CITYCLOUDS » Physical computing

The future in telecommunication

Andrea — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:34:53 +0000

Today i looked at my smartphone and thought about how this little object shaped our present from the early 80‘s till today. Star Trek is no Science Fiction anymore. So let’s catch a glimpse of the world of tomorrow how the Star Trek Vison will look like under our leading Companys. Nowadays we already say iTrek, but the next videos will show us much more.

Folktek – the art of sound

Lukas — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:00:32 +0000

A friend of mine recently posted a video of the “Harmonic Field ver.2″ which is the instrument featured below and above. I had to know who builds these things and there you go: Folktek. The artist duo builds lots of these experimental instruments in families. The different families combine different approaches to manipulate sounds, such as sound from accoustic sources, delay/looping/echo or actually the electricity that runs through humans. The Harmonc Field Instrument, for example, closes a circuit of electricity that comes through the human body and is therefore played by touch and with something that runs through us.

Here’s what they say about themselves:

Folktek is an artist collaborative formed by Arius Blaze and Ben Houston and coming to include the video and digital works of Drew Mcyntire (Big Pauper, Token Recluse Records). Folktek is folks, specifically artists working with a passion for sound as the basis for the work presented here.

We work with all arts and consider ourselves a part of a relatively underground movement of a second renaissance. We write books, bind books, work with wood, DJ, metalsmith, paint, sew, make lamps, music, ping pong paddles, boxes, digital instruments, film works, photography, sound art installations, masks and naturally we dance. Folktek is not a major company and we’re generally opposed to major corporation. These works are made by our hands and with our minds and incorporate years of study.

Check their website for lots of insight, inumerous instruments and images at http://folktek.com/
I would just love to be able to play around with these. Amazing work!

(an example on how to make music with one of these after the jump)

Here’s an example of how to play with the Luminist Garden (above) by Klirrfaktor: Folktek Luminist Garden & Modular System.

ReacTable goes ReacTIVision

Andrea — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 01:11:39 +0000

PWRT The Psychoeconomy War Room Table from Gustavo Romano on Vimeo.

I know the ReacTable is nothing new, but since last year it is an opensource project.
So it’s your turn to follow the instructions and build your own with your own specifications and desires.
On Vimeo you can see all the creative and technical digital output of the people.
So if you are into programming and you are searching for a new digital sound interface, you can build your on table.

channel on Vimeo

reacTIVision on sourceforge

Transmediale 2011 – Face Visualizer by Daito Manabe

Lukas — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 10:02:07 +0000

Daito Manabe came to Berlin to perform with his face visualizer i posted about before. Unluckily i missed the performance and i´m glad i found the video of his performance over at todayandtomorrow.

“The Face Visualizer is a tool which lets people’s faces move artificially in sync with music through electroshocks produced with the Max/MSP programming platform.”

Simply amazing work.

via todayandtomorrow

John Nolan Animatronics

Andrea — Fri, 14 May 2010 21:45:26 +0000

Check out the mechanics of these animatronics. I know these mechanical puppets are really creepy and terrifying, nothing for a sensitive soul. The spookiest thing about it is, that they know how to bring these object to life. But they also made a cute one.

Enjoy their work and
more films

Fine collection of curious sound objects by Georg Reil and Kathy Scheuring

Lukas — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:59:05 +0000

Things built with Processing and Arduino keep surprising me with creative possibilities. Georg Reil and Kathy Scheuring describe their project, developed in January 2010
at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (i was born in Würzburg, way to go!!), with the following text:

“The arrangement includes six exceptional exhibits from the world of sounds and acoustics. At first sight looking trivial, each object incorporates a very unique ability.The magical character of each object is accompanied with a little story, almost completely concealing the existence of technical components such as speakers or sensors. Only small connection ports as well as the uniform black finishing point to thier unusual abilities.In form and functionalty all these exhibits pursue John Maeda’s „Simplicity“. They are enjoying to use, they are surprising and one wants to explore and investigate them.”

See for yourself..

via geschoir.de / – openoutput.org

Tapetronic by Alexis Malbert

Lukas — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:15:33 +0000

Oldskool = Newskool. Alexis Malbert aka Tapetronic did some serious upgrades to oldskool tape players and appears to have some skills on them. He does live performances on these machines..
Find out more on his website - http://www.alexismalbert.com/

via todayandtomorrow

The Monome & Edison

Lukas — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:15:08 +0000

Evey heard of a Monome? No? They write:

“the monome 40h is a reconfigurable grid of sixty-four backlit buttons. Buttons can be configured as toggles, radio groupings, sliders, or organized into more sophisticated systems to monitor and trigger sample playback positions, stream 1-bit video, interact with dynamic physical models, and play games. button press and visual indication are decoupled by design: the correlation is established by each application.”

Musician and Hip Hop Artist Edison built this thing into a lunchbox and does some very impressive things with it. Chapeau!

via bassmusicblog