jpb.mod is a Max 6 package with ready-made data modification modules. These modules address each of the five data modification types (interpolate, thin, offset, scale, smooth [itoss]). jpb.mod modules handle the modification of a one-dimensional data stream. Rapid prototyping is one of the core purposes of the jpb.mod package library. You may find the jpb.mod.scale object especially helpful for non-linear scaling.
The project #CarbonFeed directly challenges the popular notion that virtuality is disconnected from reality. Through sonifying Twitter feeds and correlating individual tweets with a physical data visualization in public spaces, artists Jon Bellona and John Park invite viewers to hear and see the environmental cost of online behavior and its supportive physical infrastructure.
CarbonFeed works by taking in realtime tweets from Twitter users around the world. Based on a customizable set of hashtags, the work listens for specific tweets. The content of these incoming tweets generates a realtime sonic composition. An installation-based visual counterpart of compressed air being pumped through tubes of water further provides a physical manifestation of each tweet.
This is a performance video of AUU (for eMersion wireless sensing) at the 2014 Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, held at Georgia Tech. I performed as a finalist representing Chet Udell’s eMersion wireless sensing system (unleashemotion.com/). The eMersion system is now commercially available. In this performance, the eMersion wireless sensors control both the sound synthesis (Kyma) and DMX stage lights in real time. No foot switches or third party help.
Thank you to Chet Udell for allowing me the opportunity to represent eMotion Technologies, playing some of my own music using the eMersion wireless sensing technology.
simpleKinect is an application for sending data from the Microsoft Kinect to any OSC-enabled application. The application attempts to improve upon similar software by offering more openni features and more user control.
simpleKinect Features
Auto-calibration.
Specify OSC output IP and Port in real time.
Send CoM (Center of Mass) coordinate of all users inside the space, regardless of skeleton calibration.
Send skeleton data (single user), on a joint-by-joint basis, as specified by the user.
Manually switch between users for skeleton tracking.
Individually select between three joint modes (world, screen, and body) for sending data.
Individually determine the OSC output url for any joint.
Save/load application settings.
Send distances between joints (sent in millimeters). [default is on]
Youngman / Overholt is a piece for piano and electronics, written in honor of my grandmother, Betty Jane Youngman Overholt, who passed away in early 2013. BJ performed the accordion and piano from a young age and had perfect pitch. Although she become completely deaf the last 20 years of her life, she taught herself to read lips, and she could still play classic tunes on the piano perfectly from muscle memory. Sadly, because of her hearing, my grandmother never could listen to the music I wrote for her, even while alive. The electronics for Youngman / Overholt are based on a 2011 voice recording of BJ talking about her husband (my grandfather), David Overholt, while he was in the ICU several weeks before his death at age 90. They had been married for 68 years.
Dictation of BJ’s voice
“You know, the older you get I notice, you don’t have as many either. Uh, highs or lows. You don’t feel all that bad, but you don’t feel all that good…it…it… e..ev..everything it just, you know it used to be, “Oh my god—aahh”, and then, but now it’s just all kind of comes… I find that with me too.”
San Giovanni Elemosinario is a music for film work that attempts to recreate a Venetian church through sound. Collaborating with architecture students studying in Venice, Italy, I received sketches of axonometric views, floor plans, column details, entrances, and other structural perspectives. Placing these sketches inside Iannix allowed cursors to trace the architectural renderings in real time. These cursors output data to Kyma, where mappings of data control oscillators, harmonic resonators, noise filters, as well as other acoustic treatments (panning, reverb, EQ, frequency shifts, etc.). While no impulse response was recorded, listening tests inside the church determined a ~3 second decay time, and helped influence the creation of spatial reverberation.
A huge thank you to Matthew Burtner and Anselmo Canfora, both of whom made the collaboration possible. Video/Music: Jon Bellona Drawing: Olivia Morgan, Alex Picciano
Great Speeches is a computer music composition for any laptop ensemble (10+ performers). The work may be used with any bank of audio samples, but these samples should be generated from a famous/great speech. The work was intended to be used with speech material from famous speeches and to be performed on the anniversary of the greet speech or commemorative occasion of that individual or event.
Great Speeches is based upon pseudo-random number recall. The many witnesses of a famous speech have various perspectives and vantage points of that event. The work attempts to magnetize these seemingly random perspectives into a new viewpoint through which we can hear. New words, ideas, and rhythms are generated through the synthesis of multiplicity.
The recording documents a Oct. 30, 2013 performance of the UVa MICE ensemble with 100 players using only their laptops and laptop speakers.
Confidant is a collaborative project between Jon Bellona and Samira Potts. Based on their diverse love of music (ranging from Townes Van Zandt to Adele), the duo began writing and performing kitschy, alternative folk, embellished with country twang and vocal harmonies. All sessions are engineered, mixed, and produced by Jon Bellona. Confidant’s music is available at: confidant.bandcamp.com
