Visual Music: Ryoji Ikeda’s Audiovisual Data Etudes Turn to the Deconstruction of a Car [Videos]

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:26:56 +0000

Composer/artist Ryoji Ikeda has been on a roll lately, mounting massive immersive audiovisual experiences. His aesthetic talent, in crisp blacks and whites and SONAR-like pings above oceans of glitching noise, is in spinning operettas of data. The latest project, which closed at the start of this month at Berlin’s Kraftwerk, pulled apart the data from … Continue →

Cathode Rock: Kyle Evans Makes a TV Into an Oscilloscopic Axe of an Instrument

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:50:59 +0000

Pick up that TV and rock it, baby. While recalling a now-obsolete technology and the work of artists like Nam June Paik, de/Rastra is something of a (delightful) lie. In the form of a television, it appears to be a self-contained, vintage instrument. In reality, it’s a simulation, a CRT with “altered anatomy” that uses … Continue →

A Cardboard Camera, for IKEA, by Teenage Engineering

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:05:00 +0000

The folks at Teenage Engineering have teamed up with another Swedish-bred design house, IKEA, to construct about the simplest digital camera imaginable. I love their cheeky suggestions of features. This being Motion, one has to wonder – what would the simplest possible video camera look like? Jesper Kouthoofd, designer at TE, deserves credit for this … Continue →

Interaction in Thin Air: New Research from Microsoft, MIT Uses Magnets, Sound, Space

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:18:58 +0000

With multi-touch fully exploited and the basics of camera vision largely understood, interaction moves to the realm of free space, “augmenting” your world with gestures that find some physical connection. They surprise by working in some way that seems intuitive and natural, somewhere away from what seems to be the realm of the computer. And … Continue →

Beastie Boys, VJ Style: Benton-C Bainbridge on Oscilloscopes and Memories

Fri, 11 May 2012 17:39:58 +0000

We remember Adam Yauch today on Create Digital Music, with the help of Network Awesome. It’s doubly appropriate to talk video, as MCA was also the Beastie Boys’ filmmaker. Our friend Benton-C Bainbridge did live visuals with Beastie Boys. He remembers Adam by sharing, at my request, some of his visual work with the band. … Continue →

Painted with Video, Europe Finds Surrealist Graffiti Opening Holes in its Landmarks

Fri, 11 May 2012 13:19:07 +0000

In moments that would have pleased Belgian surrealist René Magritte, an ordinary paint roller transforms a litany of European landmarks with video “paint.” Roll on, and it’s as though someone has punched a hole to another dimension. This isn’t a post-production effect: it’s all live, via computer vision and projection mapping. The project is the … Continue →

Voltage into Generative Pixels, and Other Lo-Fi, Recycled Art

Thu, 10 May 2012 19:05:35 +0000

Today on Create Digital Music, we examine DeFunct/ReFunct, the latest installment of a touring (Ireland, France, Germany) collective working with repurposed, rescued refuse technology: Art From Trash, as ReFunct Media Makes a Symphony from Obsolete Gear [Videos] The group works both in sounds and image, so here I’ll echo what I say there in visual … Continue →

Piccolo is an Open, $70 CNC-bot That Will Draw For You

Wed, 09 May 2012 17:41:23 +0000

Piccolo is like candy for people who like robots and drawing machines. It’s affordable, cute, and downright fun. It’s going to be on your Christmas in July wanted list. How awesome is it? Let us count the ways: It’s under US$70. It’s Arduino-compatible. It works with Processing – ideal for drawing experiments. It’s open source … Continue →

Guiding Movements with Light: New Research Project Teaches You Gestures [Kinect]

Tue, 08 May 2012 12:14:43 +0000

“Natural interaction” is the phrase commonly applied to gestural interfaces. But a gesture is only “natural” once you’ve learned it. And as everyone from interaction designers to game makers have discovered, that can leave users confused about just what gesture they’re supposed to make. (Ironically, the maligned conventional game controller doesn’t suffer so much from … Continue →

Google Maps, Brought to Life, as Human Movement Occupies Digital Space

Mon, 07 May 2012 21:58:48 +0000

As ubiquitous in our lives as the digital landscape of sites like Google Maps can be, they’re in some sense private space. They strip our world of human beings (or freeze them in strange, invasive shots taken by roving vans), and put that space in the exclusive hands of private publishers. (Or, at least, one … Continue →