Category Archives: Intermedia

Play! Sequence

Play! Sequence is a multimedia installation for iPod Touch, USB camera, and VGA video display and TouchOSC, Max/MSP/Jitter, and Isadora software applications. By creating a multitouch sequencer that controls the playback of audio and video masks, Play! Sequence enables the user to simultaneously interact with the space’s sonic and visual environment.

The iPod Touch provides a familiar language for the user and for the nature of the tactile interactions. The user is allowed to create, edit, and delete three synchronous sequences of sixteen steps, thereby changing the evolution and the complexity of the piece over time.

Each of the three sequences represent a sonic timbre and color mask that mirror the user’s actions. With each sonic timbre, the user has control over pitch, rhythm, and amplitude. The color masks follow the sounds across the screen, repeating from the left upon the start of each loop. The masks help visualize the user’s tactile and sound experience by revealing the user inside the space, and each mask represents one of elements in the RGB color model.

Play! Sequence operates within the framework of natural human interaction, playing off of our curiosity and our engagement with objects that we can creatively control. The user manipulates and interacts with the sounds and visuals in real time, driven by the immediate feedback that the system provides.

Kinect-Via- Interface Series

Kinect-Via- is a Max/MSP interface series for composers wanting to route and map user-tracking data from the XBox Kinect. The interface series complements four different OpenNI applications, namely OSCeleton, Synapse, Processing’s simple-openni library, and Delicode’s NIMate. All Max/MSP interfaces communicate using OSC (Open Sound Control) messages and are performance-ready, meaning that all routing and system options may be changed in real time. The Kinect-Via- interfaces offer a tangible solution for anyone wishing to explore user tracking with the Kinect for creative application. The interface currently has over 1000 downloads globally. Note: Tested with Max 5 and OSX 10.6.8.

White paper (.pdf)

Kinect-Via-OSCeleton. (.zip)
OSCeleton application

Kinect-Via-Synapse. (.zip)
Synapse application

Kinect-Via-Processing. (.zip)
Processing library

Kinect-Via-NIMate. (.zip)
NImate application

Projects utilizing Kinect-Via-

Human Chimes. Human Chimes is an interactive public installation. Participating users become triggered sounds that interact with all other participating users inside the space. The Kinect mapping is using Kinect-Via-OSCeleton.

The Beat. The Kinect user’s hand and head movements mapped to filters, and at times, hand gestures actuate sound. The Kinect mapping is using Kinect-Via-Synapse. “The Beat” is a composition by Nathan Asman.

Juggling Music (Arthur Wagenaar). Playing music by juggling with glowballs! Demonstration of this new self made musical instrument, controlled by juggling. Also known (in Dutch) as ‘De Kleurwerper’.

The Goddess Re:Membered

Commissioned for the 2011 Fringe Festival, The Goddess Re:membered is a site specific work and multimedia response to The Goddess, a classic Chinese silent film from 1934. The interactive installation is for video projection, IR camera, Max/MSP and Isadora software. Through public interactions of users inside the space, clues to distant memories are revealed through the triggering of color, sound, and video masks.

[Coded] In Passing

In Passing articulates the journey of an interactive dialogue between performers, where the germinal communicative motive becomes entangled as the conversation evolves. The clarity and complexity of the conversation between the performers takes form through video projection and live performance. The unfolding progression of this fluctuating relationship seeks to draw attention to interpersonal relationships.

with: James Bean, Emily McPherson, Mark Knippel, Mike Stephen, and Katherine Spinella

Sonic Dog Tags

Sonic Dog Tags is a set of compositions I composed using programs written in Python, Max/MSP/Jitter, and Processing. My programs retrieve biographical information of fallen service members from the Department of Defense RSS feed, map the information to musical parameters, and draw complementary visual sketches, collectively forming compositions unique to each service member.

Download source code examples.

The above video explains the compostional process. For videos/compositions of the individual service members, please click on the links below.

Tramaine J. Billingsley, Carlos A. Benitez, Rafael Martinez Jr.

Jessica Ellis

Jarod Newlove

Patch It In!

Patch It In! is an interactive sound installation focused on illuminating the transformations of space through human presence. The installation explores the physical and aural transformations of space through the activity of the viewer. Prerecorded sounds can be manipulated by the viewer as well as dirt rings existing inside the space. Human interaction and decision informs the work.

The viewer leaves having altered the space in some way, however big or small, whether seen or felt, and they have viewed other’s alterations of space. The installation, once defined by the artist, is ultimately transformed, being defined instead by the multiple interactions of viewers inside the work.

+ Read the entire Artist Statement.

Boxed

Boxed is a sound installation about the journeys of shipping cardboard boxes. The work includes seven vignettes, or rather “boxes,” that utilize sounds of packing & shipping cardboard freight as source material. Projected from inside a box, the work fills a perceptual empty container as one listens from within this box to other boxes undergoing various journeys.

+ Read the entire Artist Statement.

Max/MSP/Jitter Abstractions

Below are just some of the documented resources I’ve made for Max/MSP. Hopefully these Max abstractions help save you time within this wonderful programming environment.

Jitter matrix grid – creates a grid of any size columns and rows (stored inside a coll) for controlling a Jitter matrix.

Tempo Control – interface for controlling tempo in Max. User can control tempo with bpm or millisecond. Includes a tap tempo.

drop folder – dropping a folder of files will automatically place files into a umenu object. Great for buffer/groove objects.

for loop – performs an arithmetic ‘for loop’ in Max/MSP. Sometimes line programming can be much easier than graphical.

data as table – displays data in a table as it is received, so you can graphically see the values of incoming data over the course of time.

MIDI Drum umenu – standard channel 10 MIDI drums list saved conveniently into a umenu (culled from Apple’s basic MIDI synthesizer)

MIDI Control – modular design for controlling MIDI volume, program changes, and makenote in Max. Each function is inside its own patcher object.

toggle message – toggles input of any message (number, message, bang) between two outputs.

modulo bang – user controls up/down integer count with modulo control when only bangs are available.