Graffiti with audio tape instead of paint. High-tech graffiti is all the rage these days. Alongside various forms of LED graffiti and “photonbombing” with non-intrusive video projections, some artists are moving to the medium of sound. It’s not quite the same as the geniuses risking their lives to tag subway cars and long-forgotten tunnels, and […]

Musicians, behind the technological curve? Not when it comes to interface design: we’ve been consistently ahead. Little wonder, as digital musicians look for ways of making digital media more expressive, with centuries of physical interface design in musical instruments to push those demands further. In other words, Microsoft is up to something, and I look […]

Jaymis and I are out in Meatspace being visualists, leaving little time to, you know, blog and such. Here’s how to find us: If you’re in Australia, find a big rockstar with big hair (listen for screaming girls and boys), and Jaymis will surely be nearby. If you’re in the Bay Area of California, find […]

Jaymis and I are out in Meatspace being visualists, leaving little time to, you know, blog and such. Here’s how to find us: If you’re in Australia, find a big rockstar with big hair (listen for screaming girls and boys), and Jaymis will surely be nearby. If you’re in the Bay Area of California, find […]

Being an international music superstar means you can tour with whatever fun toys you like. In the case of Bjork’s new Volta tour, that means the JazzMutant Lemur multi-touch interface and, even more fun, the fantastic reacTable, a research project involving projection and multiple objects for a tangible interactive table experience! CDM reader Mike Cohen […]

I got to run a feature yesterday on Create Digital Music with tips for getting good gigs, written by musician and Chicago electronica scenester Liz “Quantazelle.” That story has in turn generated a lot of discussion on CDM and elsewhere. This raises an interesting question, though: how much of this advice applies to visualists and, […]

Live visual instruments often lack that … certain something. Other than occasional oddities like the Livid Viditar, generally visual performance instruments just don’t have the panache of musical instruments. The solution: pack a bunch of hardware into the body of a white-lacquered grand piano, of course! (What, that seemed like a logical leap?) As seen […]

Imagine every single piece of gear you have on your wish list. Then imagine a baby grand piano, lacquered in white. Then imagine — you know, for the sake of practicality — you want to use the piano as a projection surface. And sound system. And then imagine you just mash all those ideas into […]

I think we’ve reached a geekdom singularity. Nintendo Wii controller + physical computing + OpenSoundControl + Mac + Kyma granular synthesis = Star Wars lightsaber sounds? Nicely done, Matteo Milani! More details from these Kyma sound synthesis experts at Unidentified Sound Object, which also has lots of resources on sound design in general on the […]

I was about to post about Daniel Shiffman’s new MPE (Most Pixels Ever) Library, when what should appear in my Processing Blogs subscription, but an extended video showing more of the ITP lab, and The Shiff (first ever rockstar processing nickname? I hope so) himself talking about the project. Preface: If you love Processing – […]