What if today’s robotic technology could be put to the test in a one-on-one tiered wrestling tournament? How would a Roomba stack up against a UAV? Could a Google self-driving car defeat the cuteness of Keep-On? Uh oh, Geminoid was talking smack about the CMU CRUSHER! It’s on!
Opening Opening Opening! Come on down to see who will win the Colossal Weight championship of the world!
Description
Robot Rumble is a live multimedia performance where actors portray real-life robots in one on one bouts in the style of backyard and WWF wrestling. Major themes of robots and society will be explored through cardboard-crushing, masculine soap operatic action.
The event will occur on the opening night of the first and second year MFA show at Bakery Square in end of March and a subsequent showing will take place in the end of April as part of the upcoming Cyborg Cabaret show.
words become the shape of my mouth as I read Geometry and Non
Description
I was given an assignment to create a screen print based on the city of Venice and inspired by the poem Geometry and Non by Jennifer Scappettone (Actually, this is a erroneous amalgamation of various poems attributed to Scappettone, sorry this is a collage given to me as the *real* thing. Apologies.). As more of a performer then visual artist, I decided to create a piece of software that could turn a reading of the poem into it’s visual analog. This singular performance generated both the print as a PDF and video documentation of its creation.
On Monday September 5th I took part in Netrooms performed at The University of Nottingham Ningo, China campus.
Netrooms: The Long Feedback is a participative network piece which invites the public to contribute to an extended feedback loop and delay line across the internet. The work explores the juxtaposition of multiple spaces as the acoustic, the social and the personal environment becomes permanently networked. The performance consists of live manipulation of multiple real-time streams from different locations which receive a common sound source. Netrooms celebrates the private acoustic environment as defined by the space between one audio input (microphone) and output (loudspeaker). The performance of the piece consists of live mixing a feedback loop with the signals from each stream.
Experiments in balloon motion and sound using an MS Kinect depth sensing camera.
Created for the Carnegie Mellon 1st & 2nd year MFA Graduate show entitled “Fresh Baked Goods” at Bakery Square, April 2011.
Description
A machine stands in a room surrounded by balloons. Circulating fans blow the balloons over the machine which creates sound based on their movements.
Mode 1: Tones
Balloon height and x/y position control the pitch and panning of a treble and bass voice. The tones can be quantized into a certain key or a glisssando can be employed for a theremin-style effect.
Mode 2: 99 Luftballons
The playback speed of Nena’s 99 Luftballons is controlled by balloon height. The balloons must be kept in the air for the song to play. Feed the machine.
A simple Open Frameworks application using the MS Kinect depth sensing camera via libfreenect and ofxKinect.
The computer searches for my manboobs and draws a bra or pasties on top. Music is played when titties are detected.
I’m using OpenCV on the depth image. I look for a person-sized blob and use it’s centroid to approximate a search box wherein to detect 2 boobs. The bra or pasties are drawn using the centroids of these boob blobs. A third blob detector is used to look for the hand to change between bras.
The second half of the video shows a projection mapping of the bras/pasties onto my chest. This is all running in realtime and in low light conditions with a bad background. Yes, the Kinect sensor is pretty awesome!
Edit4: Now on Australian news The Age“… there’s been a spate of videos using the technology, such as this man putting a BRA on himself” (thanks for the link Tim)
Fellow student Luke Loeffler and I both presented Richard Serra and Nancy Holt’s 1974 “Boomerang” audio/video piece to separate classes at CMU. A delay line is used to throw Holt’s voice back at just the right speed to where her brain becomes confused and her speech and comprehension slows. She is filmed on live television as she explains the experience.
Pure Data
We made a simple Pure Data patch which replicates the experience. Plug in a microphone and headphones (preferably closed ear types) and give it a shot.
EDIT: The original patch was using a 100 ms delay. Later on I was told the original piece used 283 ms, calculated form research into cognitive perception, etc. I have updated the speed and, indeed, the effect is much more pronounced.
I took the Pd patch and then made an RjDj scene which can be run on an iPhone or iPod Touch. RjDj is a “reactive music” environment that runs live, interactive songs.
Install RjDj on the App Store and download Boomerang from the Soundtrips section. The effect works really well with earbuds, just make sure to turn up the volume. You can also make recordings and upload them to RjDj if you create an account.
This is a quick video documentation of the Ars Electronica Center Facade Terminal which I helped implement while working for the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz, Austria.
The Facade Terminal is a touch screen pc mounted in a concrete pillar near the Danube. Visitors can use 3 different applications to control the building: Pulse, Music, and Cam.
Pulse: have your pulse read and visualized on the facade
Music: plug in a music device and control visualizations on the facade
Cam: place a cellphone on the camera and play your videos on the facade
I wrote most of the software and designed the audio visualizations (with pointers from Lia).
On Sunday April 4th I took part in Netrooms [for percussion].
This is an invitation for a special Netrooms performance Netrooms [for percussion]. The performance was commissioned by percussionist Jonathan Shapiro and will take place on Sunday 4th April at the Staller Center music wing, Room 0111 (choral room) at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY
Netrooms [for percussion]
Pedro Rebelo, 2009
Netrooms [for percussion] explores the sound of a local percussionist as it travels through various acoustic environments. Each participant will set up a microphone capturing a space as nearby loudspeakers stream the sound of each percussion instrument. Please choose unique and perhaps extreme acoustic spaces such as bathrooms, concert halls, outdoors, domestic spaces, outdoors etc…
Participants will not be required to produce sound but incidental sound from the environment is welcome…
Tim Devine and I made 4 improvisations for the radiospotting project in Linz, Austria which is taking place Sep 11 – Oct 31 2009. Small radio transmitters tuned to 103Mhz are situated at multiple locations around the city and participants are encouraged to bicycle about the city with portable radios.
Writers and musicians collaborated on each space, with the writer’s text used as inspiration for locational compositions.
We developed and improvised 4 pieces for Pure Data, Roland drum pad, and electric guitar:
Zachary Lieberman and Theo Watson, originators of openFrameworks, an open source, C++ toolkit for artists and creative technologists, are transforming the 1st floor of the Brucknerhaus into an experimental laboratory: OF lab. The idea is to build a space where a dozen or so hackers, tinkerers and researchers will hang out and experiment, make art, create guerrilla exhibitions around the festival and document their progress and discoveries. The “OF lab” will focus on creating new works that come directly out of suggestions from the festival audience members, and over the course of the event, create a feedback loop between suggestions, experimentation, making projects, exhibiting the results and most importantly, exposing the process.
