In a great example of video’s power to tell a story and send a message – particularly when embellished visually – design student Ron “RonConCocaCola” (School of Visual Arts) presents documentation of just how chaotic a single New York City intersection can be. There are some especially bad moves by cyclists, though motorists try their […]

AudioGL, a project teased in videos first in April and then again last week, is a new concept in designing a user interface for real-time music creation. Visuals and sound alike are generative, with the rotating, 3D-wireframe graphics and symbolic icons representing a kind of score for live synthesized music. The tracks in the video […]

Some of us move freely between the real and virtual dimensions, can make dubstep basses just by moving our spine, and shoot flames out of our hands naturally. For everyone else, there’s this. Ryan Challinor, whose day gig is as a developer working on Dance Central, apparently just couldn’t get enough Kinect hacking at his […]

Can editing sounds be as easy as editing pixels in a tool like Photoshop? That’s the question asked yet again by an audio editor, in the announcement of a new tool called Spectral Layers, seen in a new teaser. Visualizing sound is not a simple problem, but you can do worse than the spectral view. […]

In images by Benjamin Gaulon, Evan Meaney, NOSYNC, Galen Richmond, and Phillip Stearns, circuit bending – most associated with sound – becomes visual medium. “Glitch,” to me, is an incomplete word for this work, and one that can in some cases give the uninitiated the wrong idea. These are electronic visual textures, as raw and […]

The Swarmatron, made infamous by The Social Network, is just one of the crazy sonic creations we’ll be seeing this weekend. Photo credit: Joshua Sarner. This weekend in North Adams, Massachusetts at MASS MoCA, the band Wilco is gathering their very own music and arts festival, Solid Sound. It’s become a real oasis of unique […]

Circuit bending has a reputation as involving far-out, unstructured experimental noise, of real violence and distortion done to instruments. And there’s probably a place for that. But Reed Ghazala, circuit bending’s spiritual father and electronic practitioner, takes a more organic, evolutionary approach. Reed recently told me about his favorite application of his iPad, apart from […]

The original Walkman had two headphone jacks. (@OReillyMedia reminds us – and if you look closely, you can spot them!) Couples sharing iPod earbuds was an early sign of communal listening. So, how did the portable player turn listening inward – and how can you turn it back in the connected, Web age? Industry titans […]

All photos by Marsha Vdovin for CDM. Click for full-sized, gear pr0n versions. Print large-format, hang above your bed. CDM guest and photographer Marsha Vdovin joins us for a photo essay. Given free reign to choose what she wanted to do, she visits a Buchla module maker. Photos can speak volumes, and here the beauty […]

Electronic aesthetics have been deeply rooted in live visuals, but that’s even greater reason to explore materiality. Dev Harlan, a New York-based artist working in sculpture, light, and projection, has built a collaboration with the now-legendary Polish-born, New York-crocheting Olek (aka Agata Oleksiak). Olek’s work has included what might best be described as crochet interventions. […]