Art Brussels

bekijk foto's van mijn bezoek aan Art Brussels hier:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ward.lemmens/ArtBrussels

het was zeer leuk

launch website vooruit

vrijdag heb ik het launch event van de web 2.0 site van de vooruit bijgewoond, een zeer mooi initiatief met naadloze integratie van youtube, last.fm, ... gebruikers kunnen een event in de vooruit extra promoten door extra content te uploaden of gewoon te vinden op andere web 2.0 applicaties.

allemaal zeer mooi (en zeker voor een Belgish initiatief) maar toch zijn er enkele zware beperkingen bij deze website. Zo kan je enkel events bekijken.bewerken van de vooruit zelf, wat vanuit marketing standpunt natuurlijk de beste keuze is maar als je kijkt naar de waarde voor de community die je wil oprichten is dit een storende factor. Ze leggen de nadruk op het feit dat de user geen bezoeker van de vooruit moet zijn, maar als dat het geval is, zullen ze heel de belgische cultuur sector in kaart moeten brengen.

misschien ben ik nu wel wat te hard en moet ik deze kritiek niet op de vooruit geven maar op de sector, want de vooruit is misschien wel de pioniers die de weg gladmaakt voor een overkoepelende organisatie die met een soortgelijk initiatief komt en content kan 'lenen' van sites zoals die van de vooruit. in ieder geval is het tot nu toe uniek in belgië, is het een indrukwekkende website, waar (schijnbaar) aan alle details gedacht werd en waren de hapjes lekker.

http://www.vooruit.be/

explenation of the research + brainstorm session in english

Hello again, and welcome to the magical world of instruments.

I will explain what i want to do before posting the brainstorm session.

I'm going to create a digital instrument but not any instrument it will be designed for a particular target group. It will address their needs for an instrument.

this brainstorm session is just on my own to see what can be done in some area's. The final project will be defined after a meeting with a delagation of the desired target group. I will choose this group according to the most interesting idea's i myself can come up with so i can use that as a base for expanding it to their needs.

here are a few groups and possible projects:

Sports(wo)men

Trigger certain sounds when an action is made.
E.g. Squash: the sound it makes will be determined by the location where the ball hits the wall. The sportsmen could also wear a ‘motion capturing suit’ that could detect certain movements and link them to samples or any other sound.

Physically disabled persons

people who a disabled will often train their coordination with a ball, because the shape is easy to grab and manipulate. This makes it easy for the person to train. There are a few different movements that can be done with a ball (roll, squeeze, throw, bounce, spin, ...) it might be interesting to make this exercise into a creative thing. By matching certain movements to a sound or sample the disabled person can make music while exercising.

This would be a solution to a problem defined by BOSK (Dutch organization for disabled persons and their close surroundings.), that all the attention is going to the physical stimulation while people and certainly children need just as much mental stimulation.

Nerds

looking at a target group the has a total lack of musical talent and giving them a way to create music. First look at their core business and start working from there.

With nerds this is programming. So I could design a way for nerd to program their music by taking some tags that return in most languages and make them trigger a certain sound or sample. Their code, probably written for something boring will transform in a creative piece of music. This might actually stimulate the ‘nerd’ to program specifically for this instrument. An interesting thought is that this might become a language of it’s own which borrowed his tags from all the other languages.

visitors of a public building

when you enter a bar, it might be nice that you could have an influence on the music. Every person in a room could then depending on where he is standing trigger a sound or sample.

the customer at a bar

Every beverage could have it’s own label that is attached to a sound or sample. Ever table would then be equipped with a censor that could generate music depending on the different beverages. Here it could be interesting to link certain styles of music to different drinks.


____// Remarks

1) These are complicated propositions but if i do some research and find that it’s impossible, i could always downsize it to a realistic concept.

e.g. in staid of the censors and labels in the bar, it’s possible to just calculate the weight on a table and go from there.

2) with some projects it would be better to ad some visualisation.

e.g. when the weight is calculated on a table it’s possible to determine when the drinks are almost empty. The color of the light at that table could turn into another colour suggesting a bartender should go over there.

sound bombs

i like this, altough it's not really an instrument:

An integrated sound module makes it possible to record any given sound, or message. The audio content is then activate whenever the motion sensor detects some movement around. As a Non-Visual Graffiti, with its origin in streetart, Soundbombs give the possibility to tag a place in an accoustic form: a welcoming greeting at the entrance or a warning of a bad restaurant.

music textile

wow this is amazing

source: we make money not art

Developed by Vincent Roudaud and Maurin Donneaud.

Music textile is a large tactile interface for playing electronic music. The performer plays it simply by moving his / her hand onto it. The hand contact XY position is transmited to a computeur via a 12 Bytes resolution Midi card. This allows 4000 by 4000 points resolution. Two conductiv fabrics are fixed on a frame, each one weaved with conductive threads in a different direction. When the performer presses any point of this textile instrument, the two fabrics connect and the current eletrical value is sent to the computer. It's simply based on a voltage divider resistive principle. I developed this project at the National Scool of Industrial Creation (ENSCI) Paris, France, for my diploma in december 2005. Since then I got specialized in the creation of inovating electronic textiles and I continued to develop this music textile.

watch the video's:
http://xyinteraction.free.fr/wikinimst/wakka.php?wiki=XYinteraction_Wiki

update brainstorm

the idea of the bar with weight censors in the table already existed or at least it exists now.

"the audiobar"

i would appreciate it if you don't steal my brainstorm idea's ;-)

circuit bending/ kraakdoos

a thank you is due here to 'Olmo' a c-md premaster

he showed me some impressive instruments made from old kids toy's like "speak and spell" or the furby. so they open the toy and just tweak the cicuits and play with the soundmodules inside the toy. this way it makes a completely different sound and when done right you'll be able to make some impressive music out of these toy's.

watch the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-1u9mR-9gg

watch the explanation video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Pbyg_kcEk

one step further you have 'de kraakdoos' (cracklebox)

as you'll read in the text below, this is a project by someone associated with STEIM, a dutch foundation for independent live electronic music. This won't mean much to you and it wouldn't have to me if it weren't for my internship at Digitaal Platform where i learn quit a lot about this stuff and STEIM is a name that popped up in an essay i was reading. So it's interesting to see the correlation between my internship and research, at least for me it is.

The Kraakdoos (or Cracklebox) is a battery-powered noise-making electronic device.
It is a small box with six metal contacts on top, which when pressed by fingers will generate all manner of unusual sounds and tones. The human body becomes a part of the circuit and determines the range of sounds possible — different people will generate different results.
The concept was first conceived by Michel Waisvisz and Geert Hamelberg in the 1960's, and developed further in the 1970's when Waisvisz joined the STEIM foundation in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The kraakdoos is a simple device, based around a single operational amplifier (one of the earliest models to be produced) and a few transistors, and can be easily constructed by someone with a basic understanding of electronics. Instructions are provided in the External links.

video's (click on one of the 6 pictures to see the video)

http://www.vimeo.com/user:dimitre/tag:kraakdoos

weathersongs

Weathersongs is a project to create music from the ever-changing patterns of the weather as recorded by an electronic weather station.

so the music it produces will differ in every coutry, region. When you think about it, it's great to be able to hear music that's associated with the weather. Because weather is a thing that has an effect on everyone, when you meet someone from another country or continent,... one of the first things you'll talk about is the local weather and compare it to the weather home.

But now i'm drifting from the subject.

I included this project because it produces music but at the same time it's deeper than the music. But offcourse it might not be an instrument because the music is played by nature not a person. actually it's just a modern windchime.

http://www.weathersongs.org/welcome/welcome.htm

Brainstorm session "target groups and possible creations"

i'm going to put my text in dutch here I will try to translate it as soon as possible.

***deze tekst kan veel tot zeer veel schijffouten bevatten het is maar een snelle brainstorm, maar ik wil gewoon mijn denk proces tonen.***

- Sporters

Aan de hand van hun handelingen bepaalde geluiden activeren

Bv squash geluid bepaald door locatie waar de bal de muur raakt.
Sproters kunnen ook speciaal pak aandoen (motioncapturing) wat bepaalde bewegingen ook kan waarnemen en linken aan geluid.

- Motorisch gehandicapten

Bij revalidatie of training van de vaardigheden komt vaak een bal een te pas. Deze vorm ligt makkelijk in de hand en kan de persoon ‘makkelijk’ mee oefenen. Er zijn verschillende bewegingen die je kan doen (rollen, knijpen, gooien, botsen, tollen, ...) het zou misschien leuk zijn om het nuttige aan het aangename te koppellen, zo zouden al deze acties ook als ‘triggers’ kunnen dienen die een bepaald geluid of sample starten. Dit voorkomt een valkuil die volgens het BOSK (Nederlandse vereniging voor motorisch gehandicapten en hun omgeving) vaak voorkomt namelijk dat er enkel naar het fysieke word gekeken bij deze mensen en niet naar hun mentale stimulatie.

- Nerds

Misschien is het interessant om te kijken naar doelgroepen die muziekaal totaal onbegaafd zijn en deze toch een mannier geven om muziek te maken. Je moet kijken naar wat hun Core Business is en daarop voort werken. Bij nerds is dit volgens mij programmeren. Ik kan bepaalde altijd terugkerende symbolen of woorden gebruiken als ‘trigger’. Hierdoor word de code omgevormd van een saai gegeven naar een creatief muzikale compositie. Dit kan zelfs de ‘nerd’ stimuleren om specifiek voor dit instrument te programmeren. Het ultieme doel zou dan zijn om een soort van eigen programmeer taal te bouwen die verschillende woorden uit alle andere talen ontleend.

- bezoeker van een openbaar gebouw

wanneer je een café binnenkomt is het misschien ook leuk om de muziek/sfeer te kunnen beïnvloeden. zo zou je een instrument kunnen maken die van elke persoon een 'trigger' maakt en afhankelijk van de plaats waar hij zich begeeft de toon/sample/snelheid/... veranderen.

- de café ganger

elk dankje kan een bepaald label krijgen, dat label hangt vast aan een toon of samle. elke tafel kan dan uitgerust worden met een censor die zo aan de hand van verschillende drankjes de muziek genereerd. het is dan leuk om misschien bepaalde drankjes met bepaalde muziekstijlen te associëren.

____//opmerkingen

1) dit zijn allemaal ingewikkelde voorstellen maar ik denk dat als ze onmogelijk zouden zijn kan ik ze altijd nog minder ingewikkeld maken.

bv. ipv. labels en censors in het café, het gewicht op een tafel meten en aan de hand daarvan kijken wat er gedaan kan worden.

2) Het is bij sommige projecten ook leuk om visueel iets te doen.

bv. als het gewicht op een tafel word gemeten kan de kleur van de tafel veranderen wanneer het drakje bijna leeg is.

Murat N Konar

Murat N konar has 2 projects both very interesting

first up is 'loopqoob'

loopqoob is a physical performance system consisting of one or more sensor-equipped cubes connected to a computer based music generation/synthesis system. The orientation of the cubes determines an aspect of the music to be played.

In the implementation presented, there are three cubes. Each face of each cube is mapped to a musical motif or loop. The 'cubist' controls which motifs are played by orienting the cubes so that the face corresponding to the desired motif faces up.

aims+objectives

loopqoob is an exploration of the areas of 'near instruments', 'plastic playback', and physical computing. It is intended to be a playful and amusing way to play with or perform music. It should also be interesting to watch. Like scanjam, it makes the performance of loop-based electronic music observable in a potentially dramatic and physical way, but unlike scanjam, is more distinctly physical. In many ways, loopqoob follows on from Dominic Robson's Piano Cubes, though while Robson was investigating ways for non-musicians to make music, I am using music as a context in which to investigate physical interfaces.

here's a movie of the working prototype:
http://www.muratnkonar.com/id/loopqoob/video-finalproto.shtml

next up: 'scanjam'

scanjam is a joint project with Adrian Ashley and Mikkel Köser, and is a response to a brief that exhorted us to think of radically new ways to use scanners.

description

scanjam is a music performance system consisting of two scanners and a computer. We took advantage of the time-based nature of the scan head and mapped each scanner to one bar of music. The music is composed in two bar "modules". Objects placed on the scanner are read and depending on their color, shape, and vertical placement, trigger sounds when the scan head passes them by. When one scanner reaches its end the next scanner begins. While the second scanner is scanning, the first scanner is "rewinding".


aims+objectives

In our brainstorming for this project, we were keen to abstract the unique properties of scanners without regard to their purpose, and come up with a plausible alternative application. We also wanted to put a bit of humanity back into the performance of electronic music.
Much electronic music of the dance or loop based variety when performed live is done so behind a laptop computer. Whether the performers are actually performing or whether they're surfing the web is a fair question to ask. A system like scanjam makes the performance of loop based electronic music observable in a dramatic and physical way.


obligatory disclaimer

Because this project was aimed at generating concepts and not working examples (and because we only had one week from brief to presentation) a working version of scanjam does not exist. But it is plausible.

the video:
http://www.muratnkonar.com/id/scanjam/index.shtml

he has made some other amazing stuff but it has little to do with my research so here's the link to the homepage:

http://www.muratnkonar.com