Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. Its goal is to represent an object using only one piece of square paper, which is then folded and creased in intricate ways. American artist Joo Youn Paek has recently combined this traditional art form with contemporary digital sound mixing processes, via an interactive installation called Fold Loud. The installation consists of three square pieces of paper with opened circuits made out of conductive fabrics, which are stitched in place. The sheets are creased according to three origami bases: the balloon, the kite and the dog.

When the papers are folded along the crease lines, a circuit is closed and a sound is emitted. Each fold is assigned to a different human vocal sound so that combinations of folds create harmonies. Users have to bend multiple Fold Loud sheets together to produce a chorus of voices. But in order to generate a harmonic sound, users need to carefully fold and repeat their gestures, focusing on a slow and patient process. 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

Flocking Orchestra (aka DT1) by Tatsuo Unemi and Daniel Bisig: DT1 is an interactive installation that employs flocking algorithms to produce music and visuals. The user’s motions are captured by a video camera and influence the flock’s behaviour. Each agent moving in a virtual 3D space controls a MIDI instrument whose playing style depends on the agent’s state. In this system, the user acts as a conductor influencing the flock’s musical activity. In addition to gestural interaction, the acoustic properties of the system can be modified on the fly by using an intuitive GUI. The acoustical and visual output of the system results from the combination of the flock’s and user’s behaviour. It therefore creates on the behavioural level a mixing of natural and artificial reality. The system has been designed to run an a variety of different computational configuration ranging from small laptops to exhibition scale installations.

Open Space introduces a New Music Workshop Series facilitated by an array of local and visiting composers, musicians and sound artists, each offering their unique perspective on the creation of real-time music. All workshops are hands on, offer musicians of all abilities a place and time to explore their craft and practice in a group setting.

Workshop: Music Improvisation – gadgets and non-traditional instruments :: Presenters: Gayle Young, Jeff Morton, Tina Pearson :: Date: October 29, 7 pm, Open Space. Drop in fee – Focuses on alternate objects, tools and ‘instruments’, and discusses the authority of musical gesture. Gayle Young’s Amaranth and Columbine, tuned tubing, circuit boards, circuit bent electronics, circuit boards, no-input mixer, contact mics, toys, bells and other gadgets will be available to explore – and bring your own stuff. Continue reading

Bodily Movement and the Music Theory Paradigm: The University of Oslo Department of Musicology is developing the Musical Gestures Toolbox, a collection of applications with useful features for video and audio analysis. The toolbox is built with Max / MSP / Jitter from Cycling ’74, and will be available as standalone applications for Mac OS X and Windows, as well as the original patches.

It features: (1) Video capturing from USB/FW-cameras (2) Playback of video files (any QuickTime-readable format) (3) Adjustable resolution and playback rate (4) Brightness, contrast, saturation controls (5) Zoom, offset and displacement controls (6) Cropping functions (drag and crop) (7) Automatic cropping based on contraction (8) Computer vision analysis (9) Save snapshots and image sequences (10) Save video from the analysis (11) Contraction and centre of gravity (12) Audio analysis: spectrogram, sonogram, spectral centroid, noisiness, loudness… Continue reading

The Sound of One Hand Waving by Erica Naone: Musicians can now control sound effects for electric instruments by waving a hand [from Technology Review].

A new device allows musicians to control sound effects with a wave of the hand. While electric guitarists typically control distortion effects with an array of foot pedals, the HotHand device, made by Source Audio, translates their gestures into the wah, phaser, and flanger effects that are popular for electric sound. A musician can wear the device as a ring, affix it to his or her head or torso, or allow someone else–such as the band’s vocalist–to use it to control effects. A wireless option leaves the wearer free to roam the stage.” As one reader has already remarked: Donald Swearingen and Pamela Z have been doing this since the 90s; and Laetitia Sonami has been waving her glove with amazing results for longer than that. But this device is new. Continue reading

July 25, 2007 :: 7:00 PM :: CECUT (Centro Cultural Tijuana), Multi-purpose room :: First session of Upgrade! Tijuana, hosted by Dream Addictive.

Guests/performances: Miller Puckette – Pure Data; Amy Alexander – CyberSpaceLand; Ejival – Mix set.

[translated from the site…] Monthly meeting of artists and audiences interested in electronic culture and new media / event is free and open to the public. Organized by DreamAddictiveLab / Hosted by the Centro Cultural Tijuana / Affiliated with Upgrade! International.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOWyAlgfMFY[/youtube]

Drop Spin Fade is the documentation of work completed so far on a collaborative project between Chris O’Shea and Owen Lloyd. “We wanted to create a playful and game like experience, with no goals or objectives. We began to play with the metaphor of the hands, what possibilities are there if you could sculpt, stretch, push and spin sounds.“

NIME: Disparate Bodies :: June 7, 6.30 pm (NY); 3.30 pm (Stanford, by private invitation); and 11.30 pm (Belfast – Sonic Arts Research Center, Belfast – all welcome) :: Frederick Loewe Theater, NYU, 35 W. 4th St, New York, NY ::

Disparate Bodies is a network performance that explores multi-modal remote presence. The performance happens simultaneously in three sites (Belfast, NY and Stanford, California). The stage performance in NY features a laptop musicians and two Remote.bots. These are robotic entities that host the physical and musical gestures which are performed by the remote participants in the various locations. Continue reading

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BSYo0mcFWQ[/youtube]

Mossalibra is an interactive game installation, operated solely by intuitive human gestures. While dancing to surrounding music, the user (represented in pixelated form as a pure gesture) can mimic a given set of gestures in order to gain points. These gestures are actually pixelated snapshots of previous players. The game is therefore constantly generated by the players and constantly represents the current musical vibe.