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On my way to Time Warner Center I noticed a newspaper article about NASA stuck to a hoarding. Closer inspection revealed more newspaper clippings, covered with very precise annotations, apparently referencing some kind of UFO conspiracy. They looked cool against the red wall. Click below for detailed pictures:
I’ve put online the video of my final project for this term’s performance classes. It’s a piece called Neon/Music, it analyzes the color and rhythm structure of video clips in order to generate music. Hope you enjoy it, right-click here for a higher resolution MP4 of the file.
Take care of your spiritual development, your A/C and refrigeration needs from just one source. (Take a close look at the door of the van.) Another year is over, it’s time for thesis presentations, end of term performances (pictures) and the Spring Show (pictures). ITP gets a lot of press at this time of the year – the New York Times has quite a long article, in the Business section of all places. I didn’t have any classes this term that involved making things, so I don’t have anything in the show. Instead, I performed twice, a video-to-audio piece called Neon/Music. I’ll be putting it on in Tokyo, most likely.
The cyclorama theater had its day in the sun! The Narrative in the Round class had been tasked with building this, on the 9th floor of Tisch, and a team lead by Caleb Carr got it set up. However, the rear projection setup meant that there was some strange distortion on the top edge of the screens, which detracted from the overall effect. I figured out how to correct the distortion, and re-rendered all the movies, so we were able to see the cyclorama in action (shortly before it was taken down). It’s an interesting experience – you can’t really appreciate 360 degree footage until it is projected all around you.. I will post details of how the cyclorama was built, and how to process footage for it on my NYU homework blog. Went to Whistler, Canada for snowboarding over Spring Break. Big achievement for me was learning to make linked turns – the trick is to look where you are going, and let your body follow your line of sight. Also, consciously trying to keep weight on forward foot is key. When it all comes together, and you let go of your fear, it is magic. Here is Whistler mountain in the morning:
It didn’t look that way later in the day… I have finished my final project for the Physical Computing class! To recap, it is a cluster of four lamps made with multicolor LEDs, each containing a bunch of sensors, a microcontroller and a Zigbee (802.14) radio. Gestures in front of any of the lamps are transmitted to all the lamps, and this changes the color of their display. Depending on which lamp detected the gesture, the colors will be different.
The lamps contain some pretty elaborate code for synchronization and discovery. I may eventually implement a full-blown state machine for gesture recognition, but for now, I’m getting some sleep. More info is on my ITP blog, look in the Physical Computing category. So it was late on a Sunday evening, working at the ITP lab as usual. It was the last night of the New York Blipfestival (a four day festival of video-game inspired music & video), which I was likely to miss. At this point, Rui said something like “Why the **** are we in New York, if we are missing all this stuff?”, so I put away my wire strippers & LEDs and headed downtown. Bubblyfish at work (click for more pix):  The festival was great! I saw acts by Saitone, Portalenz, Jeroen Tel, YMCK, Bubblyfish, Neil Voss and ITP’s own Tristan Perich. USK a.k.a. Portalenz, a young duo from Japan, put out some very powerful tunes using a collection of Nintendo Gameboys. Tristan played live drums to as an accompaniment to his 1-bit music circuit. I was struck by how much genuine musical & performance talent was on display. Some acts, especially Portalenz, were playing their little Gameboys and hacked-up keyboards like electric guitars, jumping around on stage and generally putting on a show. (Other acts looked like they were checking their e-mail on stage.) Visuals were also based on game imagery, and provided an interesting accompaniment to the music. However, they were overshadowed by the very bright LED wall behind the stage, which had it’s own imagery. I wonder if next time they’ll use a transparent display to have some extra effects come into play during the performances next time? The techie in me loves the thought of that. YMCK had their own visuals, coordinated across the video screen and the LED wall, worked very well. Another fascinating speaker turns up at ITP! Dustyn Roberts, an engineer from Honeybee Robotics, came to talk about her work. Her most high-profile work so far has been to build the Rock Abrasion Tool for the Mars Rovers, still operating on the red planet.  She discussed her current project, a self-contained core drilling robot called “Inchworm”. This device can burrow deep underground, without needing a continuous pipe trail or a gantry on the surface. It may fly to Mars sometime in the next few years. Dustyn will be teaching a course on mechanisms at ITP next semester, I hope to take it! I visited the new Lucasfilm campus at the Letterman Digital Arts Center, in the Presidio (San Francisco). Very sedate, conservative environment, with no obvious signs of anything related to cinema. However, there is one statue on the grounds, of Eadweard Muybridge. Here’s a picture of Amy, Nik & myself next to it:
Everything seemed very natural. However, it is all very, very artificial, as shown by the shut-off button for the creek that runs through the site. |
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