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Hobby Laser and Materials Buying Advice

October 29, 2009 | Technorati | del.icio.us

+ LINKS

Circuit Schematic

Skycraft Parts & Surplus

Edmund Scientific

Rainbow Symphony

Dragon Lasers

Sunclan

Laser Pointer Forums

Photolexicon

Thomas Wilfred

via makezine.com: Lunchbox Laser Shows.

Bio Music; Maxime Rioux and Andrew Brouse

This collaboration between Maxime De La Rochefoucault (Automates Ki) and Andrew Brouse titled “Bio Music. The piece was performed at the (SAT) Society for Arts and Technology for the pure data convention last year. The build up to the performance was intense as Brouse attached bio/sensors to this freshly shaved head, which seems to take 30mins. Behind him a selection of Maxime’s robotic instruments and a large piece of hardware that i guessed did the brain wave processing. The piece started with Brouse – eyes closed and breathing deeply, then one by one the robotic instruments began to play, building up to the point where all the instruments were playing together.

A re-interpretation of Alvin Lucier's famous sound piece for human brainwaves "Music for Solo Performer". This interpretation was done directly from the poetic score, never having heard or seen the original music performance. Brainwave performer: Andrew Brouse Audification by Automates Ki: Maxime Rioux Video Production: César Saez Inspiration: Alvin Lucier

Interesting new sensing platform which looks great for bio-sensing

Shimmer Small Wireless Sensor Platform Designed to Support Wearable Applications
Wireless Sensors have progressed in recent years due to the development of micro electromechanical MEM technology. However, traditional constraints such as size, weight, reliable wireless communication and power consumption are issues that wireless sensors must contend with. Shimmer provides and extensible platform that allows you to overcome traditional hardware and software constraints through the following features:

Very low power consumption
Soft power switching
Small form factor: 50mm x 25mm x 12.5mm
Light weight: 15 grams
Readily connects via Bluetooth or 802.15.4 radio
Platform Features

Compact Form Factor, Light & Wearable Weight: 15 Grams, Volume: 50mm x 25mm x 12.5mm
Wireless communications via Bluetooth® and 802.15.4 WML-C46A, CC2420
Offline Data Capture – Micro SD Card Storage – 2 Gigabytes
SD data bypass 8MHz MSP430 CPU 10Kbyte RAM, 48Kbyte Flash, 8 Channels of 12 bit A/D
Open Platform, driven by TinyOS
Internal and external connectors for expansion
Includes simple serial command interface for Bluetooth®
Integrated TCP/IP stack for 802.15.4
Integrated 3-axis MEMs accelerometer with selectable range
Integrated tilt / vibration sensor
Integrated Li-ion battery mgmt.
Supported by BioMOBIUS™ graphical software platform

Available as add-on extension boards and accessories

Kinematics sensing – Designed for motion capture applications. The design uses a pair of dual-axis gyroscopes.
3 Lead Micro-power electrocardiograph ECG – Utilised for the capturing of ECG data
2 Lead Micro-power electromyograph EMG – Utilised for evaluating and recording the activation signal of muscles
Passive Infra Red -
USB dual UART programming dock – for programming and applications where wired serial communication are desirable. Also acts as a single SHIMMER™ charger
SHIMMER™ Charger dock – battery charger cradle that can charge 6 SHIMMERs simultaneously
Analog Breakout board to thru-holes for rapid prototyping – enables multiple analog signals to be plugged into SHIMMER™.

The QVicon2OSC — The SonEnvir project portal contains a link and info on an QVicon to OSC app.

Over the last 2 years, I have been working with dancer Helln Sky to develop an interactive dance work that uses bio-sensors on her body to drive realtime sonification/synthesis of sound and generation of images. Hellen has placed some video on YouTube, which includes elements of the first performance season in 2008 in Melbourne Australia, and a few video clips from a recent development period at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, in August 2009. Here is one of the clips from this year - all the sound is generated from Hellen's voice (she is wearing a radio mic), and manipulated using the bio-sensors in realtime - the images are also controlled by bio-sensing. Some background info is available on the website of the Australia Council for the Arts, the funding agency who supported the research.

I am giving a lecture/performance at Concordia University on Oct 21 from 12:30 - 3:30 - the event is free and open to the public

The Thinking Head Project

FYI – applications close Oct 30

Thinking Head Postgraduate Research Award
Performance Scholarship

PICA is delighted to be assisting Hellen Sky with the continued development of her work 'A Darker Edge of Night'. Garth Paine (UWS), Brandon Hur (Melbourne), Paul Bourke (UWA) and Hellen Sky will be adapting audiovisual environments to the architecture of PICA next week. Part installation, part performance and part lecture, Sky and her collaborators invite you to take a peek into the processes involved in the design and performance of their ongoing interactive hybrid work. This series of presentations called 'A Slice of Light' reveals the challenges and possibilities that digital interactive performance offers to the performer, composer and designers. It also explores the audience’s reception of non-linear interactive digital performance.

PICA would like to offer you complimentary tickets to 'A Slice of Light'. To reserve your place please RSVP by contacting invite@pica.org.au or phone David on 9228 6300. There are three different performance times, please feel free to confirm your place at the time and date that most suits you. Hurry, places are limited.

Season: Saturday 8 August, 2 & 4pm
Sunday 9 August, 2pm

Duration: 40 mins no interval

Venue: PICA Central Gallery
Perth Instiute of Contemporary Arts
Perth Cultural Centre, James Street
Northbridge

RSVP: On 9228 6300 or invite@pica.org.au

PICA - a slice of light invite

Garth Paine and Michael Atherton - SynC - performing Sonic Alchemy's at the opening of the Virtual, Interactive, Performance, Research Environment (VIPRE) at the University of Western Sydney - a new research lab established by Garth Paine over the last 3 years that houses first class 20 channels 3D audio spatialisation facilities, large animation screens - DLP projectors, MoCAP etc for research into interactive systems in the arts.

See vipre.uws.edu.au/ and vipre.uws.edu.au/tiem/

SynC performing Sonic Alchemies from Garth Paine on Vimeo.

Thanks to Jon Drummond for editing this together