A major highlight of my 2009 was performing visuals for tehn, aka monome creator Brian Crabtree. I’ve long been a fan of Brian’s music and aesthetic, and it was really great to get to do some visuals for him. (I’m using my own Processing code here, manipulating still images. Adding on to that tool for my performances in 2010.)
It’s funny, as I think Brian is far better known for the monome hardware, but part of the genius of that device is deeply rooted in his aesthetic (and his partner’s, Kelli Cain, who has even contributed to the packaging). And unlike a commercial device, where packaging and aesthetics are all wrapped up in corporate identity, these are really the personality of individuals. Some of that is embedded in even mass-market devices, but it’s a real return to the traditions of musical instrument craft when you can relate to an individual. Of course, I’d still like Brian’s music even were it not for any of that; it’s well worth checking out. Read about his art and his crop of kale (yes, the vegetable):
In/Out could be a sign of things to come, too; circuit bending has Bent, chip music has Blip, but nothing else has been quite as focused. Kudos to Chris Gilroy, the gang at The Tank, and everyone who made it happen. (More videos)
Also, here’s a (somewhat rough) video of my music set from the same fest — had some technical issues but carried on. (I’ve actually been working to rebuild my life music set following that! And Ableton has squashed a bug that was causing my sound to drop out and interface to freak. Yes, Brian’s idea of using a single Max patch is a great way to ensure more reliable performance – something I’m building for myself now in Pd!) Kedaar is another person doing great work; see his Vimeo account for more of his Jitter-powered concoctions. Read the rest of this entry »
Going through my video collection, I wanted to share this piece I did in 2003; it’s digital video cut to a work of mine for bass clarinet and electronics, as performed by clarinetist Laura Harrison. There are actually no digital effects here; it’s all shot through rotating glass. The movement is by Holly Daggers and Eric Dunlap, regular figures in the VJ scene here in NYC and the founders of the Eyewash series. (Eric is also a dancer.) Sound is largely produced in MetaSynth, if I’m remembering correctly.
A lot of my older work I’m happy to let go, but it is nice sometimes to come across something like this and revisit it.
Assuming enrollment fills, I’ve put in a new elective course for the spring at Parsons. I hope in addition to talking technique, we’ll look at work translating between audio and visual media, like these recent shows blogged by (and exhibiting) Marius Watz on the fantastic Generator.x: Sound as object Frozen: Sound as space
CNN.com’s Edge of Discovery series recently did a story on mobile technology being used in music production and performance, a headline that topped CNN.com’s homepage for a while. I’m quoted on behalf of CDM in that story. It’s nice to see this stuff getting greater visibility. The researchers at Georgia Tech follow in the footsteps of Princeton alum and Stanford faculty Dr. Ge Wang, translating experimental music technology research to mass audiences on theiPhone.
I’ve never been interested in minimalism for its own sake. But in our cluttered lives, sometimes creative focus requires reducing elements. And as I’ve been teaching beginning-level courses in Processing — most recently at Parsons — I’ve been increasingly interested with how you can do more with less. Can you make a square expressive? Can you “sketch” in code? (For more on the Processing, erm, process, see the Processing 101 noisepages blog I’ve started while I’m teaching. Have a few more lessons to get up there this week.)
Some recent posts on Create Digital Motion have dealt with this theme, two of them elegant exercises in making audiovisuals expressive using minimal elements and basic geometry. (Good inspiration for beginning students of code and Processing, I might add).
On top of this, I’m about to leave tomorrow for Chicago with a netbook in hand, running Linux, Processing, Pd, and SuperCollider, in place of the usual massive, overpowered laptop with lots of commercial software. It’s not quite there yet, but I really do hope to transform this into a portable notebook. It’s even about the right weight and size.
I’m not quite a minimalist with my blogging, so on that note, back to work – but stay tuned.
I played visuals live for Flying Lotus at Philadelphia’s Painted Bride Arts Center, part of the Saturn Never Sleeps series run by King Britt and Rucyl Mills. This video is just a small taste of what that looked like (actually, the most monochromatic portion of what I was doing, but it gives you a bit of a glimpse). This was really terrific fun playing this set; Flying Lotus’ performance was blazingly great, full of imaginative rhythmic changes. You really feel that as a visualist.
I was playing the set with my own Processing-based software, all thanks to the power of glgraphics, which I’m using to get high-performance access to textures. I’m still developing functionality for this, but it’s great to be able to focus on what you want the software to do live and just build that in. If anyone else out there is interested in playing with video, images, and OpenGL in Processing and is curious to play with this library, definitely get in touch and we can compare notes.
I’ll also try to post some video output from the software itself so it’s easier to see what I’ve got going on.
I'm a composer, digital musician, live and interactive visualist, and technologist. I run the sites createdigitalmusic, createdigitalmotion, and noisepages. I teach, write, perform, and speak.
