ACMC ‘09 Improvise

The Queensland University of Technology, in association with the Australasian Computer Music Association, is pleased to host the Australasian Computer Music Conference for 2009.

Located in Brisbane, the Kelvin Grove campus of the Queensland University of Technology provides an excellent venue for the ACMC providing flexible performance spaces, conference facilities and local restaurants and bars, all within an easy walk of the Brisbane CBD.

The conference theme for the 2009 ACMC is “improvise”. We hope that this theme will encourage new ideas and greater levels of participation in the conference. In sympathy with this theme we will be making some changes to the format of the 2009 conference hopefully encouraging a more participatory and inclusive conference. In particular we will be placing an emphasis on the off-ACMC evening events, which will be held on the Thursday and Friday nights. We will also be holding workshops throughout the conference and reducing the usual twice daily concerts to a single lunch time concert. We hope that the new format will provide attendees with more time to network and catchup as well as providing an emphasis on improvised and collaborative music making.

The website for ACMC09: ACMC09

We look forward to seeing you all in Brisbane

Call for Works
 
We invite composers and performers to submit works across the spectra of live and recorded contemporary digital sound and video production and performance.  In sympathy with the theme of this years conference we make a special appeal for works displaying improvisational and collaborative music/video performance.

Composers should submit links to MP3-formatted audio files or MP4-formatted video files that can be viewed online. Further details, including scores and technical requirements, must be uploaded to the online submission system. Submission types can include:

• Fixed media stereo and multi-channel
• Mixed works for live performers and electronics
• Works for digital musical instruments
• Works involving video
If accepted, final versions of fixed-media works should be posted on CD or DVD to the address below. Multi-channel works should be provided as clearly marked mono audio files in aiff, wav or au format - maximum 8.2 channels. Or alternatively on DVD media in 5.1 format. A strong preference will be given to conference attendees although attendance at the conference is not a requirement for fixed-media works.

ATTN Thorin Kerr: PO Box 2008 Kelvin Grove QLD 4059

 Call for Papers/Posters/Artists Talks
We invite the submission of papers 4-8 pages, posters 2-4 pages and artists talks 4 pages related to but not limited to the following categories:

Digital Audio Signal Processing
Sound Synthesis and Analysis
Music Analysis
Music Information Retrieval
Representation and Models for Computer Music
Artificial Intelligence and Music
Languages for Computer Music
Printing and Optical Recognition of Music
Mathematical Music Theory
Psychoacoustics, Music Perception
Acoustics of Music
Aesthetics, Philosophy and Criticism of Music
History of Electroacoustic Music
Computer Systems in Music Education
Composition Systems and Techniques
Interactive Performance Systems
Software and Hardware Systems
General and Miscellaneous Issues in Computer Music
Studio Reports
 
Paper presentations will be single track 30 minute talks for fully refereed papers and 20 minute talks for artist talks.

Full papers 4-8 pages are subject to a peer review process.

Christopher Blizzard showing off multi-thread Javascript doing video Motion Tracking, running in the new version of Firefox at the SoCal Linux Expo - more and more people are using the browser as a shell for various applications to run - i.e. Google documents etc - The possibilities for dynamic and interactive performing arts - distributed processing in telepresence performances etc is very interesting

there is more info on the development of the technologies in Firefox that allow these applications on Ars Technica

Siftables are an interesting addition to the interface design space - the talk at TED is embedded below, but here is some info off their site

Siftables
What are Siftables?
Siftables are cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. They act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them - piling, grouping, sorting - to interact with digital information and media. Siftables provides a new platform on which to implement tangible, visual and mobile applications.

Who created Siftables?
Siftables was created by David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi at the MIT Media Lab.

When can I buy some Siftables?
We are shooting for soon Our patents are filed and we are working to commercialize the technology. Check back at this page and the Taco Lab Blog for updates.

Multitouch Barcelona are doing some amazing work with large scale multi-touch surfaces

I recently bought an OptiTrack MoCAP system for the VIPRE lab - it runs over USB2, and is incredible compact and fully featured - I have been really impressed with it, both it’s reliability and features, but more so the portability which is amazing compared to carting VICON gear around. I am developing an Open Sound Control (OSC) realtime data sonification and analysis framework using this system so that I can develop realtime MoCAP sonification as musical scores for dance projects - see BodyData project elsewhere on this blog.

This is what they way about it:
Foundation Motion Capture Packages :: OptiTrack :: Optical Motion Capture Solutions :: Capture Your Vision
Setting up your own motion capture studio has never been easier. The Foundation Package includes all the building blocks of an advanced optical motion capture system. It is ready to capture natural human motion right out of the box. NaturalPoint has built the Foundation Package so that a single person can easily operate the system while capturing their own motion, creating endless possibilities in both the garage and the studio.

The Foundation Package is the perfect building block for professionals and amateurs, working in Poser or MotionBuilder. See our expanded Foundation Plus and Foundation Pro packages below.
The easy to use ARENA motion capture software lets a single user create advanced motion capture sequences, work with the data, and export in popular formats like BVH, C3D and real-time into MotionBuilder.

With the Foundation Package, individuals now have powerful motion capture tools that used to be considered so expensive they had to be shared or rented. Own your own motion capture studio for only $4999 and capture your vision.

As per a recent post, I am currently working on The Pursuit Project, a crazy performance project with a performance coming up this Saturday at Carriage Works in Sydney at 7PM. The project involves a lot of bicycles, most equipped with acoustic sound generation mechanisms which generate sound when the bicycle is pedaled. I have been working on some electronic additions, which involve a GPS tracker, on an Arduino board, sending data wirelessly over XBee Pro network to Max/MSP. The data is then sent out as Open Sound Control (OSC) packets to Processing to draw the screen output, and through OSCulator to Kyma for realtime sound synthesis in multi-channels. Here is a little video of the software in action

Pursuit - GPS tracking for Bicycle music project from Garth Paine on Vimeo.

Over the last year, I have been leading a project, working with 2 Melbourne based programmers (Olaf Meyer and AJ of Visual Synth fame), to develop an Open Sound Control data space for Motion Capture data, in order to facilitate the selection of data points for realtime sonification and visualisation applications. This project has a particular focus on the generation of realtime environments for the performing arts, utilising the motion of dancers as realtime controllers within dynamic multimedia works. The following video is a short excerpt of some of the development and experimentation that has been going on. We hope to have a drag-and-drop interface finished in the next month, which will allow the selection of MoCAP points and the construction of OSC message that can be sent out to sound and vision applications. We will then be adding a plugin structure and starting to implement Laban Motion Space analysis plugins to get higher order data from the gesture than the many data points associated with a typical MoCAP data stream. More to come in the next few months.

Unbelievable update to the Symbolic Sound Kyma system - heaps smaller, heaps faster and uses firewire or usb i/o so now you have heaps of i/o and a headphone send and a DPS frame that fits in your laptop bag - I need one bad.........

From the Symbolic Sound website.

Kyma: Products Pacarana
Most powerful sound design workstation on the planet
That’s what Electronic Musician magazine calls the Kyma sound design environment. Future Music calls it the Holy Grail of sound design. Kyma's strength arises from its unique set of algorithms, the ease with which you can create endless combinations of those algorithms, and the unprecedented degree of real-time responsive control over the sound parameters.

You’ve already heard the sounds of Kyma in films like WALL•E, The Dark Knight, Master and Commander, Finding Nemo and in games like Quake II, Mirror's Edge, Dark Messiah, and Mage Knight. And you've heard the interactive musical sounds of Kyma both on albums and in live sets by legendary musicians and producers like John Paul Jones, A.R. Rahman, Rich Costey, BT, and many others.

In 1990, Symbolic Sound first revolutionized the sound design and music software industry with the introduction of Kyma, a graphical modular software sound design environment accelerated by the software-reconfigurable Capybara multi-processor sound computation engine. The Pacarana is the fifth in a series of increasingly powerful sound computation engines designed and produced by Symbolic Sound to work in conjunction with the Kyma sound design environment (now in its sixth major release, not counting the hundreds of free updates between each major release). Symbolic Sound is committed to bringing the most advanced and flexible sound design technology to sound designers, musicians, educators, researchers, and creative professionals through its innovative hardware and software offerings.

What comes next?

A supercomputer designed for sound

The flagship model Pacarana is 150% the power of a fully-loaded Capybara-320 for less than half the price. The entry-level Paca costs less than a Basic Capybara-320, but the new entry-level model is 5 times more powerful.

Falling in love with Kyma

What is it that people love about Kyma? For some people it’s having an unbounded environment for creating sounds that have never been heard before. Others cite outstanding technical support and the super-stability and reliability of the Kyma software during live performances. Still others rave about the continuous stream of free software updates full of new features and synthesis/processing algorithms. And everyone loves the legendary Kyma sound.

What’s the secret behind the ‘Kyma sound’? The secret is in the software. When you have a supercomputer dedicated entirely to capturing, processing, and synthesizing sound, you have the luxury of being able to do things right. We don’t cut corners, and you can hear the difference.

The Delicious Library app, which I use to keep a record of all my books, CD's (well the ones with barcodes anyway) and movies, allows you to publish your Library online.

I thought you might find something of interest here

Mish Mash is some fun with a WiiController and a Kyma patch Mashing up a few samples (beats and voice) - live recording to disk - just mucking about ......

 

 MishMash [2:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download