SIGGRAPH ASIA 2015: Ritsumeikan Contributions

Our half-day course on designing and building new expressive musical interfaces was accepted for presentation at SIGGRAPH ASIA 2015, which will be held in Kobe this year – not far from our base at Ritsumeikan University. It will be good to contribute to SIGGRAPH ASIA again this year. Stay tuned for more details.

Work from Ritsumeikan will be featured at SIGGRAPH ASIA again this year.

Work from Ritsumeikan will be featured at SIGGRAPH ASIA again this year.

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!

村山知義@MOMAK

Don’t forget to go and see the exhibition of works by Tomoyoshi Murayama, easily one of the most unusual and intriguing figures in early 20th century Japanese art, currently on at MOMAK. The show offers a fascinating look at the Japanese avant-garde during the Taisho era. Murayama was a central figure in Tokyo Dada (aka MAVO) of the 1920’s and a highly active artist and designer for his entire life. The exhibition is a rare chance to have a broad and deep look at his entire oeuvre.

From the web page of the Shinagawa Museum of Modern Art:

「20世紀の初めに生を享け、ベルリンでダダや構成主義などの新興芸術を吸収して1923年に帰国、まもなく「マヴォ(Mavo)」や「三科」といったグループの活動を通じて大正末期から昭和初期にかけて日本の近代美術に決定的な影響を与えた村山知義(1901-1977)。…本展は、1920年代に展開された美術の仕事を中心に、その時代背景を伝える国内外の作品・資料を参照しながら村山知義の宇宙的な多様性を紹介する、初めての大規模な個展です。…村山知義が夢みた全方位的な創造力の開放、沸騰の軌跡を検証する本展を、ぜひご覧ください。」

 

Info about the MOMAK show:

会期:   平成24年4月7日(土)~ 5月13日(日)

開館時間通常の開館時間:
午前9時30分~午後5時(入館は午後4時30分まで)金曜日の夜間開館日
午前9時30分~午後8時(入館は7時30分まで)休館日毎週月曜日
※ただし、4月30日(月・祝)は開館

‘Tom’ doing an expressionist dance.

Humourous sketch (1927) titled「母親になったモダンガール」