Communikey11!!

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Opening Night at Bombay Bistro

Wow, it was only a week ago, but time is just flying by.  Communikey, for those of you who don't know is Boulder, Colorado's Festival of Electronic Art and Music.  Check out past year's festivals.  I've been involved for the past 3 years, and attending for the past 4.  This was the fourth edition of the festival, and it was a tremendous success.  My role is to act as technical lead at various venues and assist with tech issues as they arise.

Normal Ones and Jason from offthesky in the ATLAS Black Box
  
This is a fairly media heavy post, so please bear with the loading times :)  And there's lots more after the break and on Flickr and YouTube.

 

Pulshar at the ATLAS Black Box

Noisefold at DAM.... yes the DAM again

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Noisefold - triple projection

I can't believe I got to go to the DAM 3 weeks in a row for free!    And this time was.... cranial-y disintegrating, but in a good way.  In fact, I'm still processing some of the things I saw.  Congrats to Lindsey Housel for putting the show on and getting me on the guest list :)   Read on for some great setup pictures... I prefer to keep the pictures of the work to a minimum... the magnitude of the experience can't be captured on film, especially on iFilm.  Plus you can always go to their shows, or check out their website...

Cory (left) and David (right)

Noisefold is comprised of Cory Metcalf and David Stout.  I had the pleasure of working with them during their last performance in the area at Communikey09.  Back then, the standard setup was that each artist had a projector correlated to their visuals and sounds that met in the middle.  However, Noisefold has been evolving. 

Cory's two-system setup
(one for each projector)

They now use three projectors.  Cory and David both have their respective projectors, but there is now a third in the middle that can be a separate or conglomerated version of the two other projections.    Another direction that I am ecstatic to hear they are taking is the addition of live musicians!  While they did not do this here, (I'm actually glad I got the more traditional experience) I do look forward to seeing what comes from this cross-collaboration.

DAM TYPO! :: Tara Rynders & Maximilan Shiffman

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"In 'Typo', Tara and Max use text to generate movement, imagery and sound. 'Typo' brings together several disciplines in a dynamic environment.  Text drives the performance, controlling video, sound art, and coreography.  While 'Typo' is a technological performance rooted in its time, Tara and Max push the limits of text using it to communicate on numerous levels."

 

Golan's inadvertent contribution

Tara and Max were given the opportunity to perform alongside the Blink! exhibit this past Friday.  This is such an honor to be invited to help out and document, and I was very proud of Max and Tara's performances.  Max performed music and text that was both planned a improvised based on text messages from the audience.
Tara was able to interact with both a Jitter patch (framesub), and an installation by Golan Levin.  This interactive projection creates noise and colored shapes as you cast shadows on the screen.  The shapes are created by closed spaces, like if you made a circle with your thumb and forefinger, for example.  This is a very fun part of Blink! and was a cool addition to the  performance.

Ok, so there's a really awesome video at the end here, but you're only allowed to watch it if you read the whole article :)

A Digital Media Explosion

Well, the end of February and beginning of March certainly kept me away from my creativity time.  Fortunately, now that my employers are all on Spring Break, I've had the chance to work on some music, video, patching, and all kinds of art.

A sample from one of my Glossom collections...
I suggest you try it for at least give it 1 second,
it is interactive and is a unique concept.

My main goal has been to continue to increase my net presence... to I've added quite a few social networking sites to the mix.  Twitter (@iEEEj), Scribd (a site to publish papers), and my personal favorite, Glossom.  This site lets you create a collage of your work (video or picture or text w/ links) in a grid you must conform to.  It is a very interesting concept, and I suggest checking it out if you have any things you want to share on the microwebs.

Additionally, I've been making lots of digital art, both music and video.  I even overloaded my Vimeo upload limit, so I have to wait a week to post "Digital Paint : in 2 movements" (the second video).  So here are a some of the videos that I made over the past few days... I'll give some details after each one.

Fact of Life

This is a sound responsive physical and digital melding. The video is of TriLEDs (LEDs that can output any combination of red, blue, and green). They are controlled by filters that respond to the music being played. There's a little editing at the end, but it was just to keep the piece short.

... Yes there's more; I figure if you're interested I might as well just keep it all on the same page...

Sneak preview of Blink! at the DAM

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Blink! - Light, Sound and the Moving image

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the opening reception for Blink!, at the Denver Art Museum (DAM).  The exhibit, which opens on March 13th, is an exciting new media exploration with works ranging from the mid 80s through 2011.  A wide variety of works are shown including digital and analog film/video, new media sculpture and projection art.  There are even a few interactive pieces. 

The Denver Art Museum

Prepare for LED madness!

So I'm working on an art installation for the communikey11 festival in collaboration with my friend Meg.  It involves lots of LEDs responding to audio.  I'll have more info soon, but you can read about it in this blog in the meantime.

But since were talking about LEDs... here is a project from a little while back.  It is a digital flower using a tri-colored LED to project onto a drawing of a flower.  Coded in MAX/MSP and communication through Arduino.




Tri-LED Flower from EJ Posselius.

C3 showcase at DU

LED globes

I was unexpectedly invited to a new media showcase at the new Digital Media Studies and Electronic Arts, Media, and Design center at the University of Denver.  These are two degrees the university offers.  Their new center "C3" (Center for Creation and Collaboration) had just recently been finished and this was the inaugural gallery event.  I didn't know exactly what kind of work I'd be seeing, other than the work of students and instructors of the various programs.  I was invited by Synthia Payne who might possibly be teaching a Digital Audio and Telematic Music course next semester (if you're intrested, email her).

One of my very first UX designs from 2007

I found this while reworking some of my portfolio things.  I built it in flash... this is probably one of the first user experience things I ever created.   And boy is it crappy... but the loops are fun!

Loops created using the RC20-XL Loop Pedal during 2007:

UNA - Katie Key's MFA Thesis Performance

 

"Una is a trip through the shadows of our subconscious.  The audience witnesses the main character, Una, surrender to her demons as she moves through worlds made of materialism, emotion, and spirit.  Each world grows in abstraction as her journey travels deeper into her subconscious.

The overarching narrative is a dreamscape, yet each world shifts into its own style of narration from verbal, to non-linear vignettes, to singularly visual.  This is not just a story about Una; I hope that the audience will see glimpses of themselves."

~Katie Key

She Waded in Time/Tethered

“Tethered” was a special show for me because Maximilian Shiffman asked me to be a technical director and sound designer early in the process. “She Waded in Time” was an MFA Dance collaboration between Nicole Dagesse and Tara Rynders. Both contained very different scenic elements, but performers participated in both shows. This collaboration is definitely worth watching and reading about.

Check out these flickr streams for SWIT and Tethered for more pictures and video.

Communikey 10

Wow, Communikey 10 was a blast.  This year I was a member of the technical support crew.  I assisted with the planning and performance of the Artificiel performance "POWEr" as well as the other performances and workshops in the black box.  This was the third installment of the festival, and Communikey 11 is already being planned.  Other events I was involved with included the Lucky Dragons' workshops, "Make a Baby", D Numbers' "Chop Shop", performances by White Rainbow, Lissom, and a special guest performance by the eccentrically brilliant Xavier van Wersch.  Peter Kirn also gave a lecture about Processing.  You can see more about the many other events and performances on the Communikey 10 website.  I also have lots of documentation of the event.

'The Interactive Piano' TAM Capstone Thesis Installation

The Technology, Arts & Media (TAM) certificate is [was] a 21 credit hour program that the ATL&S building offers. [It is now a minor known as MTAM] It consists of classes on digital/social theory, specific graphic/web/video/etc software programs, and a Capstone class. For my thesis installation, I chose to design an exhibit using the building's player piano. You can read about it and see videos and pictures HERE.

This was an extremely interesting project that involved an exciting new blend of technology, music, and networking. I sent hundreds of emails to jump through all the red tape for arranging the specifics of the project and getting various permissions. But, in the end it was worth it, as I was awarded the 'Best in Show' award for the best Capstone exhibit. Check out the vids and pics (at the link above and the video below), this was a very rewarding project to pull off.

Check out Paul Hembree, Anthony Green, Hunter Ewen, Nathan Wheeler, & Matthew Browne

Thea Musgrave's Narcissus performed by Carolyn Keyes

One of the many interesting things that Music Technologists do these days is rebuild obsolete electronics using modern equipment and techniques. I was commissioned to help Carolyn, a graduate Flute student rebuild an ancient digital delay system (A Vesta Koza DIG-411). More information about this technology and a sound clip after the break.



Carolyn played into a microphone and the program would echo the sounds just emitted, slowly becoming softer. While I was unable to attend the performance of this piece, I have heard that it went off without a hitch. I learned a lot about the difficulties of building a program that can actually be utilized in a real world situation, and I definitely intend to do this kind of thing again in the near future.

Email me for more information about this kind of program or anything similar.

Using my favorite program MAX/MSP, a little help from a paper by David Wetzel, and a midi foot controller (Behringer FCB-1010), I customized a program that allowed Carolyn to change the number of delays as well as the delay length using her feet while performing. There was an additional setting that allowed a delayed sound to play continuously without any decay (until turned off).