| As part of the recent Cybersonica 09 Road Trip I was in Liverpool for Interface Amnesty organised by SoundNetwork.
“Inspired by a trade fair scene in the 1974 Francis Ford Coppola film “The Conversation”, jumble sales and the excellent Make magazine maker faires, Interface Amnesty plays with the conventions of interface design, music technology products and the presentation of interactive art.“ |
I was having a bit of an issue focussing this morning and couldn’t quite decide what to work on next. Hmmm… “So many ideas, so little time”…
I spent some time in Processing looking at my Virtual Light Wave sketch – tidying up the code e.g. switching from keyCode to key for keyboard presses (as advised in the Processing Refrence) and inadvertently sorting out the issue of the appearance of unwanted lines splaying out from the ‘vanishing point’ when zooming in too far by implementing the farClip and nearClip methods in the camera() data-type as part of the Obsessive Camera Direction (OCD) library – which actually does what it says on the tin and “allows intuitive control and creation of Processing viewport Cameras”.
Scanning through the iPhone/iPod Touch apps on synthtopia I came across a number of previously unknown MIDI and OSC controllers which I’ve now installed on my iPod Touch for testing. Some are free – including the iXY MIDI Controller and MIDI Motion Machine from CM Software Designs which use the DSMI Server – more details at the DS Music Interface homepage. Some cost a bit – such as Pro XY from Far Out Labs LLC who also make the interesting looking ProRemote and ProTransport (though you have to install the ProRemote server which runs as a background process and can’t be quit – which I don’t much like), the minimalist Fantastick (with its equally minimalist homepage though I also found a discussion thread on the MaxMSP boards – shame its MaxMSP/PD only) and iOSC (which needs 2.2.1 software). I’ll play around a bit with these and report my findings.
I spent a fairly busy couple of weeks working with Nick Rothwell on MonoScape - a Processing visualisation sketch and application for a monome64 to trigger and position sounds within the Illustrious’ 3D-AudioScape surround sound system. Details on the Monomatic blog.
…mostly with Processing including the monomic library and Nick Rothwell’s shado…
Processing
1. Light Wave Virtual
I’ve moved this on a fair way and now have a patch which effectively recreates the physical piece – albeit in ‘wireframe’ – and lets me change the overall wavelength and amplitude and the width, length and space between each strip via keydown – as well as shifting the x, y and z point of view via the camera. It still needs a bit more refinement… but is coming along nicely.
…as well as Nick Rothwell’s shado, SevenUpLive…
My functionality developments for the Mirror2 patch by Daniel Shiffman.
Processing
As with my previous experiments with Flash I think that selecting Processing found and library examples I like and then extending their functionality will be a good way to develop my coding skills…
I know there’s always ‘more out there’ to explore – but I thought I’d summarise (and rationlise) the probably ‘already more than I can manage’ range of projects and resources I regularly check for news and updates:
Create Digital Music – “a webzine and community site for musicians using technology” and Create Digital Motion – “a webzine and community site for VJs and other producers of moving images” have become essential reading and part of my Newsgator aggregated RSS feed which I access on the move on my iPod Touch.
I have a monome64 and while I’m interested in all things monome I’m particularly keen on SevenUpLive – “a Java application that combines 8 different monome applications into one interface. With it, your monome communicates with Ableton Live 7 via MIDI…”.
With my monome 64 due to arrive imminently I’ve been browsing the monome website for sparkly things I particularly like the look of…
Starting with Ableton Live…
1. drumwreck by anton hornquist – website & youtube demo
monome step sequencer in maxmsp/live
Early days for this app… which seems both intuitive and ergonomic… and even works using the ‘monome40_fake’ patch. Latest developments on its monome discussion thread.
Here’s a first draft outline as PDF - though it’s still waiting for feedback and contributions from Anthony Rowe.
There’s always more to find out there… Deep Vacuuming the Source Files and then looking fairly systematically through BIT-101 Lab has turned up several interesting Flash demos:
a sweet little non-interactive 3d particle system waveform – 041101_lewis.fla
Click on the image to load Flash in a pop up.
and a simple sound activated wave pattern – 050819_lewis.fla
Click on the image to load Flash in a pop up.
It also suggested some new and useful practitioner and reference links – though these have quickly branched out further still…
I’ve recently proposed this idea to Gini Simpson, Head of Media Arts at SPACE Studios, Hackney, London, E8 3RH. The outline is included in full here but you can also download it as a PDF.
Introduction
Through recent online research for my own creative practice I came across a fascinating, but hitherto unknown to me, USA based project – momone.
There are videos of the monome 40h in action HERE
Essentially the momome is a beautifully designed, hand-crafted, minimalist interactive interface for controlling and monitoring pretty much anything audio, visual and beyond…
