MAX/MSP/JITTER FULL WEEK INTENSIVE COURSE

CLASSES: JUNE 23 - 27
INSTRUCTORS: Dafna Naphtali / Zachary Seldess / Hans Tammen

Day 1 - The Basics: Objects vs. messages vs. comments; ordering of operations; math in Max; scaling and mapping ranges of numbers; playing sound files.
Day 2 - Basics of modular programming; live audio input; recording sound files; simple data storage.
Day 3 - Controlled chaos; useful GUI objects; more data storage; basics of synthesis.
Day 4: Interfacing with the outside world. Overview of MIDI, the HI object (game controllers), Wii controller, the Harvestworks Sensor Station, using a Wacom tablet. Wireless Miditron. Data storage.
Day 5: Introduction to Jitter: Jitter matrix; basic matrix processing; playing and basic manipulation of QuickTime movies; basics of Open GL.

Reid Farrington Presents : THE PASSION PROJECT
PERFORMANCE: June 19 - July 19 2008 $20 8pm
3LD Art & Technology Center
www.3LDNYC.org

80 Greenwich Street

THE PASSION PROJECT is spun from the reels of the last great silent film, Carl Th. Dreyer's 1928 masterpiece, "The Passion of Joan of Arc".

With support from
the Danish film Institute and The University of Copenhagen, this performance installation includes every frame Dreyer shot in relationship to the film, including the reels that -- like Joan herself -- were lost to fire.

THE PASSION PROJECT explodes the film into the three dimensions; placing the audience inside the film, sitting next Joan, subjecting them to her interrogators and the relentless rhythm of 30 mm film projection. Using a single live actor and multiple projection surfaces, THE PASSION PROJECT explores the intersection of performance and and film. It uses Dreyer's classic film as the main narrative along with the history behind the making of the film, a discussion with a Danish archivist, the story of making this project, and Joan's story; her trial, torture, and execution.

Directed by Reid Farrington

Performed by Shelley Kay
Costumes by Sara Jeanne Asselin

Set by Janet D. Clancy

and dramaturgy / technical assistance by Stephen O'Connell and Austin Guest.

THE PASSION PROJECT will have its official premiere at PS 122 in the fall.

Troika Ranch offers three workshops in 2008 in NYC.
CLASSES:

June 14-18, MIMA (for moving image media artists)
June 23-27, June 30-July 4, Live-I (for performing artists)
October 25-29, MIMA (for moving image media artists)

MIMA workshops use technological tools developed by Troika Ranch primarily focusing on Coniglio's Isadora® software, a graphic programming environment that provides interactive control over digital media, with special emphasis on the real-time manipulation of digital video. The participants learn to use their movements and vocalizations to interactively control computer-based media, such as sound synthesizers, video playback devices and theatrical lighting.
The Live-I workshop is a two-week intensive for performing artists. Once the technological
tools have been demonstrated, the students are lead through a series of games, discussions and experiments related to the integration of media in live performance. Under the guidance of the instructors, the participants have time to work on creative studies of their own.

I've been getting into my research into second life during my recent times at DPI. I first saw a presentation about second life back in the beginning of 2006, when someone from Linden Labs came to NYU.  I was pretty amazed by it then, but have never spent time there until now, mainly because of my natural disinclination to spend (even) more time looking at screens, and also because I find that 3D aesthetic to be tough going.

But I've been in there, hanging out, dancing, chatting, staring around stupidly and flying for no reason - the things that a newbie does in SL, I guess. As I guessed, there seem to be very few non-humanoid avatars. In fact, it's more like going to a halloween party in LA.  Many people look like they've had cosmetic surgery, and most have some kind of 'sexy' costume.  This is probably good for my portrait project, because it's going to be easier for a stylist to convincingly dress someone up as a gothic vampire than a blue frog, or whatever. 

My avatar is a fox.  Simply because this was the sole non-human option on offer on arrival in SL. Screw it - I'm already human in RL.

Anyway, so far I've been to a dance club, a British theme pub, a New Moon Ritual, a new age church and a rather serious artists discussion group.  I've been very interested to observe my own familiar reactions to group social situations, even though I'm not even in the room... 

CALL FOR ENTRIES
DEADLINE: JUNE 16 2008

Founded by artists in 1977, Harvestworks Digital Media Center has helped a generation of artists create new works using technology. The Center invites artists to submit videos of all types (experimental, animation, music video, documentary, silent, short, etc) for a guest curated video art festival. Works selected from this call, as well as by private invitation, will be featured in a series of themed screenings in September 2008.

The festival's main objective is to highlight inventive and visually rich video created in the twenty-first century. Though this solicitation is truly broad, we are especially interested in highlighting the following:

1. A theme program exploring the notion of façade (i.e. architecturally or in the sense of superficial appearance or illusion).
2. Videos exploring food, agriculture, and/or the environment.
3. Videos with a strong music or sound component; audiovisual collaborations.
4. Silent video works.
5. Videos made especially for viewing via the Web and/or mobile handheld device.

A couple of weeks ago we had a great time at the IMNOTLOST : Fake Puppet Science Fair where former resident Kate Brehm showed a section of here Science Fiction Puppetry piece Do You Copy.

I'm pleased to tell you that Steve, the puppet / main character is doing well, and that rehearsals are much less confusing for me now that he's not named Hal. "Do You Copy" was formerly named "My Name is Hal" and thus the main character was 'Hal'. Though I have to say he was never meant to be me, and I have never been sucked into my TV.

Anyway Kate has provided some photos of the science fair, and the except from the puppet show on Flickr.

I'm glad to see that she got a good shot of my FX-ray device, (Fake X-ray, or Effects-Ray) which was my fun contribution to the science fair.

Homecoming, HERE moves back into it's updated and perminant home.
EVENT: June 16

HERE Arts Center’s re-opening gala benefit @ HERE's brand new space

• A snazzy cocktail reception with the benefit committee
• Sexy selections from the new collaboration between Dream Music Puppetry Program director Basil Twist and legendary chanteuse Joey Arias, Arias With A Twist
• A live auction of fantabulous items conducted by longtime Christie's auctioneer Stephanie Landess
• Star-studded highlights from HERE's Obie Award-winning Artist Residency Program including: Taylor Mac’s THE YOUNG LADIES OF..., Corey Dargel'sREMOVABLE PARTS, Eve Ensler's THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, Young Jean Lee's SONGS OF THE DRAGONS FLYING TO HEAVEN, on a program emceed by Justin Bond
• A swank party with DJ Johnny Dynell, open bar, fancy finger food, and environmental performances throughout the building

$1000 & $500 tickets:

6:30 VIP Cocktails
7:30 Arias With A Twist
8:30 Auction
8:45 Resident Artist Highlights
9:00 DJ Party

$1000 ticket buyers take
home a special gift!

$250 tickets:
7:30 Cocktails
8:30 Auction
8:45 Resident Artist Highlights
9:00 DJ Party

$100 tickets:
8:30 Cocktails
9:00 DJ Party

http://www.makenyc2.org/
EVENT:
Part 1: un-Maker Faire, Part 2: Show-and-Tell (w/ Prizes)
May 28, 2008 - 7:00 p.m.
171-69 46 Ave (meeting hosted by Big Apple Hobbies)

More warning this time.

Learn to put things together by taking things apart!
They suggest brining bloken electronics or toys, and well, if you have a tendancy to take things apart then you're likely to have some.

Basic Assembly
PERFORMANCE: May 29th-31st 8PM $15.00

Bar and Game Lounge opens at 7:15pm

The Chocolate Factory
5-49 49th Avenue, L.I.C.
212.352.3101 

Created in the spirit of infinite play, "Game On" is a performance
installation of iteration and permutation. With the four players seated in
the center of the space, video cabaret tables and wall projections offer the
audience an array of perspectives on the evolving gameplay. Come early and
play in our bar and game lounge.

Thursday night's performance is FREE for Queens residents (sponsored by Con
Edison)! 

Created, designed, and performed by:
Benjamin Asriel
Ashleigh Leite
Joe Levasseur
Keith Skretch
Lighting by: Carrie Wood
Costumes by: Ásta Hostetter

A long weekend at DPI saw me get some sensors up on the grid. I'm using 3 IIDC firewire cameras made by Imaging Source. All three of them are sensing presence. Two of them are tracking motion, and drawing trails that follow where people walk through the space,and one of them is both sensing presence and switching into live feed display when it 'sees' someone in a specific place.

All of this is being done through background subtraction with using a running average.  ie, if there is a change in environmental lighting it will be incorporated into the background and therefore ignored.

Anyway, it was the first time I hooked up the whole system that's installing at the Liberty Science Center, including optical repeater, etc, so it was great that everything worked.

Hal mentioned that I should post about the ease of using multiple IIDC cameras in Jitter, so here you go:  it's easy.  I am grabbing frames at low resolutions - either 160 x120, or 320 x 240, and at that low res I am getting three live feeds into the single firewire bus on my macbook pro (via a firewire hub).  I haven't tried higher res, because I haven't needed to, but I'll post back if I find the time to push up the limitations.

Tracking from one camera to another was going fairly well, but the use of wide-angle lenses wasn't helpful...   with the subtraction I'm using, white t-shirts were a problem, and so when people were distorted at the edge of the field of view, they were split into two 'blobs' by the blob detection. But when they were in the center of the camera's field of view (just being viewed from top down, bird's-eye view), they were just seen as a single blob. 

DPI:

There are a lot of titles for using media on stage, and a lot of titles for those who design or produce it.

What terms do you use/like/hate?

Hal Eagar:

I really like the European term 'Beamer' instead of 'Projector', it sounds better, and is more evocative and descriptive to me of the way a 'projector' is used.

"New Media on Stage" is one term I tried to use, but it does not really seem to strike a chord with anyone, and it's a little long an awkward to slip into conversation.

I also struggle for a good term for Live / Real-time / dynamic. Because all those words have to many other meanings. And what is real and now vs. canned / recorded or planed is a spectrum not a dividing line. For instance the actors are 'really' live, but what they say, and even where they go on stage is all pre planed.

So what is more live about a 'live' camera feed then a movie clip? Or VR 3D vs. animations as QuickTime files vs. DVD's. But there is a difference, and I am always struggling to get to the more 'live' send of the spectrum.

But the term is a problem. The media is not living in traditional terms. Though to get it to live in artistic terms is the objective. And TV news has totally eroded the meaning of live anyway; they do all these 'live' feeds where nothing is happening live. And the whole thing is pre scripted.
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DPI:

How long have you been doing video for theatre?

Hal Eagar:

Since 1995 however long that makes it today, 13 years. My senior thesis project at Purchase College is where I finally got to put two of the things I was excited about and seemed to be good at together, theatre and computers. It was "multi-media" back then, and the web was very new, we had to use UNIX systems to run Mosaic in X. I mean I was doing CD-ROM stuff, but that was not "live" enough for me. I figured the internet and VR were way more appropriate for theatrical use. We did use a little 3D VR in that show too.
I have a list of the theatre work I've done on my website that update speratically.

Mallory and I have reached our first checkpoint in the Oh What War video system development. To the anachronistic surveillance system, I have added the following features:

-Detritus selector: This is a jpg player that inserts 'detritus' jpgs (pre-selected war themed paraphernalia; and sometimes not*) into the inter channel distortion. The idea is that like a 'radio tooth' our system is picking up some not-necessarily-random static. The selectors flash each detritus image for 1/10th of a second- however the detritus (when it is on) lasts for a full second- so while you might not be able to name/recognize/remember all the images (they appear on top of a wobbly scramble) you certainly realize that you saw something. Not like we need any more subliminal garbage!

HOWEVER I read somewhere recently that narcissists are more likely to read meaning into random symbols in their lives... Is our system a narcissist? (Just like mommy?) Before we get totally way off course- I am just injecting the words from the script as images in the interstices. There are: tanks, scribbles, sausages, rib cages... sometimes thematically: severed arms, severed heads, severed legs, severed torsos. And then linguistically (homo-nyms/phones) a spade, a spade, a spade... an idea stolen from more than one poet.

Since there are so many landscapes in the monitors/ afterall, the system is keeping an eye on the landscapes in the four directions, therefore there must be an instrument for digging into them.

stay tuned to hear about the unfortunate

-Singing/talking faceless man: our World War I pacman

Zbigniew

I'm the assistant director
on S.O.S. and high-tech staging is new to me. S.O.S. is the first production I've worked on that privileges video and still requires
a lot of movement from the actors. It's amazing to see them
exercise multiple acting muscles at once. The Big Art actors are
filmic and theatrical at the same time. How do they do it?

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