runtime://

Monotone sixty four

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +1000

Recently there was a post about the Tenori-on. Well a similar grid-based controller interface is available from Monome called the Monome sixty four - because it has sixty for buttons/lights arranged in a simple grid. These are assignable and controllable by your MIDI software applications. The controller is a convenient two-hand-holding size, with an elegant design including nice wood panelling on the box, and has an accelerometer built-in to sense tilting of the controller. The monome designers, Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain, call their products "adaptable, minimalist interfaces" and the sixty four is the third in an obviously-named series that includes the two fifty six and the twenty eight. The sixty four is priced at USD$450 plus international shipping costs of about USD$85.

Korg DS-10

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +1000

Korg have announced a software synthesizer for the Nintendo DS platform. It features analogue modeling of Korg's MS_10 synthesizer and will produce both pitched and drum/percussive sounds and comes equipped with a simple sequencer. This is quite a break though for getting high quality sound sources on low cost hardware. Unfortunately, Korg say the software will only be available in Japan :( The combination of portability, synthesis and sequencing means this would be a great device for utilising all that time on a bus or plane to produce some music. The interface looks clean and very retro, right down to virtual patch leads. There is more info on Korgs web site.

AV-Jam @ Sydney Powerhouse Museum

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:16:00 +1000

The AV-Jam system is exhibiting at the beta_space facility within the Sydney Powerhouse Museum, Australia. AV Jam is a generative audio-visual system that is controlled by multiple MIDI sliders. It is designed to encourage collaboration by having 5 controllers, one each for Drums, Bass, Harmony, Lead and Video. It is a real-time system that allows visitors to the Beta_Space to create their own audio-visual performances. The installation will be open to the public for 6 weeks from February to mid March 2008. According to its creators at the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design,

"AV-Jam is an application that generates music and video that you can control while it plays. AV-Jam is collaborative, so you play with your friends to jointly control the music and video using a network of control surfaces connected to a computer. Jam just like a band, but without the need for complex instrumental skills. The AV-Jam system was designed to promote meaningful engagement with media art for people of all ages. Clever algorithmic processes generate music and video that you control. You shape the result by adjusting parameters on the AV-Jam interface. The idea is to experiment and listen to the sound and make great grooves, and watch the video and adjust interesting effects. Work with others to control all parts of the music and video. The key to success is to take risks, be creative and listen to the sounds that your actions make."

Here is an example of the first piece made at the installation by Andrew Brown & Steve Dillon.

"Amazing Creations" competition

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +1000

The NV Art competition "Amazing Creations" hosted by the CG Society of Digital Artists and sponsored by Nvidia have announced their winners. Artists were invited to submit computer-generated imagery that could exist only in a virtual, imaginary world. The winning art was unveiled at a reception at the San Jose Museum of Art on February 1. The winners were:

1st place:
"Growth of Cubic Bacteria" by V�clav Pajkrt, Czech Republic (image shown above)
2nd place:
"Corner Fire" by Brett Keyes, Canada
3rd place:
"Leopardo" by Najeeb El-Faith, Saudi Arabia

With honorable mentions to:
- "Fractalissimo" by Fran�ois Coulon, France
- "Many Ways" by Ramiro Amilcar Fernandez, Argentina
- "The Birth of Crystal - The Begin II" by Alvin Tea, New Zealand
- "Alien Biomechanical Shapes 00.2 - Alien Core" by Maciej Frolow, Poland
- "Torn" by Monsit Jangariyawong, Thailand
- "Coral Sim" by Brett Keyes, Canada
- "Rest of Sinews" by V�clav Pajkrt, Czech Republic

Lessons about interaction and learning

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:55:00 +1000

Two of the great exponents of usability and learning combine in this video from the early 1980s from which we can still learn lessons today. Alan Kay is one of the pioneers of human computer interaction and a key person involved with object-oriented programming and th development of the graphical interface. Kay introduces, as an example of effective use of multiple modes (sense) of understanding, Tim Gallway, author of The Inner Game of Tennis book, who demonstrates how he approaches tennis coaching by focusing attention on critical aspects of the skill and using sound, action and language in a combined way to assist understanding. From these two legends of interaction design we can gain a lot of knowledge about the construction of interactive computational art works, and about how we can better approach the learning of skills required for crafting computational arts works.

Continued here:

Conal Elliott on Tangible Functional Programming

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:00:00 +1000

By "composability" Conal Elliott means the ability of computing systems to be a combination of functional elements and ways of structuring that allow for abstraction, such that an enviornment lends itself to expressiveness. However, being very flexible can also be quite complex, and likely not very usable by most people - such as most artists. He discusses these issues in a Google Talk on YouTube where he explores programming paradigms and how they might support creativity and expressivity. He suggests that computing environments should loosely couple the interface and the content, such that the structure of processes is maleable but the details of data are hidden. He calls this approach tangible functional programming. He demonstrates a system that embodies his ideas called Eros, which is a visual-oriented programming environment which, he suggests, could be the basis for a new environment for artists to make their own tools.

Simon Penny @ QUT

Wed, 11 2007 00:00:00 +1000

Simon Penny came to talk to the Computational Arts students at QUT in September 2007. A video of a presentation he did with sustainability design guru Tony Fry as part of that visit is available here.

Click To Play

aa-cell @ ACMC 2007

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:29:00 +1000

In his review for RealTime of the Australasian Computer Music Conference (ACMC 2007) Dan MacKinlay states:

"The crowd favourite this year seemed to be aa-cell, a collaborative project between Andrew Brown and Andrew Sorenson based around Sorenson�s open-source project Impromptu. Impromptu is a Mac OS based application, combining a plug-in-based architecture with a live-coding scripting interface. The result, in aa-cell�s hands, is a complex, agile improvisational journey that pares composition progress back to the naked sonification of algorithms�and, because this is the 21st century, the bloody thing churns out visuals too. As academically rigorous as the compositional technique may be, it�s still plain old techno and wouldn�t get a look-in the door of any classical music school in the country. aa-cell shares the popular focus that predominates in the live-coding scene, honestly reflecting ACMA's own drift from its high-art origins."

Live coding in Brisbane

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:18:00 +1000

Live electronic music performance, featuring

LLoyd Barrett,
Andrew Brown/Andrew Sorensen &
Klipp AV

Presented by: The Judith Wright Centre and ROOM 40
Dates: Fri 7 Jul 2006
Times: 8pm (doors open 7.30pm)

Andrew Sorensen and Andrew Brown

Lloyd with Nick and Fredrik

Klipp av

Cost: Web $10, Phone & Door $12 (no concessions )
Venue: Music Rehearsal Room - Level 4 (Unreserved Seating)
Book now: Book online / phone 07 3872 9000 or email: info@judithwrightcentre.com
Enquiries: Box Office, Monday to Friday 12noon - 4pm on 07 3872 9000

The realms of computer music keep moving forward into freshly uncharted regions and this event seeks to map the very edges of these new frontiers.

LLoyd Barrett, long serving Brisbane soundscape artist and computer provocateur delivers Mise En Scene - his much anticipated full length debut release which reflects on the ideas of cinematic sound design and suggestive sound cues.

He is joined by some of the world's leading 'live music coders', musicians who literally write the code for the music they create in real time and who seek to 'explore the aesthetic outcomes of computational processes' - Andrew Brown and Andrew Sorensen. They are joined UK/Scandinavian outfit Klipp AV, who produce a wide range of cut-up audio visual worlds. An evening that promises to push at the very edge of the computer-based sound world.

Computational Arts Seminar at QUT

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 00:36:00 +1000

A day of presentations, demos and discussions about algorithmic sound and image performance.

Saturday July 8 2006, 10 am - 4 pm

Venue: Queensland University of Technology
Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, Brisbane, Australia
Room M214

Free attendance

Click the "more" link for photos and program details.

runtime// program:

(10.00 - 11.15) Session 1 - Computation and performance

Toby Gifford - Automating rhythmic complementarity
Nick Collins - Coding as a musical skill

(11.30 - 1.00) Session 2 - Mixing media

Gavin Sade - Public interaction with computational art
Fredrik Olofsson - Audiovisual live coding

(1.00 - 2.00) Lunch

(2.00 - 2.45) Session 3 - Environments

Andrew Sorensen - Impromptu: An introduction

(3.00 - 4.00) Session 4 - Accessability

Andrew Brown - jam2jam, algorithmic music for kids
Rene Wooller - Music morphing in real-time

Presentation outlines:

Nick Collins
Rather than the composer-pianists of the 19th century, perhaps the 21st century is seeing a rise of composer-programmers, who can explore electronic music through its natural tool, the computer, even in live performance situations. With the computer such a ubiquitous feature of modern life, art which confronts its mechanisms and processes has great contemporary relevance. In this respect, live coding, the art of programming a computer under concert conditions, can enable an engagement with the notions of algorithm, and mapping from code to musical resultant. Since the computer is the instrument practised most readily by computer musicians, why not let this programming practice become the basis of new performance practice side stepping the heritage of gestural acoustic instruments? Live coding provides an alternative opportunity to keep the human being involved in live electronic music.

Gavin Sade
Gavin will talk about his recent project Disco Puppies. Disco Puppies is an energetic interactive installation for children (and parents) which stars three larger than life dancing puppies: Pup Daddy, a smooth dancing hip-hop Chihuahua; Miss Kitty, a somewhat confused but still �pretty in pink� Maltese/Silky cross; and DJ Foxy, the Miniature Fox Terrier who may not have the moves, but certainly can play the tunes! Disco Puppies was initiated and commissioned by the Ipswich Art Gallery and produced by Kuuki, a creative media-production business run by Priscilla Bracks and Gavin Sade.

Andrew Sorensen
The presentation will include a demonstration of the Impromptu live coding environment for music and graphics.

Andrew Brown
Live computational art need not be complicated. The jam2jam program allows children to perform live improvised music with a computer using algorithmic music techniques built into the software. This presentation will demonstrate jam2jam and expline how it can be used.