JSyn --> processing

as tatsu pointed out to me, amit pitau has developed a set of processing externals called that allows you to implement the JSyn libraries. This is great, as it immensely improves processing's previously limited audio capabilities.

sim slayer

fun(?) simulation project I did for 534:

Sim-Slayer is a simulation of slayer's musical style. I took a bunch of slayer tracks from the album "Skeletons of Society" and meticuluously cut brief samples from each track that are loaded in to the simulation engine. The system itself groups the clips by a metadata tag style, which is set as either solo, verse/chorus, or riff. Based on those attributes, the clips are selected randomly and played in a typical Slayer structure: start, riff, verse/chorus, riff, verse/chorus, solo, riff, verse/chorus, solo, riff, end

LISTEN

test 2

use WSAD to move around (make sure applet is active)

press space to stop

hint: this is pretty hard

play

534 Proposals

I have a few projects I'm going to try and work on for the 534 final, since 2 of them are very similar and are group projects. All such proposals have already been posted, but you can track them with this post.

mobile media projects: w/ Kurt, Tripp, Todd

Location based Zombie Game

Patholog

Another project, to be completed in all the time I have...right...
Environmental Feedback Instrument

that is all.

zombie algorithm / notes

Rule Set for Zombies:

This is Kevan Davis's movement rule for his zombie sim:

Zombies...move very slowly and change direction randomly and frequently unless they can see something moving in front of them, in which case they start walking towards it. After a while they get bored and wander randomly again.

This is a pretty solid movement. It works especially well in his sim because the movement of zombies is impeded by building objects. We don't have these barriers, so it's best to think about altering his algorithm for movement.

rule set:

zombie movement:
- when humans are outside the radar of the zombie, they move about randomly.
- zombies move at a fixed speed towards the player if the player comes within a certain radius of the zombie.
- zombies lose interest if the player gets far enough away (outside the radius)

zombie behavior:
- zombie infects player if they occupy the same space (pixel radius of 2)
- zombies cannot occupy the same space (pixel radius of 2)

We need to determine the average walking / running speed, for a player moving across the location so we can program a reasonable default speed for the zombies.

here is a basic example of zombies following a player, with none of the behavior attributes (therefore, zombies cluster together - uggh):

Move with W, S, A, D (make sure applet is active)

zombie move test

Patholog

Project Description:

The Patholog is a shard of the mobile project developed this summer at the mobile research lab by Scott Fisher, Mark Bolas, Will Carter, Todd Furmanski, Kurt MacDonald and Tripp Millican. The summer project resulted in the construction of some basic authoring tools for the creation of location-based mobile media. In addition to the proposed run-and-chase model of the zombie university game, the patholog is a project designed to put those tools to use and develop engaging mobile media systems.

As a proof of concept, the Patalog will allow users to walk though the USC campus, and, armed solely with a GPS device, dynamically generate weblogs based on the path taken. Before they leave from their home, users throw a gps unit into their bag or purse. The GPS logs tracking points from the user at a certain sampling rate as they move through the physical space. As these tracking points are logged in a file, they are also cross-referenced with the content database to determine if the user has passed through a given point. Once the user is finished walking around campus, they return home and view a dynamically generated weblog based on where they travelled. This page created by storing points in the content database that the user has walked though, and then displaying content such as sound or images that are embedded into that location. This data waits to be published in a weblog format, displaying the place visited, content associated with the spot, and links that point the user or other web viewers toward more information about the location. The user then is able to annotate their experience at each place, and publish the path as a blog.

To Do:
- Author specific points along the USC Path using mobile authoring tools.
- Create a script that dynamically serves up the weblog and allows users to annotate text and images.

Timeline:
Next 2-3 weeks
- have backend polished and generating blogs based with fake GPS data and mocked up content
- get a handle on the best GPS sampling rate for the project (how often do we track the user's location)
Last 2 or so weeks
- Author and test system
- document a live experience using "video technology"

Participants: Tripp Millican, Kurt MacDonald, Todd Furmanski, and Will Carter

anaglyph recycling

Anaglyph Stereographic Image of a decidedly Yuppie Product Sculpture that I am more than reasonably addicted to. (on sale now at gelson's, must go buy)

320X240 image is here

Environmental Feedback Instrument

Description of Project:

The idea is to build an instrument that is more than a single object. The proposed system would extend 3 individual instrument objects though the use of feedback loops. Each loop is based on the input and output of sound or light, each instrument object putting the others in a state of flux.

Instruments can be used independently of the others, by tangible interaction by the user. However, this interaction becomes a subset of the larger, environmental feedback instrument, as the output of the object will influence the others. This affect may be dramatic, or it may be subtler. Therefore, the user(s) presence is both implicitly and explicitly acknowledged by the system.

Object 1
Input: Light (color tracking via camera)
Description: Camera as human eye. Tangible interaction: candles.
Output: synthesized sound, the dynamic range of which is determined by the composite RGB of frames in the video matrix.

Object 2
Input: Sound (pitch analysis)
Description: Cellphone. A Microphone tracks the ambient pitch, and outputs light information when the phone rings. Tangible interaction: 4 other phones will be placed around the environment, each phone triggering a different response from the system.
Output: Colored light aimed in specific directions

Object 3
Input: Sound (dynamics tracking)
Description: If room gets loud enough, a phone number will become visible from a projection.
Output: Light from projector. Dark if low dynamics, Bright if high.

Technical Requirements:
Environment: MAX/MSP/JITTER
Machine: Power Mac G5 X3 (for each object)
Projection: 1 (or more) projector (depending on if I can figure out how to control multiple projectors in time).
Object 1: Apple iSight firewire Camera, G5, Speakers.
Object 2: Microphone, Basic Stamp, 3+ Solid State Relays, new and improved serial cable, G5.
Object 3: Microphone, projector, screen G5.

Timeline:

4-5 weeks:
1 object per week (starting around now)
1+ week for setting up and testing in environment (lab).

random connection network

example 1 - visualization

mobile audio development tools

Developer Tools: http://www.beatnik.com/products/tools.html

Mobile Sound Builder: http://www.beatnik.com/products/sound.html

DLS: http://www.beatnik.com/technology/dls.html

RMF White Paper: http://www.beatnik.com/pdf_files/rmf_whitepaper.pdf

Beatnik Article @ infoSync: http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/1312.html

Sonify.org Mobile Audio Developer threads: http://www.sonify.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

TAO ISS Whitepaper: http://withintent.biz/aux-files/intent%202%20Overview_2.pdf

TAO ISS Factsheet: http://withintent.biz/aux-files/issfactsheet.pdf

weblogs as radical journalism

gift economy indeed. thanks for the link Cory Doctorow

a nicely thought out piece about the role of weblogs in the world of journalism.
Link.

interactively Storytelling - more updates

maybe I should wiki-ify this, so I can stop having to write/export to pdf/repost

additions: lots of stuff.

Download .pdf

It's a little long, I know. But if you get the chance to read it, can someone post comments? This is probably too much to ask, I realize...How about this. If someone even reads this post, let alone the paper, can you post a comment. I think my comment system is err...broken.

eMurge (590 pdf)

download .pdf

personifying virtual characters

a few links pointing to Netochka Nezvanova, n4t0's visionary / rhetorician / coder. she is made up. n4t0, or nato, as the less pretentious of us call it, is not my favorite. good art project if that's your sort of thing, but poor documentation made the whole thing more aggravating than it was worth. But it's worth studying, getting a feel for how nezvanova was so successfully fabricated. below are some sample links.

- Ny Arts Magazine Interview
- Salon Article
- Nato Artistic Statement, penned by nezvanova herself...
- Salon Article
- More Nato rhetoric. I swear, the help files actually looked like this.
- If interested, this is a portal to many more of these writings, etc. Certainly the quantity was remarkable.
- And just for fun, nezvanova responds to being tossed from cycling-74's (makers of Max/MSP, the software under which Nato software ran) max forum.

good writing

mind you, I am a nascent blogger. i have stuck my entire head into it, but that still leaves me playing catch-up. i've got the uni-case down, but the more i delve into the world, the more i realize that my position in the blogsphere will forever be one without a view from the front. just check me out on technorati - hardly someone to raise a fuss over; not a hub, and only a spoke by default. but as a wade through this world, i am constantly compelled, engaged, overwhelmed, perplexed. i want to be a part of it. i want those links. or maybe i don't really care. maybe i shouldn't want a part of it. it is a question of quality, maybe. blogs have a wonderful ability to bring people together. there are lively conversations between blogs that are completely lacking in mainstream media, and these conversatons - especially in the tech arena from which they were forged - have established themselves as a useful and formidable information layer (and will only continue to do so).

But what blogs lack is a writerly quality. they are, for the most part, written rather egregiously; hastily scribed and as devoid of depth as they are awash with hyperlinks. This, in many cases, is not the fault of the author (necessarily). The medium itself is frenetically paced. It thrives on the flow of information, and therefore cannot be burdened with deliberate style or calculated organization. This is instant publishing. I have switched from unicase, because I've been thinking more carefully - but in most cases, and I exaggerate, there is neither the time nor desire to search for the shift key. We are all prone. Certainly, the desire to get these thoughts 'out there' has superseded my own knowledge of the conventions of expository writing, and for that matter, an eye towards well formed sentences. Everyone knows that italics are a clear cut sign of bad writing...Now where am I going with this?

Certainly most blogs - and I'm careful to qualify that statement - lack a skillful pen, er. keystroke. Does this matter? Is this only the business of literature and traditional media? Perhaps. But as blogging becomes more ubiqutous, more mainstream, the majority of it will only become only more careless, and will with all probabilty, begin informing mainstream media. If I visit the New York Times online in 10 years, will it just hyperlink out to various blogs -- a super hub?. Will editors just become info-surfers?

I'm not sure how we begin addressing these potential problems - if they are indeed even problems. Sites like MetaWeb merge blogging culture with traditional literature, and Smart Mobs is the perfect companion to Howard Rheingold's Book, extending it in a sophisticated way that would be impossible within the context of traditional media. Such sites - and many blogs and blog portals - lead to conversations that are unparalled in conventional mainstream media. But as they begin to proliferate into the mainstream, will skillful, adept and calculated writing become a second-class citizen, will it take on the circumscribed role that I'll perpetually occupy in the blogsphere?

Hmm. that went on a little longer than expected. And that only means that the piece, if I can call it that, probably needs some serious retooling and rethinking. Complete revision is probably in the cards. But there is no wastebasket nearby, and I'm planning on finishing this train-wreck, this moderately pretentious and potentially misinformed thought / ramble / car crash and clicking submit. Instant publishing.

Smart Sensor Web

from geoplace.com via slashdot

Smart Sensor Web

THE MOST PROFOUND REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGIES ARE THOSE THAT DISAPPEAR. THEY WEAVE THEMSELVES INTO THE FABRIC OF EVERYDAY LIFE UNTIL THEY'RE INDISTINGUISHABLE. THE WEB IS AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF SUCH TECHNOLOGY--IT'S NO LONGER EXCITING, BECAUSE IT HAS BECOME PART OF OUR LIFE. HOWEVER...

A good look at the growing sythesis of sensor devices into one 'electronic skin.' the key to this idea is the integration of many unique 'enabling' technlogies such as wireless devices, global positioning, tracking, etc. The problem with these technologies thus far is that each does only one or two jobs well, but is severely lacking in other areas. e.g. gps doesn't do so well indoors, rfid has a small range, etc. the purpose of the sensor web seems to be to link all this stuff into a dynamic, fluid structure, in which sensors hand off responsibility to other sensors to keep the flow of data consistent. the project seems to be in whitepaper mode right now, but is clearly an area that needs to be addressed.

interactively Storytelling - update

revision of the paper I posted a few days ago. this version talks more about data-mining, and it's place in "what I like to call" the "story-blogsphere." How can we create community and collaborative spaces for telling stories over a network? The paper aims to be general enough to provide an outline for how we can create these spaces, and what problems we may encounter. It is also narrow enough to propose a specific environment for these narrative-building spaces that I'm planning to construct. Have a read.

Interactivelly Storytelling: Download pdf

stickiness in aristocratic nets

Stephen Johnson has an interesting post about stickness and it's relationship / correlation to narrative.

He writes: There is irresistible, itch-you-can't-stop-scratching quality to a Deep Throat narrative.

which he compares to the current Wilson affair. The idea is that this story is more sticky because it resembles the compelling genre of the detective narrative. seems obvious, but it's worth pointing out, I think. mix this detective narrative with the ever increasing stickiness of blogs and we have a pretty powerful potion. blog networks are aristocratic, but that quality may be of use for generating stickiness. this is a point that needs to be explored further, especially if we are thinking about storytelling over online networks.