2011 Year End Review

2011 has turned out to be a pretty dense year. I think it’s always worth reflecting on what’s been accomplished over the last cycle. Here are most of the major projects I helped push forward this year.

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This was a huge year for Recombinant Media Labs. Or new mobile surround-cinema apparatus, the Cinechamber, made its debut this year to a European festival circuit supported by the ECAS network of festivals. We started out 2011 for a month long residency at Club Transmediale in Berlin. Then later on in the fall we set up at two more festivals, ORF-Musikprotokoll in Graz, AU and Cynetart in Dresden, DE, some of our best shows ever.

In the middle of all of these we developed a host of brand new 360-degree 10-screen content from Egbert Mittlestadt, Fundamental Forces (Robert Henke and Tarik Barri), Signal, Edwin van der Heide, Lillevan and Fennesz, Subshrubs, Lawrence English and Werner Dafeldecker, Louis Dufort, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Jade/Pita, and Naut Humon / Peter Tscherkassky.

Development for some exciting shows in 2012 has been progressing as well, stay tuned for some major announcements for future audio/visual casualty.

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The momentum at Keith McMillen Instruments also keeps building. While I largely removed myself from day-to-day operations at KMI this year to pursue some other projects, the stellar team that was built continues to grow and push out great products. This year saw the unveiling of the SoftStep to the world at the Winter NAMM Show. The SoftStep saw major press and uptake over the year, and has gone on to become one of our most popular products.

The later half of 2011 saw the introduction of the QuNeo, and subsequent groundswell of support for its kickstarter project to fund tooling for production. This innovative controller takes the Monome concept and adds pressure sensitivity over four points, making each pad like a joystick. It also features a gradient of multicolor LEDs under each pad giving a variety of feedback options.

Finally, we successfully completed the primiere of the first string quartet for K-Bow augmented sensor bows in conjunction with the Kronos Quartet and composer Doug Quin, Polar Suite. This is a landmark for live ensemble-driven electronic music performance and hopefully paves the way for even more ambitious projects with Kronos.

Violinist Jon Rose and I developed Palimpolin, an improvisatory solo work for processed violin. This work uses the K-Bow system to process samples and spatialize the sound over a  quadrophonic system with realtime control from the instrument.

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The majority of last year I stepped into projection mapping and architectural projection fully, completing many projects in conjunction with Obscura Digital. In May we completed the world largest projected surface, the Coca-Cola Skyscraper in Atlanta, GA, for their 125th Anniversary celebration.  The fall saw the completion of the interior projection mapping for the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco Symphony, a show completed with orchestral accompaniment.

For the 40th anniversary of the United Arab Emirates we completed two simultaneous exterior projection jobs; the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and Fort Al Jahili.

Back home we unveiled Illuminique, a holiday show in the historic Emporium Dome inside the Westfield Centre Mall in San Francisco.

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Fabricatorz also made great strides forward this year on all of our many projects. In early January we helped create An Open Web, developed at a book sprint in Berlin in a weeks time. We also had some time to throw together a web based visualization of the book as it was being edited, http://wall.fabricatorz.com/.

Later in March I was fortunate enough to be able to get involved with the HyperAudio project with Henrik Moltke of the Mozilla Foundation. We completed a proof-of-concept for a rich HTML5 javascript system using an audio file as the timeline. This demo and a creative meeting later led to an interactive RadioLab

I gave a presentation about HyperAudio at the Libre Graphics Meeting 2011 Montreal. Fabricatorz also rolled out several releases at LGM, including major updates to the Open Clip Art Library, the release of the Open Font Library, and updates to Aiki Framework.

We also saw the launch of the MilkyMist video synthesizer. This innovative box contains an FPGA that is programmed to be optimized for video processing. But, its also a complete FPGA system-on-a-chip development board. Even more exciting; its all open-hardware and open-software, schematics and source code are all freely available.

Finally, movement continued on the Sharism project, including the release of our Beta Site. There will be many more Sharism events in 2012 as this project grows.

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In September was the primiere of Active Ecosystem installation at Sacramento Airport, a 14-screen interactive environment attached to a glass elevator shaft, with artists Camille Utterback and Michelle Higa. The piece reacts to time of day and elevator movements, painting stylized natural scenes inspired by the Sacramento airport inside the new SMF Terminal B.

At the new Nokia headquarters Obscura set up the Nokia Horizon Line installation, a linear canvas of micro-tiles visualizing information about Nokia customers world wide. We also   put a smaller multitouch installation for Lexus at the Concourse d’Elegance in Carmel, CA.

I was also honored to be added to the ME’DI.ATE Art Group’s Advisory Board this year. They produce the annual Soundwave Festival, one of the best festivals for emerging arts in the Bay.

Although I didn’t do as many speaking engagements this year, I did contribute to Hot Spots a projection mapping panel at the San Francisco Art Institute; presented some Kinect based projects at the Art && Code 3D conference at CMU, and was on a Digital Marketing Roundtable with the Society of Digital Agencies.

The Gray Area Foundation for the Arts had an amazing year of educational workshops, events and exhibitions. We recently had our 2nd annual Galvanize Gala which provided a great deal of support for a fantastic 2012.

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Of course all of these projects were made possible by a huge assortment of people, way too many to list here. Allow me to generally express my gratitude to everyone I’ve been fortunate enough to work with in 2011; we’ve all done some amazing things!

Forward.

The Season for Giving

As the end of the year approaches, some of you may well feel inclined to part with some of your hard earned money to some charitable causes. I would like to suggest a couple of organizations that are deserving of your patronage this holiday season. All of the following are 501(c)3 organizations.

Soundwave / ME’DI.ATE

The MEDIATE group is responsible for the biennial Soundwave festival, which is, in my humble opinion, the most interesting festival in the Bay Area, and curatorially has some of the best emerging talent in interesting venues and performing under well-planned settings.

Soundwave is MEDIATE’s acclaimed biennial festival of innovative sound, art and music. Soundwave is a multi-venue and multi-date sound performance series happening over the span of two months every two years in San Francisco USA. Each season investigates a new idea in sound and invites diverse multidisciplinary artists and musicians to explore the season’s theme in new and innovative directions. It is a project dedicated to challenge and inspire artists and audiences to look deeper into the sound medium and discover new connections to sound making and the sound experience. Soundwave was awarded Best Sound Sculptures – Future Classic by San Francisco Magazine’s BEST of 2007 issue. It has been featured on SPARK*, KQED’s (PBS) television arts show and Educator Guide on Experimental Music, SF Weekly, SF Chronicle, BBC Radio 3 (UK), San Francisco Bay Guardian, 7×7 Magazine, SFist, WNYC Public Radio, ResonanceFM (UK), KUSF, KALX, KPFA, amongst others.

Donate to MEDIATE.

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts continues to be the top game in town for a community focal point focused on digital arts, in a city ostensibly at the forefront of technological innovation. Your donation allows us to support our year-round exhibitions, events, workshops, panels and lectures focusing on digital culture at the intersection of art, science, technology, and society.

Here are just some of the things Gray Area has produced this year:

Exhibitions

Future/Canvas 2: The Emerging Medium of iPad Art
TRANSMUTATIONS: Sound, Data, and Mechanics
Zimoun: Solo Exhibition
Milieux Sonores: Sound and Imaginary Space
SENSEable Cities: Exploring Urban Futures

Educational

Arduino 101
Visualizing and Mapping Data
Buildling Augmented Reality Apps with Layar
Real-time Video Manipulation in Quartz Composer
Digital Cartography, Interactive Mapping, and Data Visualization
Summer of Smart Mayoral Forums
Cinema Speakeasy
Introduction to Touch Designer for Projection Mapping
Dr. Hubert Burda on the Digital Wunderkammer
Atom(tm) / Senor Coconut Live!
Sound Research Meetups
Introduction to openFrameworks
Max for Live Hack Night
Immersive Audio Environments for Composition and Simulation
Game Based Learning Salon
Breakneck Prototyping with Microsoft Pure Data and Kinect
You get the idea….

BEAM Foundation

The BEAM Foundation is a music technology think-tank led by electronic music innovator Keith McMillen. It’s prototype technologies have spawned the successful spin-off business Keith McMillen Instruments which has produced a successful line of products targeting live electronic music performance.

BEAM’s mission is to create the conditions that will spark a new music movement based on the tools and techniques of the 21st century. Based on the concept of enhanced instruments coupled through an intelligent network, BEAM’s musical vision encourages formal structures that are reactive to improvisation while modifying timbral detail and ornamentation resulting in a new complexity and intimacy.

NoiseBridge

Noisebridge is an educational space for technical-creative projects, collaboratively run by its members. A 5,600 square-foot space located in the heart of San Francisco is a locus for all manner of creative exploration from programming to electronics to languages to boardgames. There is invariably a gathering of creative people learning together at all hours of the day and night at the space, and it contributes a vital grassroots community foundation for the arts scene in San Francisco that we would be much worse off without.

Donate to NoiseBridge

LongNow Foundation

The LongNow Foundation was founded in 01996 to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide a counterpoint to today’s accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common.

Their Long Term Thinking Seminars are among the best and most interesting speaking lineups around the Bay, if you haven’t checked them out, do.

Donate to LongNow

826 Valencia

826 Valencia is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages six to eighteen with their writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. Our work is based on the understanding that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success and that great leaps in learning can happen when trained tutors work one-on-one with students.

Donate to 826 Valencia

UAE National Day Fort Al Jahili Architectural Projection Mapping

In another effort with Obscura Digital, Fort Al Jahili in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates was illuminated with a artistic montage of country history for the 40th UAE National Day Celebration. In contrast to our other contribution to the festivities, the Sheikh Zayed Mosque illumination, this show delved deep into Emirati culture to bring the story of a unique monument to life on its facade.


This historical show opens with a powerful symbol of pride and strength: the Falcon swooping across the vast dunes of the nation moving into a visual representation of the journey of the UAE through historical images. A spectacular montage of light reveals a lifelike underwater scene, which seamlessly transitions into a beautiful night sky of the Arabian Gulf representing the significance of the early pearl trade. The early life of Sheikh Zayed is also illustrated in artistic Bedouin and falconry scenes, followed by the navigational devices and night skies, caravans of camels and negotiations of historic significance. The sand dunes transition to reveal daytime at the Fort like curtains opening onto a desert oasis scene. Here we see the aflaj – irrigation system, which consisted of underground tunnels that channeled water from the aquifers to the oases. This water enabled for date palms to be planted, gardens to flourish and farms to develop, encouraging the settlement in the area.

The show concludes with a quote of Sheikh Zayed of peace and unity: the tribes of the UAE coming together, the founding fathers, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and current leaders of the nation. With the backdrop of history, we see the flag waving in the wind in star filled night sky over Al Ain.

This show was a smaller scale than the mosque projection, but added an important element to to festivities for a more intimate audience in a closer community. The project consisted of 5 projections of 18,000 lumens each, and was controlled and mapped with Derivative’s Touch Designer software toolkit, our go-to weapon for this kind of task.

The Fall and Rise of the CineChamber

This fall saw the  installation of the Recombinant Media Lab’s CineChamber at two more festivals in Europe. These engagements allowed us to develop a salvo of new works for our one-of-a-kind immersive floating surround cinema vessel.  We can continued to make improvements to the RML video engine, a state of the art, single computer video server playing back 10 streams of HD content with Derivative’s Touch Designer framework.

First in October, 2011 the RML CineChamber made its landing in Graz, Austria for the ORF Musikprotokoll festival.

This installation began with another round of residencies, developing new content for the festival at the ORF studios in Graz. The complete Cinechamber system was erected in their Studio 3 where we hosted Austrian local artists Subshubs and Jade/Pita, plus a revision of the video version of DSLE-1 by Edwin van der Heide.

The CineChamber system was erected in the Dom im Berg, a performance venue situated in one of the tunnels of Graz’s Schlaussberg bored into the rock as an air raid shelter during World War II. The long inclining tunnel leading to the venue itself provided a perfect entrance to the CineChamber; one of its most interesting qualities is the sense of constricted space that is then made to feel more expansive due to the immersive media content. The venue is acoustically treated so despite being a cavern had better sonic qualities than most theaters I’ve been in.

Then in November we installed again at the Cynetart festival in Dresden, Germany. This event also included live performances by Andrey Kiritchenko & v4w.enko (Eugen Vashchenko), Ulf Langheinrich & DS-X.org.

We have taken the CineChamber to an undisclosed location in Germany for an R&D setup until 2012.

“Illuminique” Holiday Historic Dome Architectural Projection Mapping

Last Friday saw the primiere Illuminique, a free holiday show projection mapped to the 102-foot-wide historic “Emporium” dome situated at the top level of the Westfield mall in San Francisco. This is another project I worked on in conjunction with Obscura Digital to bring a 103-year-old landmark to life with a playful video presentation of toys and trains and winter cheer.

Westfield’s iconic dome will come to life each night with this one-of-a-kind animated 3D light spectacular that promises to capture the imagination of young and old. Illuminique Under the Dome is a magical story set in a 19th Century toymaker’s workshop. Old meets new, as the Centre’s elegant 1908 glass dome is transformed into a state-of-the-art surround theater exhibiting the latest in projection mapping technology.

A lively cast of holiday characters including sugar plum fairies, toy soldiers, and gingerbread men are brought to life under the Dome. They twirl, drum, and dance in unison creating festive melodies that contribute to a dynamic mechanical orchestra. The 4-minute show crescendos as more toys join the brigade and the entirety of the 102-foot dome becomes one gigantic holiday music machine. The production is an unrivaled “must-see” experience for Bay Area locals and visitors from around the world.

The mapping of this structure presented an unbelievable set of challenges for the entire team. The dome is a San Francisco historic landmark, originally part of the Emporium department store that was completely torn down for the Westfield mall renovation. The whole structure was completely raised to fit on the new mall, and now sits grandiosely atop the upper floor. Like most historic landmarks there are huge restrictions on what can be done to the structure in terms of hardware setup on the facade.

The whole surface of the dome is mostly glass, making it extremely unideal for projection. After considering several solutions the most unobtrusive and easiest to swallow from the preservationist perspective was covering all the window panes with vinyl. This was an enormous task, both because of the number of window panes and the size of the dome. At over 120 feet this is a very large structure. The job was completed with an long crane, and countless hours from our heroic vinyl technicians. Without this step the projection to follow wouldn’t have been possible.

The dome is canvassed by 9 projectors situated in 360 degrees on the floor around the exterior of the structure. The dome’s interior surface area of 11,781 square feet makes it nearly three times the size of a standard IMAX screen. There were several major technological improvements to our 3d mapping and video playback systems developed specifically for this job to be able to deal with the unique requirements of the dome.

The 4-minute show debuts November 25 at 5pm and runs nightly November 25 – December 31, every half hour, from 6 – 8:30 p.m., except for Sundays, when the Centre closes at 8 p.m.

UAE National Day Grand Mosque Architectural Projection Mapping

Yesterday saw the premiere architectural illumination of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in conjunction with the UAE National Day Celebration this December 2nd. I worked on this project on the interactive software development team at Obscura Digital, and its our largest and most complex mapping project to date. The outcome has been spectacular.

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Illuminations highlight many of the unique details inside the largest mosque in the country. The projections highlight the geometry throughout the mosque with patterns that shift with symmetry and elegant spare pentagonal forms. A series of frames highlight the detail of the date palm fronds, homage to one of the symbols of the UAE found throughout the mosque. The show includes the unifying spirit of Sheikh Zayed, his passion for the environment through the many beautiful botanical flowers found throughout the mosque, all a part of the vision of the founding father to invite artists of all cultures around the world to design for this spectacular showcase of architecture. Flowers of stone, architectural detailing and lighting spectacles along with colorful organic vines scale the 4 minarets (170m/350ft high) on the four corners of the courtyard.  Projections include, the Qibla Wall mirrored after the central panel of the main prayer hall illuminating the 99 attributes of Allah in traditional kufi calligraphy. In addition, an interpretation of the Mirab next to the wall, depicted by rotating golden domes. There are optical illusions, which alter the architecture of the mosque as glass, highlighting geometry, shadows or glass mosaics shimmering under a blue sky. To end the show, a series of celestial moments with the cycles of the moon, which the Islamic calendar is based on as well as the stars twinkling in the night. The moon rises over the mosque as the illuminations come to an end. The earth begins rotating over the entrance to the Grand Mosque, representing the vision Sheikh Zayed had for his people, their heritage and all of humanity.

The entire front facade of the building, the four 170 meter high minarets and the three main domes of the interior structure. There were a total of 49 projectors used, making the logistical setup alone daunting.

This building was a joy to augment on both a technical level and artistically. The mosque is made of extremely rare natural materials; marble, crystal, semi-precious gem stones and gold. It contains the largest carpet in the world, and one of the largest chandeliers in the world made of millions of crystals. The design of all of the building is inspired by nature and was completed by artists from around the world, reflecting the multinational nature of Islam.

Clearly, when attempting to augment such and impressive and holy piece of architecture with video great consideration is required. Our media was similarly inspired by the architectural details already present, using floral patterns, lunar motifs, and subtle lighting effects to accentuate the preexisting patterns. The results have been stunning, and tastefully honor the spirit of Sheik Zayed, the UAE, and the mosque.

As with many of our projects, Derivative’s Touch Designer software was used for all of the show control, video playback, geometry correction and calibration on this job. We’ve been avid Touch users for quite some time at Obscura, and with the recent gold release of the software package, it is a perfect time for anyone interested in 3d video manipulation to get their feet wet with this impressive tool.

Team

Technical Direction
Andrew Plourde
Eugene Dowlen
Simon Ransom

Creative Direction / Media
Travis Threlkel
Marta Salas Porras
Nathaniel Ruhlman
Ron Robinson

Production
Gaston Albanell
Nick Lynch
Diego Novoa
Rainen Janes
Joe Vigorito
Nathan Houchin
Eric Knuble

Interactive Development
Mary Franck
Grady Sain
Imran Nabhan

Photos / Documentation
Josh Brott

Galvanize, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts 2nd Annual Benefit Gala

On December 15, 2011 I am excited to be co-hosting the 2nd Annual Galvanize Gala in support of the Gray Area Foundation of the Arts.

This event is the first gala we will be hosting from our new location at the Warfield Theater. A vital source of funding for the Gray Area Foundation, Galvanize allows us to support our year-round exhibitions, events, workshops, panels and lectures focusing on digital culture at the intersection of art, science, technology, and society. Gray Area has grown in the last two years to be a focal point of the media arts community in San Francisco, so I urge you to attend if you find the technological arts worthwhile.

Here are just some of the things Gray Area has produced this year:

Exhibitions

Future/Canvas 2: The Emerging Medium of iPad Art
TRANSMUTATIONS: Sound, Data, and Mechanics
Zimoun: Solo Exhibition
Milieux Sonores: Sound and Imaginary Space
SENSEable Cities: Exploring Urban Futures

Educational

Arduino 101
Visualizing and Mapping Data
Buildling Augmented Reality Apps with Layar
Real-time Video Manipulation in Quartz Composer
Digital Cartography, Interactive Mapping, and Data Visualization
Summer of Smart Mayoral Forums
Cinema Speakeasy
Introduction to Touch Designer for Projection Mapping
Dr. Hubert Burda on the Digital Wunderkammer
Atom(tm) / Senor Coconut Live!
Sound Research Meetups
Introduction to openFrameworks
Max for Live Hack Night
Immersive Audio Environments for Composition and Simulation
Game Based Learning Salon
Breakneck Prototyping with Microsoft Pure Data and Kinect
You get the idea….

Celebrate GAFFTA’s newly minted residency in San Francisco’s historic Warfield Building at the 2nd Annual Galvanize Benefit Gala. The evening will bring together GAFFTA’s entrepreneurial and creative communities for an upscale rock concert, dinner and art auction at the Warfield Theatre. Join hundreds of creative and sexy Silicon Valley and Bay Area digerati, young professionals, financiers, entrepreneurs and artists to support the talent, and artistry, of today’s cutting edge technologists.

Date: December 15th, 2011
Time: 7:30 — 10:30pm
Venue: The Warfield Theater
982 Market St at Taylor
San Francisco, CA 94102

Agenda
7:30pm Doors
7:30 — 8:00 Registration, Dinner
8:00 — 8:15 Opening Remarks
8:15 — 9:00 ELEW and Garibaldi
9:00 — 9:15 Auction of Garibaldi Paintings
9:15 — 10:30 Eclectic Method Live A/V

Event Features
3 hours total, evening event
table service for 8-18: $2,500 — $25,000
general admission for 1: $60 — $1,000
21+, concession stands for artist & sponsor schwag, silent auction, tiered seating

Contact us: If you have any questions or require additional information about sponsorship, (415) 843-1423 or email support(at)gaffta(dot)org

Kronos Quartet Performs First String Quartet for Sensor Augmented Bows

“This is an opportunity to essentially relearn our instruments and to transform how we approach live performance. “Polar Suite,” is a very different kind of string quartet and an extraordinary sonic adventure–thanks in large part to the K-Bow and what is now possible!” - Kronos Quartet founder David Harrington

This Wednesday November 9, 2011 is the premiere performance of the worlds first string quartet for sensor bow at the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. Composer Douglas Quin’s Polar Suite, performed by the Grammy award winning Kronos Quartet, is driven by the K-Bow system I’ve developed with Keith McMillen since 2006. The piece is the result of a weeklong residency by the group culminating months of work developing a groundbreaking musical experience that couples the world’s most adventurous string quartet with cutting edge technologies.

The K-Bow is standard string instrument bow augmented with a variety of sensor technologies to bridge the gap between traditional musical performance and the possibilities of computers. The sensors integrated into the carbon fiber bow detect detailed data on every aspect of a string player’s performance and send it to a laptop computer via Bluetooth wireless. Once there, a suite of custom software uses that data to control audio effects, sample playback, surround sound, or video. The Kronos Quartet was outfitted with a entire quartet of these bows, one for each member, providing a foundation for interactive sound creation over the whole ensemble.

Composed by Douglas Quin, hailed as the “Audubon of Audio” by the Washington Post, “Polar Suite” integrates the sounds of traditional instruments processed with captured sounds all controlled by movements of KMI’s K-Bow. The piece was commissioned by Kronos and features soundscape recordings from the polar regions of the earth and outer space plus additional processed samples.

The Kronos Quartet of David Harrington, John Sherba, Hank Dutt, and Jeffrey Zeigler has pursued a singular artistic vision, combining a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to expanding the range and context of the string quartet, for more than 30 years. Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our time, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 45 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, collaborating with many of the world’s most eclectic composers and performers, and commissioning more than 750 works and arrangements for string quartet. In 2011, Kronos became the only recipients of both the Polar Music Prize and the Avery Fisher Prize, two of the most prestigious awards given to musicians. No other musician or ensemble has ever won both prestigious prizes, let alone in a single year. The group’s numerous awards also include a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance (2004) and “Musicians of the Year” (2003) from Musical America.

The K-Bow was the flagship product of Keith McMillen Instruments, a Berkeley, CA based company producing advanced technologies bridging the gap between traditional ensemble music performance and the collaborative information processing machine that is the computer. It measures a number of axes of control, including:

• XYZ 3D Accelerometer – measures the playing force and angle of the bow
• Hair Tension Sensor – detects how hard the bow presses against the strings
• Grip Pressure Sensor – gives a measure of how hard you are gripping the bow
• Bow to Fingerboard – a measure of the distance you are playing from the fingerboard via the antennas embedded in the bow
• Bow Length – by interacting with the included fingerboard emitter, an infrared light sensor shows the distance from the bow frog to the strings of the instrument
• Bow Tilt – measures the angle of the bow, useful to know which string is being played

By enabling the string quartet to access the unlimited sound world of the computer, the K-Bow advances western art music to places never before possible, and allows the interpretation of electronic scores by multiple ensembles. Complete with integrated software, the K-Bow applications feature sophisticated DSP processing that allow performers to process their sound, recording multitrack loops, control surround panning, and communicate with other software; all from their familiar instrument.

Reflections on a Life in Media Arts

As I have now been supporting cultural projects for over a decade, it seems a good time to do some introspection the nature of my path thus far. As I look back down the dusty trail one the questions I’ve been asked most frequently after trying to convey what it is that I do (quite a tricky task in itself) is, “Are you an Artist?” While I’ve come to my own peace with this question, it does interest me what the answer is for others because I believe it sheds some light on what people believe about the [digital | new media | immersive | interactive | computational | technological | cybermedia | hypermedia | multimedia | virtual] arts.

My services are normally sought when something doesn’t work. While I am far from the only person active in this niche, I have been blessed with being able to collaborate with many contemporary artists, musicians, cultural and technology workers. I’ve worked to create scores of pieces, a majority of them uncredited. This in itself isn’t a huge problem for me (my focus remains the work), but coupled with the “Artist?” question it does call for some definition of what the role of an artist working on technological collaborations is and ought to be.

I like to say I develop culture, because culture is really the something which is ideally created as a byproduct of any project that I do. However, the most succinct way apparent to describe my occupations is by saying I work in technology for arts. Even this is vague. The issue is that it takes such a diverse skill-set to complete a immersive or interactive installation or event that easy classifications for the functions involved are elusive. Also the interested parties are always shifting, I may be collaborating with an institution, other artist or organization.

I am most captivated by the way technology impacts cultural culture and catalyzes new aesthetics. I think it makes sense to use the tools available today to create these works because new technology begets new art. As I view most cultural history through the lens of technological development it is clear that we base most of our metaphors on the world and how we live based on what the most advanced technologies we have at the time are. So, it makes sense to work within this milieu. The tools and technologies involved only interest me insofar as they catalyze new aesthetics.

There seems to be a distinction that bears the weight of history between “time-based” and “static” arts, although this line is far from solid. For the traditional visual arts (painting, sculpture, basket weaving) the mantle of “artist” is usually synonymous with both the inspiration and implementation of the final work. I posit that these practitioners were historically celebrated first for their mastery of technique; for someone with no learned context for a work the first impression is always a sense of awe at the sheer technical difficulty of realizing a work that is either photorealistic, unwieldy or otherwise artificial. Conversely the lack of this quality is the reason that many don’t “get” many kinds of contemporary art. It turns out they never understood any art to begin with, they were just impressed by the superficial complexity of the craft.

However the production of time based arts (music, theater, dance, performance arts) grew to be so complex that a division of labor quickly developed. Clearly in, say, an orchestral production, the composer, conductor and instrumentalists deserve a higher billing than their supporting personnel. But, what of the instrument makers? Certainly those that make and refine the tools of sound creation have merited an equal footing, but yet they are known only esoterically. What of the concert hall designer?

While it seems simple to decide the relative artistry of all those involved, I would argue that media arts are both of a different nature entirely and imbalanced in regards to perception on what constitutes an artist. The relationship between a creative collaborators turns out to be extremely complex and can never really be partitioned into “conceptual artist” and “technician”. If we know anything about music performance it is that the performer lends vast interpretation and variation to a composer’s work. In one sense the relationship is absurd; who would think of being a painter that didn’t know how to use a paintbrush? But this is exactly what a collaborator in charge of technology is expected to do… have a mastery of technique in the use of a wide range of arts technology sufficient to realize a project to high aesthetic standards.

Another angle to consider this issue from is that of limitations. Usually when initially consulting on a project the first question I’m asked is some variant of “can we do X”. Ironically, the worst answer is “we can do anything you want” (the real answer entirely depends on budget). Michaelngelo famously commented on how the form was in the stone all the time, he just had to free it. However, it is equally as true to say that Michaelangelo set limitations on the potential of the stone. How do we know what these limitations are in a computational art work? It takes virtuosity and skill to intuit such things. So it appears that the distinction of artistry relies upon curatorial and creative control of the material. But, in the same vein as a performer, it is clear that those that perform the creative act are inexorable from the creative act itself.

So what then is the cultural fate of the creative technologist, the artistic collaborator, the event producer? Where is public celebration of the curator? I have no answers, but as the nature of art changes so too will the view of those that create it.

Milkymist One Video Synthesizer Official Release

Mine is on its way…its an exciting product. Reviews after I have some time to dig in…

The Qi Hardware project is proud to announce the Milkymist One video
synthesizer.

A total power consumption of 5 watts and latency of 60 milliseconds are the highlights of the new high-performance video synthesizer. Without additional computer, Milkymist One takes line-in audio to create real-time music visualizations. Ideal for musicians and DJs, restaurant and bar owners, people organizing parties or interested in visual art. The included camera feeds live video into the synthesis.

Milkymist One is the second product launched by Qi Hardware after the Ben NanoNote in March 2010. While the NanoNote was built around a MIPS-architecture SoC, Milkymist One takes copyleft freedoms one step further by being the first free computing architecture built around the GPL licensed 32-bit Milkymist SoC.

Visual artists benefit by being able to program their patches, including connectivity and control of DMX lights, lasers and MIDI
instruments, all directly and in real-time from the Milkymist One synthesizer. Network connectivity allows the inclusion of live Twitter
feeds. Free software programmers benefit by having the first fully programmable graphics accelerator at their disposal, opening the world of reusable and portable Verilog to free software developers.

Milkymist SoC is a new generation of collaboratively developed IC designs, founded in 2007 by Sebastien Bourdeauducq. It aims to be an ARM competitor with new sharism business model, allowing for greater development speed and better customization and optimization in embedded products.

Milkymist One is available from Sharism Ltd. now, and sells for 499 USD plus shipping from Taipei.

[1] Milkymist One shop: https://sharism.cc/milkymist/
[2] Media Gallery: https://sharism.cc/media/