Thursday, 24 January 2008

It's all Geek to me!


I'm researching tools that should help me realize my vision of a live melee comprised of body-based sounds and images (keep those fart jokes to yourself!)

Although there has been discussion previously, today is serious Day One on that journey. So much so that I'm unable to communicate what I've learned so far.

I will post links:

Object oriented programming software:
Isadora - http://www.troikatronix.com/isadora.html
Max/MSP - http://www.cycling74.com/products/maxmsp
PureData - http://puredata.info/

Microcontroller hubs, boards, something like that... (laugh now, but in a month I'll be looking at you as if you're a luddite because you don't know what I'm talking about):
Arduino - http://arduino.cc/
Eroktronix - http://www.eroktronix.com/

Here's my favorite quote of the day:
So if you yearn for an electromagnetic catapult that flings jelly at the audience every time you rattle your tambourine, or a USB incense burner which radiates progressively stronger smells as the temperature in the church hall rises, Pure Data can help you achieve this!

****YES!****



I just wrote, re-wrote, and deleted a paragraph of panicky apprehension about going down this route. I realize that I need to stave off the panic until I really invest the time to at least try to learn some of this because I can see that proficiency in this type of programming will lead to lots of interesting possibilities moving forward.

Next steps:
- try these things out
- understand enough to be able to ask the right questions to get the help from others that I need.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know if you are aware of his work already, but you might want to check out Tod Machover. He did some very interesting stuff about a decade ago that seems to not get much mention any more. He still has a website at MIT though. HIs hyperinstruments in particular are worth a look

Mz. Noodle said...

Thanks for the tip, anon. Would be great to know who ya are!

I'm originally from Boston, am aware of Tod Machover's work and have seen him speak and perform his work. Also Teresa Marrin-Nakra (sp?), who is at least a colleague if not former student? I appreciate the reminder, and will look him up again to remind myself of his ideas when working on his hyper instruments.

Recently discovered Pamela Z as well (based out of San Francisco) her work is VERY close to what I'm interested in doing. And like Machover, she was doing this about a decade ago! My only regret is that I wasn't aware of her work when I lived near the Bay Area.

I think it's amazing that technology has progressed to the point where I can cobble together something myself that closely approximates the body synth's capabilities in my living room. Of course, there's still a huge chunk of knowledge for me to process, but I'm really excited to give it a try!

Mz. Noodle said...

whoops, one clarification re. Teresa M-N. I meant colleague/possibly student of Machover.