot matrix printer and Eric Singer’s scanner-inspired musical instrument, GuitarBot. Inside an ordinary ink jet printer are the same toy-like, clockwork mechanisms that have delighted people and sparked imaginations for centuries. In the creation of Plink Jet, Flanigan and Doro have investigated how human improvisation can interact with these mechanical forms. Plink Jet transforms the predicable function of a printer into a unique and irreproducible performance.

So how is it all done? Surprisingly, no screwdrivers are used. All that is needed is a Wii controller and a computer that’s capable of using a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard.

Seznec explains that the key is persuading the Wiimote to link up to the computer, rather than the games console. Seznec did this by downloading some open source software written by a Japanese software developer named Masayuki Akamatsu (yet another hero of the Wii-jacking revolution).

Seznec says that hacking into the Wii remote – that is, pairing it to a computer – is relatively easy. What’s hard is doing anything useful with it. For the Loop Machine, this meant Seznec writing his own computer programme. “It’s important to make systems that use movement in a logical way,” he says, “so that when a certain movement is made – be it an upwards swipe or a circle – a certain sound or effect is created. It’s hard to do that, but I came up with various programming tricks in the end. I’ve put maybe a thousand hours of work into this project.”

A new improved version of Seznec’s Loop Machine has just been completed and is now being sold online for US$20. Download it on to your computer, grab your Wiimote and you’re away.

So what are the ethics of all this? Will Nintendo crush the Wii-jacking revolution as it starts to make money? The independent developers often describe themselves as “hackers” and “homebrewers” (because they prefer to make their own programmes). But despite the stigma that surrounds interfering with technology for many lay people, there is no suggestion that what the Wiijackers are doing is illegal.

Attempts to get Nintendo to comment on Wii-jacking crashed into a wall of silence. But Seznec guesses that there might be an element of calculation from the manufacturer involved in the whole phenomenon. “Nintendo has made it really easy for independent software hackers to use their hardware, and some people suspect that they did that on purpose to encourage development.”

Thanks to Engadget

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.

BACKGROUND: In science fiction and science fact, music has been central to finding a common language to speak to the universe. Music from Bach to gamelan has traveled into space on the Voyager spacecraft. In the digital age, musical interfaces are also often the best way to understand how to interface with technology and information.

Musicians have led many of the most innovative digital technological breakthroughs — the first digital synthesizer (at Bell Labs in the 50s), breakthroughs in modular electronic systems (modular synthesizers of the 60s), pioneering advances in digital storage and processing, unusual wireless interfaces and gestural controls decades ahead of the Nintendo Wii, and touch- and multi-touch tools years before the iPhone and Microsoft Surface. But that’s all in the past. This is a design challenge for the future. We want to hear the best, most forward-thinking, generally coolest, Second Space Age-worthy instruments and digital music interfaces. If aliens land — as they did when met by a classic ARP synthesizer in Close Encounters — we want to be able to give them a great show.

How to enter: We’re looking for designs of “instruments” — whether self-contained, electrically-powered devices or hardware interfaces for computers. That can include tangible interfaces, physical computing, hacked hardware, custom-built synths and electronics, and other gadgets. These must use at least some custom software and/or hardware.

You are limited to one computer and one input device — but the “input device” can be as complex as an interactive table. If that sounds vague, just remember — ultimately, the judges and audience decide. Wow them, and all will be well.

Artists must sign up in advance. We will have a limited number of slots. The best proposals will be chosen by the staff of createdigitalmusic.com to compete in San Francisco at Yuri’s Night.

Set up, plug in. You’ll have a limited set up time.

Play. You have three minutes to perform.

JUDGING: A panel of judges with expertise in music and interaction design will judge the entries — and are encouraged to be biased by crowd response. (If you’ve got friends, tell them to cheer really loudly.)

AWARDS: Winners will be announced at Yuri’s Night, with a grand prize winner and honorable mention awards for each category.

http://yuricdm.com
http://yuricdm.com/2008/03/19/futuristic-music-design-challenge/
http://yurisnightbayarea.net/

I met David in 2006 at Mutek, and got to know him and his work through his excellent curation of our Vague Terrain issue on locative media. David’s creative practice is quite varied, and perusal of his recent work reveals interests in improv performance, modified timepieces and insect orchestras.

A shorter version of this interview was previously published on View on Canadian Art.

Your Warbike project (pictured above) takes the commonplace activity of cycling through the city and monitors telecommunications signals to transform the modified-bicycle into an instrument. Could you talk about the history of this project and how it relates to your perception of sound and the city?

It’s funny, to call cycling “commonplace” is a pretty urban perspective, and specific to cities with a vibrant downtown. I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto where bicycles certainly weren’t something that were commonplace outside of recreation and a mode of transportation for children. One of the interesting things I think about this project - and other bike projects - is that it gets people on bikes who wouldn’t normally be there. The downside, of course, is that some people have spent too long off a bike to feel comfortable trying the artwork. It doesn’t do much good to say, “Don’t worry, it’s just like riding a bike”.

The project started as an experiment exploring wardriving software when I had just acquired a wireless network card in 2003. A popular wardriving software for some reason had MIDI options in the preferences, which is kind of bizarre for a networking program. I had written a simple program to turn that MIDI data into sound and would ride to and from my school building with my laptop on and the speakers up in my backpack.

What I found was that on my rides, my perception of the space had changed. This was a route that I took several times a day, so I thought I understood the spaces. But the backpack was screaming at me something different, that there was something else going on here that I couldn’t perceive.

The experience of hearing aspects of a space, or learning something about them in a tangible sense, is far more powerful than being told explicitly, which is an abstract way of knowing something and removed from direct perception through one’s own senses.

The Warbike was my effort to share that experience with people. I thought that my changing relationship to the space was fascinating, and I’d hoped that others’ experiences would be as well.

Well, on the topic of other peoples experience, how did you find that people responded to the project at the Sound Cycles and Mobile City exhibition at Interacess? I imagine an artwork that you take for a ride may have proven a bit challenging for some people.

Well, interaction is an interesting challenge. Just because you as an artis find an activity that is incredibly fun, doesn’t mean that the public will react in the same way. The hardest hurdle is just making people feel comfortable to interact with the work. Artists and children are already accustomed to touching interactive art, but others aren’t. We’re raised to do things we have permission for, and it’s hard to convince people that they have permission to touch something.

The second is making sure that the audience is comfortable with the method of interaction. Bikes, it turns out, are not one of the comfortable methods. If the Warbike was exhibited in the country, maybe people would be more comfortable with it. But there aren’t many networks on country roads, so the Warbike is fundamentally an urban cycling project (Although, come to think of it, using it in areas with fewer networks is a little more rewarding. You do feel like you’re discovering something secret). Many people are afraid to bike in the city (and for good reason!).

There wasn’t a lack of people wanting to ride it, but there definitely was a type of person who was just happy knowing what it did without feeling the need to ride it. Some were uncomfortable cycling, others it seemed just didn’t think they would get more out of the work by experiencing it. You can’t win ‘em all.

[david mccallum performs i swallow]

I know that you frequently work in software environments like Max/MSP and Pure Data. How has being fluent with code affected how you address technology in your work?

I wish that I were fluent! I think that what I do is more hacking than programming: I use my limited skill set to bash other people’s tools into submission for my own purposes.

I’m a strong believer in the craft of new media. Contemporary art seems to have divorced itself from the artisan history of the arts, and I don’t think that because the tools in new media are abstract that it’s somehow a field where it’s okay that the designers are also not craftspeople. There are aspects of a medium that you can only understand by experience. If you don’t understand the medium, the work itself risks being naiïve. This isn’t guaranteed, but the risk is higher. I also think in some sense all artwork, despite the content, is also a comment on the form and medium - and how can you comment on something you don’t really understand?

You also run the risk of been seduced by aspects of the tool. Early new media was fascinated with technology and the technology became the end, and not just the means. It was an important process to go through, but I’m certainly glad we’ve outgrown that. Now that we have a better understanding of technology we can hopefully divorce ourselves from the fetishism and appreciate it as what it is: a tool. Not understanding the medium runs a dangerous risk of falling into the gee-whizardry of technology. I’ve seen too many middle-aged artists making astoundingly boring art works exploring virtual reality and computer-rendered spaces. The sooner that artists stop using Second Life, the better.

By all this of course I also mean to say that working with technology is fun! I learn much more about myself and the work by working through the problems myself.

[david mccallum, personal art noise thing (PANT), 2005]

I’m a bit less weary of virtual worlds than you are, but I certainly agree that “craft” is something to strive towards in any medium. That said, could you perhaps point out a few examples of media artists whose engagement with technology falls into line with your ideals? What are some artists an projects that have directly informed your work?

I’ll try… People like Garnet Hertz, David Rokeby, Mark Böhlen, Leah Buchley, Ken Gregory, Jim Ruxton, Darsha Hewitt and Stephanie Brodeur, Rob Cruickshank, just to name a few. These artists make beautiful work that also comments on the medium of technology and our relationship to it, which I think is tough to do if you don’t engage the medium

I used to say that a conceptual artist is someone who doesn’t understand the medium that they work in. Now I’m starting to wonder if conceptual artists actual believe that conceptual art is itself a medium, which is kind of terrifying; even philosophers need to learn to write. [posted by Greg Smith on Serial Consign]

The creation, dubbed “Stribe” by Josh, could have been a one-off. But instead, he’s working on making it into a tool for others, with completely open source hardware and software. The whole system is built on the popular Arduino platform, making it uncommonly easy to modify. It’s a work in progress, as you can see lacking an enclosure. But ten have made it out into the wild, people are already programming custom software, and more are coming.

I got to hang out with Josh while he was in town this weekend. Luckily, he’s a fan of early music, meaning we met at a concert of a viol consort that was playing my music — an unusual collision of 15th and 21st Century music technology.

Josh gave a demo of the Stribe, for myself plus Phil Torrone of Make and Limor Fried (aka lady ada), creator of the x0xb0x open-source 303 clone. It’s still a project in process– there’s more to be done in firmware and support software and documentation — but it already shows some real promise. I snapped some shots, studied the Max patches, and mostly listened to Limor and Josh talk about the challenges of starting a DIY hardware business. (I hope that DIY builders start to share experiences, even informally, as they work to make the business end work so they can keep building.)…” continue reading Hands-on, Interview: Stribe Multi-Touch Controller by Peter Kirn.

Based on his 2006 book, Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, Nicolas Collins will lead a workshop of intensive electronic experimentation, from which participants will leave empowered, carrying several new instruments and the skills needed to continue inventing and building on their own. The two-day workshop culminates in a group performance by Nicolas and his workshop associates out on Lincoln Road Mall during the Winter Music Conference 08.

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).

‘Burning the Sound’ by Rudolfo Quintas & André Gonçalves (PT): ‘Burning the Sound’ is a sound performance about the nature of rituals, power and control. It uses fire from a regular fire lighter to subvert patterns of rhythm, exorcising the sound as a spiritual strategy. Fire was probably the first technology to exist and is knowledge based and ritualistic. Within ‘Burning the Sound’ digital, new media and ancestral technologies fuse to question contemporary strategies of invisible control. The aim of the performance is to push the ritualistic primitivism, gesture and body to technological mediated computer sound performances.

Rudolfo Quintas is a software designer, visual artist and founding member of the SWAP project who works in the field of augmented performances and interactive installation. For the piece ‘Burning The Sound’ he has been collaborating with mixed media, visual and sound artist André Gonçalves to create a dynamic visual-sound-scape, which are based on the movements that Quintas choreographs in real-time, using lighters and computer vision techniques.

André Gonçalves will also perform his piece ‘Resonant Objects’.

‘Air Stick’ by Ivan Franco (PT): Instrument maker and musician Ivan Franco. ‘Air Stick’ is a new musical instrument, created by Franco, which is ‘played-in-the-air’ (similar to a Theremin). The instrument, built using proximity sensors, allows for real-time control between hand-position and active sound manipulation.

BOP, UK: BOP are Teresa Dillon and Kathy Hinde. Since early 2007, they have been performing together and combining their backgrounds in live art, theatre, visual arts and music. As BOP they create experimental visual-sound pieces, with a theatrical, punky twist.

TokTek, NL: Musician, instrument maker, hacker and visual artist TokTek, eclectic electronic style has been described as ‘illogical hardware bending’. The outcomes or electronic ‘songs’ are played via hacked joysticks and various objects (plastic toys, records etc) to create dramatic live compositions, which break down into delicate and tender sound moments.

‘Crackle Canvas’ by Tom Verbruggen (NL): Musician, instrument maker, hacker and visual artist Tom Verbruggen (aka TokTek) has become well known for his individual ‘Crackle Canvas’ series. Drawing on his fine and visual arts background, Tom went into music but was asked one day if he would ever make any more ‘paintings’. This lead him to think about making sound-paintings, which is where the ‘Crackle Canvas’ series started.

‘Self-Portrait as a Pataphysical Object’ by Torsten Lauschmann (UK): Self-Portrait as a Pataphysical Object is a kind of chandelier created from audio adapters and cables with a single small bulb at the centre. An object in its own right, the chandelier, could hang in the lobby of the Kiasma as a representation of Lauschmann’s humours and DIY aesthetic, which draws on the everyday and subtle nuances of human relations.

Glasgow-based artist, Torsten Lauschmann originally trained as a photographer and film-maker but currently works across various media. For example, he has performed as a VJ and solar-powered busker known as Slender Whiteman, created a film about the a street lamp’s function in consumer society (Misshapen Pearl, 2003) and launched World Jump Day (2005), an Internet campaign, which attempted to reverse global warming through a synchronized single jump across the globe. His most recent work Piecework Orchestra (2007) is an orchestra of machines, which Lauschmann controls to create sound-compositions has been created using everyday house-hold objects (hoovers, washing machine, leaf blowers). This brief selection of Lauschmanns work, demonstrates the breadth of his practice, which focuses on everyday, human behaviours, gestures and emotions.

game mod from steph thirion on Vimeo.

I’ve just spent a couple of weeks at Visualizar helping out with conceptual and technical development of projects.

In the first couple of days a few people mentioned a video one of the artist’s at the workshop had made. Ben Fry said “you have to see it” and pointed at Steph Thirion.

Ben was right. The video documents a 6hr workshop run by Steph in a Postgraduate Diploma in Graphic Design course at Elisava, Barcelona, in March this year and it is very special.

The workshop concept was simple: take an existing Breakout-like game (made by Steph in Processing), give it to the students and encourage them to simply change numbers and alter code statements until it either breaks or does something interesting.

The result is surprising: as though Breakout has been freed from a need to make sense and is dreaming of its own pure potential.. A warm homage to the game if ever there was one.

Here’s that video.

To quote the project page.

Game Mod was a six hour long workshop with the objective of showing the participants that it is not required to understand code to experiment and play with it.

Although they had no experience in coding, the task of each participant was to make a mod (modified version) of a game built in Processing.

Great stuff, testimony that creative programming can result from an open-minded, truly intuitive manipulation of code.

Grab the original game source-code here, and have a hack at it yourself. The source for the mods you see in the video can be downloaded here. If you come up with something you think’s interesting, let us know.

Check in on Steph’s site for updates on his new project, Cascade on Wheels, made during the Visualizar workshop. If you’re in the Madrid area, come and see it at the exhibition at Medialab Prado itself (28.11.07 - 28.12.07)

Fine work Steph and students. This is going into the archives. [blogged by Julian on SelectParks]