Author Archives: mjl
Guest Speaker: Akio Suzuki (鈴木昭男）
Don’t forget that we’ll meet in Room 301 tomorrow. Akio Suzuki, a pioneer explorer of Sound Art, will be visiting. I have no idea what he will do which just makes his visit even more interesting.
Suzuki-san really keeps busy. Later this month he’ll be giving a workshop on sound art and performance at YCAM (山口情報芸術センター). You can find many videos of his performances on YouTube. Here’s a sample of a collaboration with Jim O’Rourke.
Soft Machine – French T.V. – 1967
Just noticed this clip of Soft Machine on French T.V. from the legendary early period. Pop music was really experimental in that era! Looks like they’re improvising. Check out the mic technique mid-video – could that be something they picked up from Stockhausen? Robert Wyatt’s shirt looks really Pop Art. I actually have a few memories of 1967: I was five years old.
What a great find! Just wish whoever digitized the video had known how to handle the interlace.
Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life
George Brecht, Exit 1961. Museum of Modern Art, NYC
I’m looking forward to seeing the conclusion of this exhibition about Fluxus as part of the NIME-12 events which start next weekend at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI:
Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life
February 25-May 20, 2012
Fluxus emerged in the early 1960s as a loose, international network of artists, composers, and designers-“led” by Lithuanian-born American artist George Maciunas (1931-1978)- that was noted for blurring the boundaries between art and life. Fluxus artists like Maciunas, Nam June Paik, George Brecht, and Yoko Ono, among many others, challenged the notion of high art by creating unassuming, often humorous objects and performances that redefined the terms of artistic production by demonstrating the idea that “anything can be art and anyone can do it.” Because of their disregard for traditional artistic media, many of the objects in the exhibition are-often by design-acutely resistant to conventional forms of museum display. Variously conceived as carriers of ideas, absurdist send-ups of consumer products, and invitations to direct, playful participation by the viewer, these works attempt to undermine the idea that art is separate from the activity of living one’s life. Through 116 works, Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life will introduce visitors to the study and appreciation of art as an exciting and intellectually rewarding experience, and to the notion that art is something that can play an active role in their own approaches to life’s essential questions.
This exhibition was organized by the Hood Museum of Art and was generously supported by Constance and Walter Burke, Dartmouth College Class of 1944, the Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund, and the Ray Winfield Smith 1918 Fund. UMMA’s installation is made possible in part by the University of Michigan Health System, the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, and the CEW Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund.
Kugelschwung – Pendulum-based Live Music Sampler
Kugelschwung is the result of a second year Human Computer Interaction project by six Computer Science students at the University of Bristol. These students should be roughly the same age as students in our seminar. The interface is simple but works very well and the concept is brilliant. The work has been accepted for presentation at NIME-12.
Motor Vehicle Sundown – George Brecht (dedicated to John Cage)
This is one of the events kicking off the annual NIME-12 conference, which will be held starting next weekend at the University of Michigan. Really looking forward to this and all the other exciting things that will be happening at NIME-12. Nice also that this performance is part of the centennial brithday celebrations for our patron saint, John Cage.
From the University of Michigan Museum of Art web site:
As the lights go down on UMMA’s exhibition Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life, please join us for a rare performance of Motor Vehicle Sundown, written by Fluxus artist George Brecht and dedicated to the American composer John Cage. This performance by students and faculty from the University of Michigan is presented in conjunction with the annual International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), and in celebration of John Cage’s 2012 centennial. Motor Vehicle Sundown is written for any number of motor vehicles arranged outdoors. In true Cagean fashion, 22 timed auditory and visual events and 22 pauses written on randomly shuffled instruction cards are performed on each vehicle.
The performance will take place in parking Lot C-2 on the south side of N. University at Thayer, next to Kraus Natural Science Building.
This program is co-sponsored by NIME, the UM School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, the UM College of Engineering and UMMA. Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life was organized by the Hood Museum of Art and was generously supported by Constance and Walter Burke, Dartmouth College Class of 1944, the Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund, and the Ray Winfield Smith 1918 Fund. UMMA’s installation is made possible in part by the University of Michigan Health System, the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, Arts at Michigan, and the CEW Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund.
Microaggressions and tacit subordination
One of the most popular articles in the Japan Times this month is an op-ed piece written by Japanese activist Arudou Debito (有道出人) introducing the topic of ‘microaggressions‘ defined by Dr. Derald Wing Sue in Psychology Today (Oct. 5, 2010) as:
“the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities, and denigrating messages sent to (visible minorities) by well-intentioned (members of an ethnic majority in a society) who are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated.”
Arudou’s article is largely ROTM (right on the mark) containing an excellent exposition and several good illustrations of the concept of microaggressions as experienced by non-Japanese residents of Japan. Microaggressive treatment of non-native residents is of course not unique to Japan, however certainly this sociological concept has explanatory power and should be useful both for Japanese and non-Japanese. This excerpt gets to the heart of the matter:
But microaggressions are also subtle societal self-enforcement mechanisms to put people “in their place.” For NJ, that “place” is usually the submissive status of “visitor” or “guest,” with the Japanese questioner assuming the dominant position of “host” or “cultural representative of all Japan.”
It’s a powerful analytical tool. Now we have a word to describe why it gets discomfiting when people keep asking if you can use chopsticks (the assumption being that manual dexterity is linked to phenotype), or if you can eat nattō (same with taste buds), or if you’ll be going “home” soon (meaning Japan is just a temporary stop in your life and you don’t belong here). It can even help you realize why it’s so difficult for the NJ long-termer to become a senpai in the workplace (since NJ subordination is so constant and renewed in daily interaction that it becomes normalized).
I strongly recommend taking a few minutes to read the article.
Danse Neurale: NeuroSky + Kinect + OpenFrameworks
This performances makes use of the NeuroSky EEG sensor as well as the Kinect. Visuals and music are driven by EEG and registered with the performers body using the Kinect. It seems their system runs under OpenFrameworks. In fact, I noticed this video in the OF gallery. The second half of the video consists of an interview with the technical team and performer.
This performance uses off-the-shelf technology but is cutting edge in more than one sense. No one can accuse these guys of lacking commitment.
A project page may be found here: Danse Neurale.
They generously list the code used to acquire signals from the NeuroSky server in the OF forum. This part of the system is written in P5 (Processing).
Here are a few details on the technical background of the work, given by one of the creators in the OF forum:
Sensors:
– breath: it’s sensed with a wireless mic positioned inside Lukas’ mask. its signal goes directly through a mixer controlled by the audio workstation
– heart: it’s sensed with modified stethoscope connected with a wireless mic; signal works just like the breath (we’re not sure, but in the future we may decide to apply some DSP on it)
– EEG: we use the cheaper sensor from NeuroSky; it streams brainwaves (already splitted into frequencies) via radio in a serial like protocol; these radio packets arrive to my computer where they’re parsed, conveted into OSC and broadcasted via wifi (we only have 2 computers on stage, but the idea is that if we have an affine hacker soul between the public, he/she can join the jam session 🙂 )
– skeleton tracking: it’s obviously done with ofxOpenNI (as you can see in the video we also stage the infamous “calibration pose”, because we wanted to let people understand as much as possible what was going on)
The audio part maps the brainwave data onto volumes and scales, while the visual part uses spikes (originated i.e. by the piercings and by the winch pulling on the hooks) to trigger events; so, conceptually speaking, the wings are a correct representation of Lukas’s neural response and they really lift him off the ground.
Important: New URL
Important: I have changed the url of this blog to http://zemi.kasrl.org.
Only a small percentage of the members of the zemi are doing work in the field of what I would consider to be “NIME” (= New Interfaces for Multimodal Expression).
Please note however, that the zemi is in fact in the “Technology” field of the Eizo Faculty.
In other words, members are expected to undertake challenging research related to image arts and sciences technology, with an emphasis on real-time, interactive, expressive multimodal interfaces.
My main area of interest remains NIME (= New Interfaces for Multimodal Expression). That is my major area of expertise and the area in which I am most interested in supervising projects. Work in this area requires knowledge of computer programming, or at least a strong will and effort to learn how to program. This is stated clearly in the official description of my seminar. For whatever reason, it seems that some students have the impression they can join this seminar without the ability or will to learn how to program. That is incorrect.
Thank you for your understanding.
Michael
StopMotion Recorder
This video is a first effort using the StopMotion Recorder App on the iPhone 4s. Playback frame-rate was set to 4 fps. Images were captured manually an irregular intervals according to the movement of the subject. The ‘Vintage Green’ setting was selected in the App settings. This app is quite easy to use, but by the same token it’s fairly restrictive.
Two more clips with manual, irregular frame acquisition and the same playback rate (4fps):