From the northernmost reaches of the Eastern Hemisphere, we’re treated today to some terrific visual imagination from Russia. The OFFF design festival this year collected Russian work in a special event, and CDM reader and presenter MRfrukta! (aka Alex Frolov) shares his terrific reel for the event. OFFF2011 RDP View from the scene RUSSIAN DESIGN […]
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From Russia with Love: OFFF Features Russian Designers’ Motion Work
From the northernmost reaches of the Eastern Hemisphere, we’re treated today to some terrific visual imagination from Russia. The OFFF design festival this year collected Russian work in a special event, and CDM reader and presenter MRfrukta! (aka Alex Frolov) shares his terrific reel for the event. OFFF2011 RDP View from the scene RUSSIAN DESIGN […]
Tablet Scores: Avid Answers Our Scorch Questions; Bluetooth Page Turners for iPad, Android
Digital notation took a big step forward last week with the release of Avid Scorch, the first take on mobile notation from developer Sibelius. (It’s the first mobile app, period, from industry titan Avid, so it’s interesting to watch them go first with notation – especially as even Apple skipped scores with their first release […]
Playing the City: An Eindhoven Pianola Makes Urban Landscape into Music
Digital or analog, the essence of recording and production is the act of representing. One thing becomes another; one medium stores information about another. That representation can also be physical, tangible, and visible. In a sculptural pianola, Akko Goldenbeld turns the Dutch city of Eindhoven into a pianola roll, so that the landscape of buildings […]
Teenage Engineering OP-1: Hands-on Video, Thoughts from One Beta User
Teenage Engineering’s hotly-anticipated synth / music-making hardware OP-1 finally got an official release last week. Early stocks promptly sold out, but new waves of deliveries should refresh availability. We’ll have more from TE on the launch and the instrument soon. In the meantime, you can thank early-adopter Ludwig Mueller for being brave enough to post […]
Sleight of Hand with Screens, iPod Magic, and Marco's Ruminations on the Power of Deception
Techno-wizardry and eye candy aside, make no mistake: as artists, we engage every day the essence of truth and deception. So, while magician Marco Tempest’s hands are fleet, his magician-trained choreography slick, and his coordinated mobile screens impressive, it’s the message behind the medium that’s most poignant. To me, at least, Marco has something to […]
Sleight of Hand with Screens, iPod Magic, and Marco’s Ruminations on the Power of Deception
Techno-wizardry and eye candy aside, make no mistake: as artists, we engage every day the essence of truth and deception. So, while magician Marco Tempest’s hands are fleet, his magician-trained choreography slick, and his coordinated mobile screens impressive, it’s the message behind the medium that’s most poignant. To me, at least, Marco has something to […]
An Orchestra of Lightbulbs Makes a Canopy for Theatrical Performance, in Cinder Code
Drawing from historical lightbulbs, powered by creative code (the open source, C++ tool Cinder), “So… I was at a party last night” is a symphony in responsive electric lights. The reactive portion is relatively simple – sound analysis switches lights off and on in clusters – but the objects themselves move to the fore. The […]
A Glimpse of the Soundplane Controller, Innovative Tactile Multi-Touch, in the Lab; Call to Action
Alder Soundplane prototype with blanks of reclaimed redwood and Doug Fir. Photo by Randy Jones; used by permission. On tablets, on displays, multi-touch control these days is calibrated largely as a software interface – more Starship Enterprise panel than violin. As such, it works well for production tools and exploring compositional ideas. But it falls […]
Madrona’s Randy Jones on Aalto Soft Synth, Designing a New Instrument, Small Makers
Patching together unique sounds on the classic Buchla 100 was an impetus for a new software instrument by Randy Jones – just released for Windows. Photo (CC-BY) guiltyx/roll_initiative. Software can easily enough emulate, down to each knob and patch cord, a vintage synthesizer. But can a genuinely new software synth incorporate the ideas about instrument […]