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social sqncr is an interactive audio-visual installation that aims to make people more aware of the act of creating their public identity.

To create their ‘identity’, participants use their bodies to physically interact with a pseudo-musical instrument projected in a physical space to create virtual musical creatures based on their movements. The instrument consists of eight zones that participants interact with which influence the shape, movement, and aural properties of the resulting entity.

Once complete, the system captures an image of the participant to attach to the creature which is then set free into an eco-system inhabited by similar entities. The entities react to one another, much like human beings in a social network. Participants can cause environmental disturbances by physically interacting with the projection.

The physical movements required of participants ensures a high level of investment in the process, causing a heightened awareness of their creation, and thus themselves. Watching their entity interact with other entities is a reflection of their own interaction in their social networks.

SOCIAL SQNCR WEBSITE

ShredBoard is an instrument that usees the conventional keyboard and mouse as input. The keys z-/, a-’, q-] and 1-= are mapped to the notes of four guitar strings starting at E, A, D, G for each row of keys. The mouse is mapped to be used as an effect pedal. There are 2 effects – one that is sort of clean and the second which is distorted. Parameters can be adjust with 3 knobs to produce different tones.

The software is written in AS3 and exported as an AIR application. The sounds are produced in SuperCollider by sending OSC messages via flosc. I had to hack the flosc AS3 classes to send the desired messages to SuperCollider.

Files:

• AIR Application
• shredboard source
• SuperCollider file
• You’ll need to install SuperCollider and flosc before running this application.

Social Creatures

Nick Hardeman and Bruce Drummond, 03.23.10.

Social Creatures is an interactive audio-visual installation that aims to make users more aware of the act of creating their public identity. To create their ‘identity’, people use gestures to select a particular form and then interact with a pseudo-musical instrument. The instrument consists of eight visual zones that influence the shape and aural properties of the resulting entity. Once complete, users can name the entity using a mobile device, and then set it free into an eco-system inhabited by similar entities. In the eco-system, the entities react to one another, much like human beings in a social network. Users can use a mobile device to command various entities or cause environmental disturbances through simple gestures.

The physical gestures required of the users ensures a higher level of investment in the process, causing a heightened awareness of one’s creation, and thus oneself. Watching the entity interact with other entities is a reflection of our own interaction in our social networks.

Latest technical prototype, concept statement, look and feel prototype and interaction model for thesis.

Midterm Presentation:

Weather Tube Report displays the weather condition and a selection of videos from YouTube, based on the zip code you enter. The videos are selected on the fly based on predetermined search parameters. The weather condition dictates these parameters – which include musical styles and instruments – to search for suitable videos. The weather condition also determines the background color.

The name is inspired by the band Weather Report and some of their song names are used to produce the gibberish text to display the temperature and condition.

Weather Tube Report uses the Yahoo! Weather API to retrieve weather information, the YouTube API to retrieve videos and a database to store the search parameters.

Built with PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS and jQuery.

Check it out here!

Feel free to leave me comments, questions, feedback, bug reports below. Enjoy!!

A visualizer for Leo’s Room by Vangelis, from the movie Blade Runner. The visualizer was made with C++/OpenFrameworks and composited into a single still image. I created this as the first assignment for the Visual Music Studio class at Parsons.