Interactive Music Blog » installation

RHYTHMICAL POTTIES

Every year, Personal organizes a music festival: Personal Fest, that attracts more than 50,000 people in each edition. A dynamic festival, but the organiser found that there was a place forgotten by everyone that was as unpleasant as it is in all music festivals: the portable toilets. That’s why they created Rhythmical Potties. Seven toilets with an audible device that was activated only when was occupied.
List of references used: creativecriminals.com/

16 PILLARS

16 Pillars is an interactive light- and sound installation which reacts to the movements of its audience. The installation registers movements in the room and processes these with the aid of special software. Within this software the audience is walking through a virtual puddle of water which they disturb just like a pebble in a pond. The waveforms that are created by this disturbance are translated into sound and made visible by moving patterns of coloured light.
List of references used: daanbrinkmann.com

ORBITER

An interactive sound environment by Vera-Maria Glahn und Marcus Wendt. The Orbiter invites visitors to reach for the stars and play their music!
List of references used: youtube.com

AUDIOCUBES

The AudioCubes are a collection of wireless intelligent light emitting objects, capable of detecting each other’s location and orientation, and user gestures, and were created by Bert Schiettecatte. They are an electronic musical instrument which is being used by electronic musicians for live performance, sound design, music composition, and creating interactive applications in max/msp, pd and C++. The AudioCubes are an example of a Tangible User Interface as well as an ambient device.
List of references used: wikipedia.org

BEACON: AN INTERFACE FOR SOCIO-MUSICAL INTERACTION

Beacon is a new and exciting musical instrument that produces richer expression when there are more participants. Developed by University of Tsukuba (Japan).
List of references used: youtube.com

PETER PAL | REMOTE CONTROLLED ROCKBAND

interactive video- and soundinstallation
video editing and sound recording: Valentin Dietmar | programming: Timm Richter

In the year of 2008, a real human rockband, called Peter Pal, was converted into a virtual remote-controlled rockband. All of the four band members are now sticking in a screen and have to play what the operator tells them. It is a little bit like the reality of music business. Hundreds of new variations of one schema are played, trying to produce a money-spinner quickly. In this installation it is the user’s task to give back freedom to Rock n’ Roll by breaking the monotony of repetition.
By combining Ableton Live and vvvv – a graphical programming environment for easy prototyping and development – via midi signals, an almost 40 track audio- / videosequencer is build. Every track contains an audio and a synchronized video loop. By squeezing the remote-control buttons, the user is in the position to decide which four loops (drums, bass, electric guitar and vocals) should be played simultaneously. The fact that the four instumental tracks are not synchronized urges the user to put in the chosen instrument in time and further gives him the freedom to improvise by hitting the buttons randomly.

watch documentation on nakedtree.org

MUSIC MEETS INTERACTIVITY IN LINZ ?

Visiting the 2011 ARS Electronica in Linz, Austria, I hoped to find some interesting works for blogging.
But this year I left the festival with a sense of disappointment. A theremin which can be played by the musician’s whole body, an interactive sound installation about the dying of Icelandic waterfalls and finally beacon, an interface for socio-musical interaction made by some Japanese students. The weather was nice.

BEATWORLD | DRUM MACHINE

interactive animation & installation
animation & design: Maurice Quentin | music: Kim Asendorf | programming: Valentin Dietmar

The Beatworld looks like a strange planet. A place where you can educe sounds from everything. Inspired by the operability of a beatmachine, this interactive animation clip is controlled by hitting buttons, assigned to the sounds of a drum set. To make it approachable for everyone, a groove is given by a pendulum and a selectable melody loop. The physical linkage makes the controls more intuitive and the design of the shell lets the whole machine appear less engineered.