Ajay Kapur - Electronic Sitars, Robotic Tablas, and Sarawati’s ElectroMagic :: April 3, 2008; 5 - 7 pm :: Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles, CA.

TABLACENTRIC is thrilled to present Ajay Kapur, whose work revolves around one queston: “How do you make a computer improvise with a human?” Using the rules set forth by the north Indian classical tradition, Ajay strives to build new interfaces for musical expression by modifying the tabla, dholak and sitar with added microchips and sensor systems, while building robotic musical instruments which can be programmed to perform along with the human performer. Continue reading

A few years ago, composer, musician and programmer Øyvind Brandtsegg built a sound installation into Nils Sigurd Aas’ Flounder, a public sculpture located at Straumen in Inderøy, Norway.

When Brandtsegg suggested the idea to Aas in 2003, Aas responded “I really would like to hear the Flounder sing”. Brandtsegg’s installation makes use of a loudspeaker technique in which the sound is transferred to the metal in the sculpture. The natural environment, and especially the tidal stream, inspired Brandtsegg to program several variables which different sensors record from their surroundings. Continue reading

Sculpt: An interactive sound/image work for sensor gloves - MEME Thesis Performance by Robert Griffin Byron :: April 1, 2008; 8:00 pm :: Grant Recital Hall (behind Orwig Music Bldg., corner of Hope Street and Young Orchard Avenue), Brown University.

Sculpt is work for sensor gloves, interactive electronics and interactive projected image that explores the relationship between synthetic sound and synthetic image through the tactile nuance of human gesture.

Robert Griffin Byron won the A.B.C. Young Composer’s Award in 1995. Since then, Byron’s chamber music and orchestral works have been heard all across Australia, the United States, and Asia. His work has been performed by the most of Australia’s state orchestras. Continue reading

Landscape Denatured: Digitizing the Wild by Eric Alan Kabisch [PDF]: ABSTRACT: This paper presents motivation and documentation of four technologically enabled artworks. These artworks explore ways in which digital technologies impact society and culture, focusing particularly on the impacts of information technologies on physical and cultural geography. A framework is provided for analyzing these works of art. This framework addresses the impacts of technology as a three-part cyclical process that includes (1) sensing elements of the environment, (2) analyzing and creating narratives from the captured data, and (3) the propagation of these methods and representations back into the world. Continue reading

Echologue, by Orkan Telhan, is a public interface for sensing and displaying socio-cultural characteristics of a place based on its sonic features. The goal is to build a medium that can reflect its surroundings like a smart mirror, highlight the salient details and patterns in the environment and contribute to our understanding of the perception of social places. The interface senses ambient sound, records deliberate user input and displays a visualization of the activity in that space as its output.

The design explores the utility of sound for envisioning new social, cultural and entertainment uses of public places and help us shape our relationships with each other with new social interfaces embedded in urban settings. Continue reading

Bodycoder - Voice :: November 22, 2007; 7.45 pm :: Watermans, 40 High Street, Brentford, London.

This unique solo-show is a multi-media revelation of the human voice and its unimaginable intensity. Ten years research into human body movement, multi-sensory perception environments and digital processing has brought about this exceptional show performed by Julie Wilson-Bokowiec. Bodycoder - Voice is part of an ongoing experiment in connecting body movements with sound, intertwining the sensual with the sonic. The experiments render the voice multidimensional and examine how the natural movement vocabulary of the body can become an expressive medium and create and manipulate sound. Continue reading

In Ephemeral Firmament, Gregory Lasserre & Anais met den Ancxt of Scenocosme play live with a specific interface for visual and sound: Aleas. The performance came about as a result of experimentation within the immersive installation SpherAleas. For approximately 30 minutes, the spectator is guided through a visual and sound micro-universe. Continue reading

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

lab 30, Augsburg’s Media Arts Festival is going to take place this year for the 6th time. From October 25 - 27, Kulturhaus abraxas in Augsburg will transform into an international arts laboratory for media and installation artists, for sound electronics technicians and digitals artists who make up the offspring of the European arts academy scene. This festival of electronic arts has found its place within the relevant festival landscape, moving on from being an insider’s tip to becoming a constant in the yearly agenda of visitors and artists who travel the scene.

In 2006, the »lab award« was introduced and will again go to one of the most innovative exhibits. lab 30 will also introduce a novelty this year: visitors can join workshops where robots, pixel images and sensor-guided machines will be construed and where gameboy software will be developed. Continue reading

NOX Son-O-House, Son en Breugel, The Netherlands: Son-O-House is a public pavilion that is both an architectural and a sound installation that allows people to not just hear sound in a musical structure, but also to participate in the composition of the sound. It is an instrument, score and studio at the same time. A sound work, made by composer Edwin van der Heide, it is continuously generating new sound patterns activated by sensors picking up actual movements of visitors.

The structure is derived from typical action-landscapes that develop in a house: a fabric of larger scale bodily movements in a corridor or room, together with smaller scale movements around a sink or a drawer. This carefully choreographed set of movements of bodies, limbs and hands are inscribed on paper bands as cuts (an uncut area corresponds with the bodily movement, a first cut through the middle corresponds with limbs, and finer cuts correspond with movements of the hands and feet). Continue reading