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A list of future physical/virtual computing arts projects

I have to write up so much from recent events, but as usual at these times, my head is buzzing with ideas for other stuff to do next (all based on a long weekend of messing with arduinos, robotics, Puredata and Max/MSP), so I thought it best to document that first. So. I would like to make:

  • An enactment of a score I wrote a long time ago, involving dancers/actors performing with a box, that follows different parameters based on what stage the performance is at. It would be a black box, interacting with the movement and words only through sound. It would be capable of "jamming" or following music in some way or other. (Link suggested by Mat)
  • A dance based implementation of the MaxMSP script that my friend Mat quickly put together last weekend, which allows webcams to interpret visual data as audio samples(more on that in the next post). I want to invite a duet of dancers to perform with this webcam audio, in December, but mostly scriptless, just a result of trying things out with the kit and seeing what shapes to pull so the sounds are better!
  • An outdoors sound object capable of sensing it's environment (possibly via sensors able to see light and soil moisture, so a bit like a plant again). It would turn those senses into audio. I would program it with my own samples and prototype it with PD, though so it would sound somehow like my own thing. The main part of it would be that it could play a morning raga: if it's dark, play a generative solo sound. As sound increases, find a melody and vary it, keeping the main bit for later. Percussion joins in when light reaches a certain moment, and follows warmth or moisture. I've got most of the bits of this. I'm wondering how to keep it safe out there in the rain and damp all the time though. And I want to get it solar panels and make it self sufficient, or even read more data from that into music as well!
  • An exhibition, soon, of the musical robot we prototyped and got started this weekend (looking for venues at the moment).
  • The two trees, from the previous post. This will hopefully debut on Burning Man's Second Life incarnation, Burning Life.
  • Maybe in future, a watcher system to protect plants against night time garden pests. It would have a wire going into each plant pot. It would use the noted aversion that slugs and snails have to small electrical charges (this is why they don't like copper), together with a motion sensor or some other sensors, to (gently) zap them whenever they come by. The natural extension of this would of course be a mobile robot that had all these things in it, and a good way of finding it's way around the garden.
So some of these are very real and coming soon if not here already. The Burning Life land grab is tonight (3am! late night tonight for me then) for example, but other things I just want to note down for the future...
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