prosthetic knowledge
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Acid Defender
Music game experiment using a HTML5 and Web Audio API by Patrick Borgeat.
This is a web experiment, merging music-making with gameplay. All sounds (except for the snare and kick drum) are synthesized in the web browser and all sounds are sequenced in the web browser.
You can either play the game, in which you must evade the “evil” red squares who want to destroy your notes, or you can play the jam mode with no enemies and more controls.
This web app doesn’t use Flash to generate either the graphics (HTML5 canvas is used) nor the audio. This is possible thanks to the Web Audio API which allows for flexible and efficient creation/routing/mixing of audio signals. It’s currently only supported by WebKit based Browsers but will hopefully find more support in other browsers soon. The jam mode is just a bonus – off course there could be a better interface for the drums/synth and more variety.
You can try this out (Chrome only) here
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Gocen
A developing handheld optical device which can read and play handwritten musical scores in real-time - via DigInfo:
The Gocen is a device which scans and plays handwritten sheet music in real time. It is being developed by a group at the Tokyo Metropolitan University led by Assistant Professor Tetsuaki Baba.
“First, the system looks at the stave, then at the notes, then at the position of the notes, to determine the high notes. In addition, it directly reads words such as piano or guitar. The computer automatically recognizes them, and changes the instrument. Also, for example, if this melody is in F minor, rather than C major, when the system reads the letters Fm, it has the ability to add four flats.”
The sheet music image is analyzed using the OpenCV library in combination with a unique algorithm. While the play head is above a note it will continue to sound that key, and in the case of stringed instruments, if you move it up and down it can make the pitch fluctuate. Also, the size of the notes determines the volume level and it can handle chords as well.
More at DigInfo here
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Prosthetic Knowledge Picks: CurAudio / DocuMP3
A collection of audio content from the Prosthetic Knowledge Tumblr archive and around the web.
Featuring a 2004 talk from Notcon called “100 Years of the Computer Artscene”, DJ Food’s documentary-in-mixtape-form “Raiding The 20th Century”, Delia Derbyshire’s “Dreams” which feature narrations of peoples dreams with her unique audio style, and “Antique Electronic / Synthesizer Greats 1955 - 1984 Part 1” by Fluorescent Grey, a mix of electronic music created between that period, cut-up, and reconstructed into something contemporary.
You can check all of this out at Rhizome here
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GIF Sound
Simple mash-up project from Reddit users combines Gifs with Youtube audio.
You will need a Reddit account, and as far as I can tell can only use image files hosted on imgur. Other than that, you are free to do as you please (though NSFW images have their own subreddit)
EDIT: Embedded below is a video compilation of examples put together by users - some NSFW:
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Chris Cunningham: jaqapparatus
NOWNESS have put together a short video on Chris Cunningham, with some brief background of his work and his new project, ‘jaqapparatus’, an audio-video performance with robotic arms, lasers and projections.
For “jaqapparatus1”, his first installation unveiled last month at the Audi City London high-tech concept store—a shadowy, sci-fi set involving two laser-firing robots locked in what seemed like a brutal mating ritual-cum-war—Cunningham cast two Talos motion-controlled camera rigs as his anthropomorphized protagonists. “Mounted on the robots heads are powerful lasers which they use to attack, repel and communicate with each other,” explains Cunningham, “a kind of duel, a surreal mating display which sees each machine trying to dominate the other.”
Embedded below is the video, or you can watch it at NOWNESS here
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Amon Tobin: ISAM Live in Graz
30 minutes of the live show which is an audio-visual treat.
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100 years of the Computer Art Scene
UPDATE: I’ve uploaded the talk onto SoundCloud for better sharing.
Recording of a talk from NOTACON 2004 discusses the history of computing and creativity. It isn’t for for everyone, but anyone with an interest in this area could find this interesting:
SYNOPSIS: Since the first time that machines could calculate, people have twisted, modified, hacked and played with them to create art. In a fast-paced hour, we're going to do our best to capture 100 years of computer art, the magic of the art scene, the demo scene, and a dozen other "scenes" that have been with us as long as computers have. Prepare yourself for a roller coaster of visual and audio history as your two over-the top scene pilots take you on "the story so far" to the artscene.
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Alright, so, basically, the name of the talk is "100 Years of the Computer Art Scene". That was a marketing trick, but what are you going to do. Technology, as far as man has always approached it, incrementally over time, it gets better and better, but the biggest problem you have is adaptation. How do you convince people that they were doing things this way, and now they want to do it this way? And because your big metal honking clanking thing is much better than however they were doing it by hand. Interestingly, if you really look at the history of communication technologies, and later computer technologies, its kind of surprising how much art actually plays a point into it. In terms of this narrative, we're going to start somewhere around telegraphs, which is a little ways in, but what're you going to do. Telegraph technology basically involved using wires to send dashes and dots indicating some sort of code that could be decoded over long distances, therefore allowing you to send messages basically instantaneously, an amazing difference for that time. Where as before, when Abraham Lincoln was elected, there were parts of the country that didn't know what their new president looked like for 3 or 4 months. And didn't know he had won for weeks or months, simply because the communication wasn't there. So the addition of this instantaneous traffic changes the world, markedly.You can download the talk from Archive.Org here, and a text file transcript of the talk can be found here
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Make Your Own Tape Loop
London’s Science Museum blog has provided a guide to create looping audio with old cassette tapes, mimicking a technique used by early electronic experimental musicians such as Daphne Oram:
The Science Museum’s exhibition Oramics to Electronica: Revealing Histories of Electronic Music charts the evolution of electronic music and details the fantastic lengths that its creators often went to in order to push the boundaries of sound. In the days before synthesisers, open source software and pirated soft-synths, electronic music pioneers such as Daphne Oram had very few resources with which to forge new and exciting sounds. The use and abuse of reel to reel tape players, and the splicing of magnetic tape were soon adopted by some of music’s most adventurous minds and became a vital weapon in their war against the sonically mundane. Composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Terry Riley, and also the BBC Radiophonic Workshop were all keen tape splicers, stretchers and loopers.
Nowadays reel to reel tape players are hard to find and incredibly impractical to use. However, their dinky portable cousins, Walkmans, are easier to find, and cassettes are readily and cheaply available in most charity shops, as well as some cupboards, and a few trendy music stores. Cassette tapes are fairly easy to modify too, and doing so provides a fun insight into the early development of electronic music and a chance to get in touch with its roots. Making a tape loop is one of the easiest and most satisfying tape experiments that you can do, and it takes little more than a few bits of a stationery, a steady hand and half an hour of your time. The process is relatively fiddly and the results will be largely dictated by chance (exciting in itself!), but it’s all worth it for the thrill of feeling the spirit of early electronic music experimenters flowing through you. The results are somewhat unpredictable, but sometimes you stumble upon a perfect three or four second-long loop that you can listen to over and over without ever getting bored, its sound appearing change and alter over time…
You can see the whole guide here
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Paper Note
Paper sculptures of sound waves created from recorded audio converted into a series of laser cut circles. From { Sound + Design }:
Paper Note creates a tangible waveform from laser cut disks of paper. The user records a message, a sound or loads up music, and the system analyses the sound to map each moment to a corresponding slice.
This project was made with Andrew Nip at CIID. We programmed it using Processing. Each Paper Note is made up of around 450 stacked disks of paper. The louder the volume at a specific moment, the bigger the disk. Our algorithm samples the right amount of information from the recording to scale the physical waveform to the size of around 14cm.
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Fata Morgana by Laura Buckley
Audio / visual installation piece is a walk-through kaleidoscope, currently shown at the Cell Project Space in London.
From This Is Tomorrow:
Laura Buckley’s Fata Morgana doesn’t quite fill the Cell Project Space in its dimensions but in piercing audio and frantic image, it consumes the entire room. In this new installation, commissioned especially by and for Cell Project, Buckley has constructed a six-metre long, wooden-framed, internally mirrored hexagonal structure into which she projects a blurring, blinding, deafening 8-minute, 18-second video loop. The impact is instant, immersive and exhausting – a kaleidoscope and a cacophony at once.
More information can be found at This Is Tomorrow here
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INBIZ
Extremely compact lo-fi audio visual programming tool:
IBNIZ is a virtual machine designed for extremely compact low-level audiovisual programs. The leading design goal is usefulness as a platform for demoscene productions, glitch art and similar projects. Mainsteam software engineering aspects are considered totally irrelevant.
IBNIZ stands for Ideally Bare Numeric Impression giZmo. The name also refers to Gottfried Leibniz, the 17th-century polymath who, among all, invented binary arithmetic, built the first four-operation calculating machine, and believed that the world was designed with the principle that a minimal set of rules should yield a maximal diversity.
You can get it from the project page here
More information can be found at CounterComplex -
Video Yearmix 2011
Audio / Visual mix of music videos and news footage of the past year for Dutch channel Eclectro, put together by Renier Mouthaan:
The best music videos of 2011 blended together in a one hour visual trip.
This yearmix contains more music videos than the years before.
I added a new element as well: videos of important news events of 2011.
Tracklist.
00:03 1. DJ Koze - Beats on the beach youtu.be/gmOntX0cWoY
00:36 2. Latrama - Clock DJ - David Salaices vimeo.com/27578410
01:08 3. Jiggy Djé - Check 1-2 - Steffen Haars vimeo.com/20201566
01:31 4. Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right-Revisited (trailer) - Adam Yauch youtu.be/rBa5qp9sUOY
01:59 5. Chemical Brothers - Container Park / Ealing Broadway Riots - Kris Thompson youtu.be/fJkAo5f8mo4
02:32 6. DJ Hiatus - The great insurrection - Kibwe Tavares vimeo.com/25092596
04:12 7. Jan Jelinek - Do Dekor/ISS mission - Michael König vimeo.com/32001208
05:10 8. Bodi Bill - Brand new carpet - Stephane Leonard vimeo.com/21069949
05:57 9. Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble ft Emika - Pretend - Julian Schleef & Daniel Brandt youtu.be/aBPEbF_u0cY
06:42 10. Metronomy - She wants - Jul & Mat vimeo.com/19133341
07:25 11. Whomadewho - Every minute alone/North Koreans crying over the death of Kim Jong Il - Goodboy! vimeo.com/20788500
09:47 12. Woodkid - Iron - Yoann Lemoine youtu.be/vSkb0kDacjs
11:06 13. Manchester Orchestra - Simple Math - Daniels vimeo.com/22379296
12:28 14. Mister Heavenly - Bronx sniper - Corey Adams and Alex Craig vimeo.com/31605182
14:48 15. Paul White ft guilty simpson - Trust - Simple Machine youtu.be/fNRcj-SprA0
15:43 16. Teebs - Moments - Paul Trillo vimeo.com/27273208
16:47 17. Dror Goldstein - BEAT - Or Bar-el vimeo.com/31423544
19:02 18. Versis ✖ Dibia$e - Fly me t’the moon - Ruffmercy vimeo.com/33015957
20:16 19. Libya - My freedom or my death - Danfung Dennis vimeo.com/21514274
20:58 20. Africa Hi-tech - Out in the streets - Sixty40 youtu.be/W7uYqJJBiD0
22:53 21. Hauschka - … - Starvexer youtu.be/2jiq1YiQRLo
25:04 22. M83 - Midnight City - Fleur & Manu vimeo.com/30549152
26:13 23. Sebastian - Embody - So Me youtu.be/awtiZEiiAE8
27:27 24. Evelyn Evelyn - Have you seen my sister - Hoku Uchiyama vimeo.com/29939081
28:46 25. St. vincent - So cruel - Terri Timely youtu.be/Itt0rALeHE8
30:20 26. Uniforms ft. Maria Nordstrom - March of no coincidence - Mattis Gustafsson & Oskar Ljungholm youtu.be/dieqmQgGUKY
31:46 27. Justice - Civilization - Edouard Salier vimeo.com/24314714
33:05 28. Justice - Civilization/Adidas commercial - Romain Gavras vimeo.com/22459501
33:25 29. Skrillex - Scary monsters and nice sprites - Tom Lowe vimeo.com/26652588
33:47 30. Skrillex - Scary monsters and nice sprites - forthegloryx youtu.be/PapG53eIM1M
34:01 31. Skrillex - First of the year - Tony T. vimeo.com/27911262
34:54 32. Matta - Release the freq - Kim Holm vimeo.com/20800127
35:32 33. Matta - Inquisition part III - Andreas Wannerstedt vimeo.com/25413547
36:25 34. Is Tropical - The Greeks - Megaforce vimeo.com/24175601
37:08 35. Afghanistan - Hell and back again - Danfung Dennis vimeo.com/28912003
37:48 36. Noisia & Foreign Beggars - Shellshock - Tony Truand youtu.be/ACNpoEytBS0
38:53 37. The Black Keys - Lonely Boy - Jesse Dylan youtu.be/a_426RiwST8
39:59 38. The Weeknd - The knowing - Mikael Colombu vimeo.com/32644792
42:21 39. … - Krak - Joan Masoliver vimeo.com/25829980
43:08 40. Sade - Love is found youtu.be/15WDBuvovXo
44:09 41. Brice Tillet - 5:46 AM - Olivier Campagne & Vivien Balzi vimeo.com/28236362
45:58 42. Japanese Tsunami - Filmed inside a car - Yu Muroga youtu.be/QAwBvBxI0UA
47:01 43. Goldmund - Turqoise Hexagon - Rimantas Lukavicius vimeo.com/29756738
49:02 44. Plaid - 35 summers - Richie Burridge youtu.be/eNf5Ga1rw78
49:25 45. Lykke Li - Sadness is a blessing - Tarik Saleh vimeo.com/22935185
52:06 46. Memory Tapes - Yes I know - Eric Epstein vimeo.com/24637555
53:41 47. Florence + The Machine - No light, no light - Arni & Kinski youtu.be/HGH-4jQZRcc
55:14 48. David Lynch - Good day today - Arnold de Parscau youtu.be/IugOfDBWcGc
57:17 49. Amon Tobin - Calculate - JimJam graphics vimeo.com/31395235
58:21 50. Battles - My machines - Daniels vimeo.com/28943818
01:00:03 51. Phoenix - Duststorm - Krazywake youtu.be/RLGCmnX_yH4
eclectro.nl -
Cymatic Frequencies II by DK - Part 2
Audio / Visual Mix:
Solid Steel in association with Serato. We continue with the second part of Cymatic Frequencies II by DK, the Video Mixtape reviewing some of his favourite mixes from this year with added visuals. Using more Original Videos from the artist this time and the quality of the music is equally as good as Part 1.
It’s a sombre start with Gil Scott-Heron RIP, followed by James Blake and hip hop from Paul White, Danny Brown and Shabazz Palaces. Ninja Tune feature with Mr Scruff, Toddla T, Raffertie and Fink, with Big Dada represented by Wiley & Offshore. There’s 2 from Martyn on Brainfeeder, Zed Bias features 3 times and it’s big club tracks from Joe Goddard, Julio Bashmore and Fourtet. Plus there’s a few classics from Liquid Liquid, Radiohead and Har You Percussion group to close a visual feast.
You can download just the audio here soundcloud.com/ninja-tune/solid-steel-radio-show-16-12-1
Gil Scott-Heron - Me & The Devil (NYC Orchestral version) - XL Recordings (Original Video - Coodie & Chike and Michael Sterling Eaton.)
James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream - A & M (Original Video- Alexander Brown)
Paul White ft Guilty Simpson - Trust - One Handed Music (Original Video - A Simple Machine production)
Pusha T - Trouble On My Mind ft Tyler The Creator - GOOD Music (Original Video - Jason Goldwatch )
Danny Brown - Guitar Solo - Fool’s Gold (Original Video) - Free Lunch Kidz and Stedfast Media)
Stanley Clarke - Concerto for Jazz - Epic -(Visuals - Kahlil Joseph/Luke Meier)
Flying Lotus - Zodiac shit - Warp - (Visuals Kahlil Joseph/Luke Meier)
Shabazz Palaces - An echo from the hosts profess infinitum - Sub Pop (Visuals - Scott Holpainen / Robert Seidel)
Mario Basanov - Sheiker - Needwant (Visuals - Søren Bendt Pedersen)
Mr. Scruff - Wobble Control - Ninja Tune (Originlal Video)
Dego - Monday Blues - 2000 Black (Originlal Video - Heather Sommerfield)
Wiley - Numbers in Action - Big Dada (Original Video - Us)
Longevity - Tantrum - Decon Records (Original Video - Brian Mulchy)
Toddla T - Watch Me Dance [Andrew Weatherall Remix] - Ninja Tune
Liquid Liquid - Scraper - 99 Records (Visuals - Morgan Beringer)
Offshore - Pacer - Big Dada (Visuals - FutureDeluxe)
Raffertie - Mimetic - Ninja Tune (Visuals - Nando Costa)
Zomby - Natalia’s Song - 4AD (Visuals - Cassiano Prado)
Fink - Honesty - Ninja Tune -(Visuals used from 59 Productions)
Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place - Parlophone
Paul Weller - Starlite (Deadboy Remix) - Island (Visuals - JJ Stereo )
Joe Goddard - Gabriel - Greco Roman (Original Video - Utile Creative and Jazz Goddard)
Maya Jane Coles - The High Life - 2020 Vision
Owiny Sigoma Band - Doyoi Nyajo Nam (Quantic Dub) - Brownswood (Visuals - Studio Ang)
Ossie - Set The Tone - Hyperdub (Visuals - Rui Branquinho/ Andy Russell / Different Films )
Omar + Zed Bias - Dancing - Tru Thoughts
Dj Graham B - Samba Madness - Freestyle Records
Hexstatic present Trailer Trax - Carnival Drop - Lower Level
Martyn - Viper - Brainfeeder (Original Video - Konx-om-Pax)
Zed Bias - Trouble In The Streets - Tru Thoughts (Visuals - factory fifteen)
Martyn - Popgun - Brainfeeder (Visuals - Yohsukechiai)
Zed Bias - Music deep inside - Swamp 81 (visuals - Yan Breuleux)
Julio Bashmore - Battle For Middle You - PMR Records
Four Tet - Pinnacles - Text
Har You percussion - Welcome to the party - ESP Disk -
Essential Mix - Beardyman (via A North Country Bhoy)
UPDATE: This is a Reblog - had to take the original down due to bandwidth issues, but found the same mix (slightly edited from the radio transmission - the first track in the list doesn’t appear) on Soundcloud.
An hours worth of music which is one part continuous mix, one part performance:
I done this mix with my kaoss pads and and my mouth and a keyboard and logic and my fingers and my brain.
This is something special - should put anyone in a good Friday mood
“…This Essential Mix is like no other that you’ve heard before. Beardyman, a world renowned beat-boxer based in London played this mix live, the catch, he uses nothing but a keyboard, effects pads, and his own voice. No decks, no vinyl, no CD’s and certainly no mp3′s. First broadcast on the 22nd Jan. 2011..”
Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band — Express Yourself
Hall & Oates — I Can’t Go For That
Beardyman — You’re Not Part Of Me
A Tribe Called Quest — Can I Kick It
Saint Etienne — Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Beardyman — All The Girls Be Touching My Ooh
Cee Lo Green — Forget You
Kings of Tomorrow — Finally
Beardyman — Cheese And Crackers
Tomcraft — Happiness
Beardyman — Unzip My Armpits
Daft Punk — Da Funk
Underworld — King Of Snake
Beardyman — Going Deep
Shakedown — At Night
Beardyman — I Don’t Know
Beardyman — Get Dutty
Leftfield — Phat Planet
Beardyman — I Don’t Want To Be Your Friend
Beardyman — Pyramid, Square, Rectangle, Yeah!
Beardyman — Glonk
Frankie Goes to Hollywood — Power Of Love
Beardyman — We Don’t Know Where We’re Going
The All Seeing I — The Beat Goes On
Beardyman — Back It Up
Beardyman — ‘Av It
Beardyman — Not What You Planned For
Beardyman — Aahh
The Devlins — Crossing The River
Beardyman — Ready For The Burn
Leftfield — Release The PressureIf you want to download the mix, there is a link via A North Country Bhoy’s blog
(via prostheticknowledge)
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Marshal McLuhan – The Medium Is The Massage CD Re-Issue (via DJ Food)
Marshall McLuhan’s experimental LP will be released next month:
And here it is! After at least 18 months since I supplied a quote to Noah Uman for his reissue of ‘The Medium Is The Massage’ celebrating 100 years of McLuhan‘s record of the book, it finally dropped through the letterbox this morning. It’s gorgeous, full deluxe mini LP style CD sleeve, 40 pg booklet and all in the style of the original.
I’m sharing page space with some pretty esteemed commentators too: Warhol, Woody Allen, Steinski, Don Joyce, Jello Biafra, DJ Spooky… The CD is out on Five Day Weekend (who also have releases from Edan, Mr Chop and the ’80 Blocks From Tiffanys’ DVD) on December the 12th. Well worth it, a unique record, history, literature, social commentary, cut and paste and comedy all rolled into one.
