TENORI-ON is happy-making
Animation, Exemplary Work, Interactive Design, Music
9/5/07
Toshio Iwai, interactive media artist and creator of Electroplankton, gave a solo performance of his new instrument, the TENORI-ON, last night at a launch event in London. Composer Gary Kibler was there and posted a number of videos of the event. Check out the clip below—there’s a very specific joy about this device that occurs when he creates a loop and then hides it to begin work on another layer. Creating a tangible rhythm out of light, and then hiding the light while the rhythm persists… it immediately engages the maker instinct. The promise is one of building music with smart light, light that’s better than light because it remembers and holds its state in secret while you go to work on another facet of the composition. Great concept, can’t wait to see where it goes.
Source: Create Digital Music
Update: Further reflections on the device from Gary Kibler: Hands On Tenori-On: Close Encounters of the Interactive Music Kind
Recollections of “Recollections”
Animation, Exemplary Work
8/28/07
There’s a wonderful reverberation in there. It’s the concrete floors that propagate it--reminding you that you’ve been welcomed inside an experiment, a work in progress. Even though I enjoyed the Reuben, it was carpeted, and thus robbed of that reverberation, that sound that came to represent a massive space filled with physically principled play. I assume the reverberation is still there, but I haven’t been to the Exploratorium in probably 20 years, so maybe one of you can leave a comment and reassure me that it hasn’t changed.
My favorite memory there is of an installation called Recollections, by Ed Tannenbaum, which I must have seen in the early 1980s. Standing in front of a large video projection, your silhouette is captured, colored, and added to the image being projected, in real time. The result is that your movements leave cycling washes of color, creating a hypnotic feedback loop between your actions and the screen’s reactions. (Ed periodically updates the piece to keep up with the technology curve.)
I remember being aware of the pixelation of the display, which makes sense, seeing as its resolution was only 256 x 240. I remember an indistinct realization that the colors were passing through the pixels—that the silhouettes weren’t actually self-contained objects, but data passing through a static grid. I remember the palette shifts that would change the whole tone of the experience, and waiting for my favorite ones to reappear. I think I was vaguely aware that the piece was running on an Apple II—the technology felt within reach. Mainly though, I remember just being really happy, and not wanting to leave. Yeah. Stuff like that would be good to make.
Thanks, Ed, that was awesome.
Image jam no. 1
Animation, Exemplary Work
7/17/07
Scratching the surface. What else belongs here?
Wiimote type animation: “Swing”
Animation, Experiments, Flash, Wii
6/26/07
Greetings, programs. I’m launching erikloyer.com with a first foray into Wiimote-enabled work—a type animation experiment called “Swing.” Swing lets you use the Wiimote to waggle your way through syllables of text. When the syllables are written by Kurt Elling and you put on “Tanya Jean” (Elling’s brilliant riff on Dexter Gordon) in the background, you get…
Swing is made possible by the wonder of WiiFlash, which enables Flash to receive data from up to four Wiimotes simultaneously under Windows. Unfortunately, getting your PC set up to do this is not as straightforward as one would hope. If you’re feeling adventurous, though, visit the Swing page for more info (and a mouse-enabled version of the piece for the Wiimote-challenged).
Enterprising folks may be able to find other interesting uses for Swing. Let me know what you discover—feature requests are welcome.
