STEIM's Project Blog

The Box in context

Audio Sample: http://fielderblank.tumblr.com/post/120700564/5-string-banjo-piezo-contact-mic-small-adhesive/

During my time at STEIM, my intentions changed from a single, large building project to a broader artistic and conceptual development.  My original submission proposed the construction of an all-analog device I was calling The Feedbacker, This device would require me to reverse-engineer several pieces of gear I own (along with a few I would acquire) - namely a compression pedal and an EQ pedal - to accept crackle and other intuitive interfaces, and combine them with microphones and a flexible array of small speakers to create polyphonic feedback. [more...]

Emotion Light, work in progress, (c) Adinda van 't Klooster, 2009

Project team:

Artist: Adinda van ‘t Klooster (concept, sculptural design, porcelain model, electro acoustic composition and project management)

Hardware design and advice: Ben Knapp, Ken Brown, Marc Boon, Bob Young, Belvin Ho

Software: Vincent Akkermans, Ken Brown, Miguel Angel Ortiz-Perez & Nick Ward

Rapid Prototyping: advice: Alan Stafford, AMAP, University of Sunderland

3d modelling: Neil Milburn, Iain Barrett, Dave Knapton, AMAP, University of Sunderland

The residency at STEIM was made possible by a small grant for the arts from the Arts Council England.

STEIM RESIDENCY 7-22 April 2009

Adinda van ‘t Klooster is an international artist and currently an AHRC funded PhD researcher at CRUMB, Sunderland University. She creates responsive artworks using sensors, light and sound. Her contextual research focuses on artworks which use biofeedback in particular.http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=8405

The aim of the residency at STEIM was to further develop the first prototype ‘Emotion Light’: a sculptural light which uses biofeedback technology to visualize the holder’s physiological state in changing light patterns emerging from a portable, wireless sculpture. [more...]

I recently had a 4 day ‘pit-stop’ at the Steim studios as part of a project i’m working on with two other musicians Stu Smith and David Hindmarch. This time i returned on my own which gave me the opportunity to concentrate solely on the development of my instruments, performance style and plans for the development of my work.

I’ve recently transferred all my live set up to Max Msp after previously using Ableton live in conjunction with Max. I’ve built 3 granulation synths using Ircam’s FTM extensions for Max Msp , using my voice both as a sound source and as modulation for control of synthesis parameters.

The time in the studio allowed me to explore further the possibilities of my live set-up, refine the instruments , make plans for future development and make over 2 hours of recordings.

I’ll be using this live set up both as part of the Threep project and in the production of my next solo album project.

This residency period was part of my ongoing development of the buchla lightning/Nintendo wii-motes as a complete infra-red midi controller instrument for performance use with JunXion and Lisa and also external samplers and synthesizers. By “complete” I mean retiring the faderfox midi controller I was also using and basically never having to touch or look at the computer during a performance – the idea is that it is under a table and not even visible.

The Nintendo wii-motes have been a great addition to my infra red set up because they have a lot of fairly high quality switches, which the lightning crucially lacks, and additional accelerometers which are more accessible to programming than those on the lightning, which are pre-associated with velocity.

Unfortunately the X and Y position tracking of the infrared camera in the Wiimote is not currently correctly recognised by JunXion so the original idea of completely replacing the functionality of lightning with the Wiimote and JunXion could not be accomplished on this visit.

[more...]

I spent a week at STEIM attending an orientation workshop.  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for exactly but I knew of the activities STEIM over the years and was keen to find out more.  In particular I’m interested in how musical interaction with technology can be made more tangible in order to create a more physically conversational experience for musicians and audiences.

So far I’ve been exploring ways to make ‘virtual’ instruments more physical.  I’ve been doing this by using simple simulated mass-spring models as mediating structures between live sound and computer-generated sound and visuals.  The simulated physical model acts as a kind of ‘virtual sound sculpture’ which both responds to acoustic sounds and generates its own sounds.

During my time at STEIM I was able to experiment with using Junxion to link Wii controllers to my psuedo-physical interfaces.  This was fun and has lead me to think about new approaches to my work.

So far I’ve essentially set up my ’sound sculptures’ and then left them alone for musicians to interact with via their acoustic sounds.  This was deliberate because I wanted to retain clear links between what the musician played and the response of the sculpture.  I felt that if I was doing too much technical mumo-jumbo at the same time the link would be broken and we’d end up with yet another ‘musician accompanied by seemingly unrelated computer noise’ performance.

However, if I could interact with the sculpture in a more naturally gestural way (eg. Wii, touchscreens…?) then I can imagine that the link between my gestures, the sonic ‘gestures’ of the acoustic musician and the resulting sounds and visuals will remain strong and also provide additional avenues for musical exploration.

The challenge is to find ways to interact with these simulated physical models in physical ways.  Haptic controllers would be one, very expensive, path but apart from the cost I’m not sure how effective they’d be in a performance.

Anyway, the time I spent at STEIM was inspiring, of immediate practical benefit and stimulated me to think in new ways about my work..  Thanks everyone!

Partial Reflections

We came to Steim for 6 days for recording drums, baritone saxophone and guitar for ITHAK’s coming album.

We achieved everything we had to do in ideal conditions, Steim people were really welcoming and they helped us in finding our marks very quickly. We really felt at home.

The recording finished, we’ll look for a label for an international distribution.

Thanks to everyone at Steim for your help and support. We really appreciated that.

Best Best

Seb

I was aiming to create a Junxion patch to play a counter part to my improvised solo clarinet playing using the Wii remote.
My idea was to trigger a software sampler with my playing gestures. The Wii Remote would be ideally somehow mounted on the clarinet and the x and y axis and the accelerometer would control the counter part that would be driven by the sampler in real time. I was especially interested in the interactive way of creating a second part which would actually have a life on its own, and not the alteration nor harmonization of my acoustic playing.
In my solo electro acoustic setup as a clarinetist I use Ableton Live on my Mac Laptop in combination with Pluggo from Cycling 74, Yamaha Tenori on and a Kaos Pad 3 as a touch pad MIDI controller. The Guitar Rig Kontrol Edition by Native Instruments also useful for me both as an audio interface and an integrated effects processor with foot controls. [more...]

Fire & Ignorance is a collaboration between the musicians Anders Hana and Morten J. Olsen (of MoHa!) and artists Idan Hayosh and Anu Vahtra. A high-density dialogue of sonic and visual performance that involves the audience in a physical experience of definite power and energy.
The collaboration is balancing on the border between (electro-acoustic) music and art fields that by overlapping create an engaging unity. In a close exchange composed sound and light formations merge and establish something very clear and consistent at the same time.
The musicians (Hana/Olsen) use a mix of old and new technology, one part being a set-up for drums and SuperCollider initiated by Olsen with Jeff Carey at STEIM back in 2004. The other one a set-up including a digital synth and electric guitar played alternately. The lamps are played manually on switch boxes built by the artists (Hayosh/Vahtra) and the resulting piece is not an automated or interactive “tech-show” but rather an audio/visual instrumental piece on all levels, with integrated custom or self made technology/instruments.

As we come from different places it was important for us to spend a concentrated period of time together in one spot in order to continue and finish composing our piece. The two-week residency in STEIM in January was a great opportunity for that and Studio 1 a perfect space. The high sound levels were kindly tolerated by STEIM staff and other residents at the time and we successfully completed the compositional aspect of the project. After the final rehearsal week end of February in Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo we played 10 shows in different venues around Europe.

Setup in Studio 1

The residency at STEIM was two fold consisting of a concert performance by Kevin and a lecture, discussion and demonstration by both Carmen and Kevin.

For the concert performance Kevin played the TaurEx, sensor modified electric guitar and the Fossil, as part of the larger group EnvyCode with composer Butch Rovan, with his MiMiCs sensor extened clarinet system and the Banshee and cellist, Ulrich Maiss, playing cello, electric cello, and electronics. Here: you can see an short excerpt of a duet between Butch Rovan and Kevin Patton playing their handmade instruments the Banshee and the Fossil: http://vimeo.com/4512449

For the lecture, discussion, and demonstration portion of the residency Carmen and Kevin described the conceptual basis and design process around the Digital Poplar Consort. The Digital Poplar Consort is a family of wireless hand-made sensor based musical instruments. Each instrument provides a different interface to a gesture based system for electronic sound processing and synthesis. This project explores the ways in which musicians approach the physical interface of the instrument with their bodies when attempting to produce musical sound. Thus, each of the instruments is unique, but sound-generating software remains the same. Each of these objects is also a carefully crafted wooden instrument. Each one recalls the aged art of musical instrument making and takes this practice into the realm of experimental electroacoustic chamber music.

These instruments were given to a four person improvisation ensemble. Performers had a four week period to explore the sound making potential of the instruments culminating in a performance. A video excerpt can bee seen here. http://www.vimeo.com/3015548

An interesting phenomena was noted during practice and performance with these instruments. The physical forms of the instruments were not radical enough to elicit significantly different methods for playing each of them. Performance gestures seemed to be primarily influenced by the need trigger the sensor matrix which included an accelerometer in all cases. These gestures were all quite similar. There appeared to be primacy of the sensor over that of the physical interface (object design). Each of the instruments is small and hand held which may have additionally influenced the similarity of the performance gestures.

This realization poses a challenge to design instruments that will illicit distinct gestures by necessity. This “radicalized interface” must consider both the physicality of the object as well as the sensor matrix. In a sense, instrument design and consequently gestural design could become another compositional element in the presentation of a musical piece.

I came to Steim for a two week residency from April 16 to May 3 to further develop an ongoing project, begun at moddr lab in Rotterdam World Wide Wave, that is done in collaboration with Dan Wilcox and the performer Valeria Marraco.
The project comes in two parts. One part is the development of a recreational application for listening to streams or databases of sound. The idea of making a player came about because since there is a an information overload, the structure of the database determines the relationship to its contents. I was unhappy with the relationship I had with listening to audio archives because they were organized in list based databases. The aural landscape is boundless, anchorless, and impossible to experience in its simultaneity. The main goal of the player is to steer users away from experiencing sound databases as linear classification and fragmentation to spontaneous pattern recognition. It is also an experiment in mapping, by plotting radio stations on the globe their underlying organizational structure emerges. For example the United States of America shines brightly on the map, while Africa is mostly coastline with a few glowing spots in the middle.

The player has a simple point and click interface.

It is written in processing. source. [more...]