SIGGRAPH 2015: Ritsumeikan contributions to the SIGGRAPH conference

Our half-day course on how to design and build new musical interfaces was accepted for SIGGRAPH 2015. Unfortunately, I will not be able to travel from Ritsumeikan to Los Angeles to attend Siggraph this time but Prof. Sid Fels (UBC) will be presenting our course. Additionally, one of my video artworks was selected for screening at Siggraph 2015. ‘Soft Pong Inari’ with a soundtrack composed by seminar guest Prof. Palle Dahlstedt (Universities of Gothenburg and Aalborg) was selected for the ‘Enhanced Vision – Digital Video’ Siggraph exhibit and will screen as part of the SIGGRAPH 2015 artistic program.

http://s2015.siggraph.org/attendees/courses/events/how-design-and-build-new-musical-interfaces

Live Performance at the Opening Reception of ACM Multimedia 2013

A little more than one year ago, Alex Jaimes and I collaborated on a live intermedia performance for the Opening Reception of the ACM Multimedia 2013 conference in Barcelona Spain. The video below records part of the performance, but it was made with a small pocket digital camera, using the built-in mic, and I was very preoccupied with the performance itself. Unfortunately this is the only record I have of the performance.

It was held October 24, 2013 at the Foment de les Arts i del Disseny, which is housed in an ancient stone building next to Barcelona’s Contemporary Art Museum. We worked with contemporary dancer Laida Azkona and violinist Paloma de Juan who was one of Alex’s colleagues at Yahoo Research Labs in Barcelona. Paloma’s day job is research engineer, whereas Laida is a profession contemporary dancer who has studied and performed around the world.

Again the quality of this video recording is not good, but perhaps it gives some impression of the performance.

The next video is from the first rehearsal for the live performance. Alex, Laida, and I met at my apartment the same day I arrived in Barcelona and we had our first rehearsal a day or two later. We had two more rehearsals after that, which includes a brief one after we had setup and sound-checked on the day of the opening reception. Since Alex and I worked remotely we could not prepare much beforehand, though I had already written and tested the programs needed for capturing movements and converting them to OSC for controlling the video projections. The video clips themselves were edited at the last moment, partly during a visit to Alex’s home in Barcelona. It was a busy but exciting trip!

Tatsuya Nakatani Live @ Lyons Zemi

We had a really wonderful visit from percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and artist Julie Schenkelberg. At the end of the seminar Tatsuya generously allowed us to try out his instruments. This was a really inspiring way to end the term and start the Winter/Spring break. Don’t forget Tatsuya will be performing at UrbanGuild on Friday, January 18th.