Skip to main content

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...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Interpretation so far of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings

This Sutra, handed down by Ananda, the Buddha's companion, then found and translated to Chinese by Kumarijiva, is part 1 of a trilogy consisting of the Lotus Sutra, The Innumerable Meanings Sutra and the Meditation Sutra. It is studied and known among others, by Nichiren Schools of Buddhism, and it's his interpretation that I probably share most with: http://nichiren.info/OngiKuden/text/Muryogi.htm First of all, it is meant to be read by Bodhisattvas. Boddhisatvas are people who use what they learn to teach others about how to be Buddhas. When I think of Boddhisatvas, I think of people like Gandhi or Martin Luther King etc, people who fought beyond their own lives for the greater good or peace, perhaps even without knowing what the right way or right practice is. The Innumerable Meanings Sutra says these people will attain the supreme enlightenment that the Buddha attained, eventually, although the short term effect will be that everyone is a lot better off. Laws, people and so...

Big Cafe on Transport Sustainability

About a month ago, I went to the "Big Cafe for Transport" event that was happening just around the corner from my house at the brilliant new "Co-Exist" sustainability business centre . Coexist run as a CIC and are just about to launch with a plan to open up green community and event spaces, funded in turn by work and business spaces. I really hope that means a market in stokes croft! After I attended, I'd promised everyone I'd write up about it, and promptly left it as a nagging thing in the background as life took over. But now the official write up of the event has been published so I thought I should finish the abortive blog post I made that same night. A disclaimer : I'm allowed to make mistakes here, so if I've written anything wrong or stupid, please correct me! A big cafe costs 20 pounds to attend. It started really early on a Saturday morning (thus excluding the entire population of Stokes Croft), but it included a lunch (from Kukuva Cafe ac...

Eduserv Symposium 2008

I came to attend this symposium out of the blue, having seen an email late one Wednesday afternoon, saying our assistant director was too ill to go, and after a quick look at the programme, I realised it was a follow-up to an event I'd seen on video a while back where an entire conference on Second Life had been trashed by a talk which had argued it was all pretty much useless hype. So if this year's presentations were going to be in that vein, it sounded like like a fun time. This being a web 2 conference, lots of it was used, including a live chat backchannel ( http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/symposium/2008/livechat powered by cover it live streaming software: http://www.coveritlive.com/ ), a ning based conference centred social networking site (which as expected didn't achieve critical mass but was a nice feature all the same), and of course lots lots more. Eduserv's Andy Powell started the day talking about these "Disruptive technologies" we know so...