VIX Sound+Light+Motion

My first week in New York city has been so busy that I have not had much time to do a retrospective of my eventful week, from August 15th to 22nd at EMPAC in Troy, NY.

I am happy to report that I was successful in creating a “visual music” presentation on 3 screens with one of the aspects controlled in real time using gesture control.

Adafruit shipped my Arduino boards to EMPAC and I was able to research on the internet and receive help from others in the workshop to understand how to make the system work. I chose the infra-red distance sensor and used information from the Adafruit website to help me program the board. My trusty Ubuntu computer handled all of the Arduino code uploading while I ran the Isadora program on the Macbook.

My performance was thrilling for me, but I was inspired and informed by the work that everyone else in the class showed on Saturday, August 21, 2010.

The first work we saw was by Joff, a theatre instructor who has a company that puts on plays in Second Life. The work included a grassy field with images of human figures that were short videos. The figures would fade in, seem to be sleeping, then move in some way, then fade out. We were invited to interact with the figures, but I found it fascinating just to watch them.

It was eerie and engaging as an installation and Joff might develop it further as a performance or to be more interactive. (continue reading…)

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Guru Mandala -- Victoria Gibson

EMPAC — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center

My application to attend the summer intensive workshop has been accepted. August will find me in New York at one of the most advanced media arts centres in the world learning sophisticated control technologies. This workshop is intensive, going from 10am-10pm for 7 days on campus in residency.

LIVE.MEDIA + PERFORMANCE.LAB

8/16 – 8/22

The workshop addresses emerging and professional art practitioners, scientists, researchers, and students from different backgrounds in performance and new media committed to sharing their interest in developing a deeper understanding of composing work focused on real time, interactive or time-based experiences and multidisciplinary collaborative processes (video, sound processing, projection design, lighting, choreography and directing).

This workshop will assist me in realizing my Immersive Environment Instrument (IEI) and possibly lead to collaborations with other media artists that attend. An opportunity that has come along at exactly the right time to help me create my vision requires some pre-production consideration.

A Macbook Pro looms in my future, but I will still try to program and control my sensor array with Ubuntu.

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Photo Credit: Jimmy Katz

The evening of May 1st I experienced the Orchestrion Project, conceived and directed by Pat Metheny at The Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver. I obeyed the request not to take photos or make recordings, so I will offer the readily available ubiquitous You Tube examples and links to official sites where some images are available. Pat Metheny has provided some photos by Jimmy Katz on his site (left). The first part of this post is a comment on the memorable guitar collection and the second part on the automated Orchestrion. (continue reading…)

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Everywhere is Vancouver there is evidence that the Olympics are here. From the eternally crowded transit to the spotlights lighting the night sky, this party for the world cannot be ignored.

Paul and I went to see Laurie Anderson last night at The Playhouse, playing at the same time next door at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre was Neil Young with rumours of Lou Reed being in the group. As we walked to our ticketed event, we passed pavillions with free shows going on continuously.

There is so much going on, it is hard to choose what to see. So far, I have participated in Sonic Genome with Anthony Braxton, attended Yaletown Live on my way to see the ticketed event Sound Gallery at the Roundhouse, danced to the sound and light of the Drum & Light festival hosted by John Kosrud and Hard Rubber Orchestra and walked past really long line-ups into other pavillions.

Friday, Feb.19, at 8pm I will attend Marathonologue, a fusion of Javanese gamelan, Scots highland bagpipes and Japanese Taiko drumming. This is Michael O’Neill’s full-length performance piece, which also features Alexanra Dulic and Ken Newby contributing their visual projections. There has been a dominant theme of visual projections as there are large led and flat screens everywhere you look.I will add photos to this post, but now I have to go to work.

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UniverCity Net - digital art by Victoria Gibson

Research into the Immersive Environment Instrument (IEI) continues and this post is about the visual surround aspect of the presentation. For background information on this project click here. There are lots of links to examples, but none I have the right to re-post. My digital artwork, UniversityNet, has become a kind of logo for the IEI, so I post it to break up the text heaviness of research.

My goal is to bring the cinematic experience of film into live performance within a virtual reality simulation. Exploring a non-linear narrative that references three time periods — past, present and future, to construct a communication that is open to individual interpretation. Resonating with an audience on an emotional level, the performer improvises each show as a unique construct. Using a sensor array, events are triggered with dance-like motions that communicate emotional intention through gesture.

The University of California,  Santa Barbara is the host institution for the AlloSphere, an incredible facility designed by Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin.  Dr. JoAnn Kuchera Morin assembled a team that included world renowned architect, Robert Venturi, to design and construct this feat of engineering. She talks about her work on TED with a really interesting video.

In 2000 she began the creation, design, and development of a Digital Media Center within the California Nanosystems Institute. The culmination of her design is the Allosphere Research Laboratory, a three-story metal sphere inside an echo-free cube, designed for immersive, interactive scientific and artistic investigation of multi-dimensional data sets. She serves as Director of the Allosphere Research Laboratory and Center.  . — XMedia Lab

There is a lot of interesting research in Santa Barbara that may apply to the construction of the Immersive Environment Instrument, but it is not portable and it was designed to facilitate research, not performance. There is no room for an audience, but compositions could be shown on video as seen on the TED site. The challenge would be to translate as much of the effect of this multi-million dollar facility into a portable touring show.

Many of the elements of the IEI have been used in performance before, as the idea of surround sound has been in use since the introduction generally credited to Stockhausen. The idea of surround video has been used by a collective, Workspace Unlimited, among others. Their example, Hybrid Space 360, is really interesting because it has already been presented at EMPAC – Experimental Media and performing arts Center Rensselaer in New York, 2008. There are photos on their site, but as it in Flash, you have to navigate yourself, click on projects to view the data . . .  I cannot even link directly.

Their interesting concept is of an interactive installation, not a performer controlled environment. The Immersive Environment Instrument will tour with Victoria Gibson in Girl Can Dream, the first composition for the instrument. Later, other musicians will be invited to join Victoria to expand the sensor array and integrate other personality styles.

A lot of recent development in software has made still photos panoramic and there are even very inexpensive point and shoot cameras that offer the ability to select the nodes (nodes are individual photos — see Wikipedia) required to stitch together photos in this way. With the proper viewer, an on-line panorama can be achieved. See the Apple VR site for examples of Quicktime panoramas (plug-in required) .

Ubuntu Users — The most promising thread in this area seems to be freepv not found in a repository by Synaptic yet. Build instructions on the site.

Anyone with the quicktime plug-in can view movies made of panoramic photos on this company’s site — Studio 360. These examples are not the photo itself, but a movie of the panoramic photo.

The concept of surround video is tricky, so I propose to set up separate nodes, the same way panoramic photos are really separate photos. This will also give me more flexibility in using lights to soften the edges of each node to aid in blending or to use the nodes a unique, distinct images. I do not expect surround video to be available soon as large studios are having enough of a challenge with Imax, Omnimax and conventional 3D films.  I think that it is more cost effective and realistic to project each node independently and let the instrument create a Cinematic Virtual Reality (CVR) illusion. Cinematic Virtual Reality is a term I created for the visual component to the Immersive Environment Instrument.

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UniverCity Net – digital art by Victoria Gibson

As an Integrated Media Artist, I have many project ideas that I am constantly working on. My most recent project proposals have been seeking support to develop a new instrument for me to play in performance. My current goal is to develop a performance instrument that works using gesture control and sensors to create an alternative reality environment.

Although my core training is in music, I have studied dance and motion and have spent years of my life in on-stage performance as a musician. In my recent presentations, I have played computer based instruments and I realize that a lot of the impact of musical presentation is about the gesture of producing the sound.

If I am to continue to use the computer as a performance instrument, I need to develop a controller that responds to dance-like movements. The vision of being able to focus physical energy through dance and control audio and visual elements was crystallized into my need for an Immersive Environment Instrument (IEI). (continue reading…)

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I am so excited to be chosen for the second round of the 2009  Seoul Olympiad Design Competition! This world-wide competition attracts entries from designers from many fields, from furniture and fashion to industrial and animation. I entered the magazine I made to demonstrate my integrated media skills. Only 661 designers have been chosen to advance to the second round of judging in all categories. I don’t know how many are in my graphic design section, but probably hundreds remain.

Last year, the 2008 Seoul Design Olympiad was a huge event with Cirque Du Soleil performing, the world’s largest recycled plastic sculpture and an enormous design conference. The winner of the competition receives an award and all of the final round designers have their work displayed in Korea at the event.

Download a copy of my entry, pictured at left,  here. If I reach the final round, there will be a “People’s Choice Award”, where internet votes are counted. If I get to this point, I will let you know.

Victoria Gibson, Artist Journal was written, photographed, edited and designed as a solo project. So many of my web and graphic design contracts have multiple contributors that I wanted to showcase my work.

The project was created using Open Source Software on a Ubuntu Linux operating system. Photos were taken with a Nikon D50 and processed using UFR plug-in for the Gimp. Design was completed with Scribus. The computer is an Asus notebook from Korea.

It is encouraging to receive international recognition for my design work. Wish me luck in the second round.

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Podcast (girl_can_dream): Download

My newest available technology is the podcast and I have decided to start a weekly singer/songwriter podcast titled, Girl Can Dream. I am producing this using low technology, my Zoom H4, set on stereo and an open source wave editor, Audacity on Ubuntu Linux. I am doing a minimum of editing as I plan to record these songs in the studio for a paid download. The next step is to add a payment system to my site and start making material available, for now I will thankfully accept donations.

The music business is changing so rapidly now that I hope I will be able to reach people through my podcast and find an audience for my songs. By minimizing the production, I am keeping costs reasonable, but I am donating a lot of my time. I am hoping that my podcasts can become self-supporting and then I can continue making them. The title of the series, Girl Can Dream, is inspired by my work with Ione at a workshop held at the Western Front in Vancouver.

Last December, I went to a dream workshop and had to  confess that I did not dream, or  I didn’t remember my dreams. I was given some directions to work with my sub-concious self and I have been writing down my dreams now. I still do not remember them well, but now I have opened up to dreaming and I realize I dream every night.

Songs come to me from a meditative space that is similar to the sub-concious dream state, but I have learned, through my studies with my Guru Sunitha Bapooji, how to meditate properly. Meditation now helps me to solve my problems and develop my patience. Patience has always been a difficult virtue for me to remember because everything always seems to take so long to develop. Now I must be happy and excited that I can record my songs and you can listen to them.

Please comment and let me know your opinion on the podcast. This is my first step towards distributing my music and I hope that it is a success — after all a –  Girl Can Dream.

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I was very honoured to be asked to produce the film that was shown as the visual component of this concert in the Walter Phillips Gallery, located in the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Pauline Oliveros explained the concept and gave me freedom to develop the 20 minute film using the photos provided and my own digital artworks. Ms. Oliveros was inspired by President Obama’s speech in Cairo and the Codepink efforts to encourage peace by building three playgrounds in Gaza.  I obtained permission to use photos from the Codepink Flikr stream, with attribution, from:

Jean Stevens
National Media Coordinator
CODEPINK Women for Peace

The Codepink  projects are very worthy and I was proud to be able to support them and be associated with an initiative that is intended to bring people together to work for peace.  In addition to the photos of children and playground construction in Gaza, we used photos of American children playing in a playground provided by Ione.  She explained at the concert that she thought it was nice for them to play together. Ione was inspirational in the production of this film as she helped me to gain a more precise understanding of the concept of the musical work.

Many people complimented me on my work after the show and it will remain one of the highlights of my time in Banff. I did document the performance on video and the audio was recorded by the Banff Centre technicians, led by John DS Adams. At some point, I hope that my film, “A New Beginning: A Playground” will be shown during future concerts when Pauline and Ione perform this piece. When the audio is mixed, there are plans to produce a DVD with the soundtrack of the concert.  When it is complete, it will be available from the Deep Listening Institute site.

Tech Notes: All photographs and digital artworks were prepared in open source software, The Gimp. The film was created using Final Cut Studio on a Macintosh workstation owned by the Banff Centre.

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Chris Chafe, pictured left, has an office at the Banff Centre and I was completely impressed with his musicianship and improvising talent. I have been informed by Pauline Oliveros that:

Chris Chafe is the director of CCRMA at Stanford University. He is on sabbatical leave and is in residence at Banff Centre until September 2009.

While I was in Banff, he was involved in several Telematic concerts that involved Pauline Oliveros and Ione in the “Chris Chafe, Pauline Oliveros, Ione Trio”.

I was thrilled to find a Ubuntu Linux user and he told me that he was using an application called jacktrip, based on jackd to patch the Telematic communication over the internet.

I will talk more about this later, but I witnessed some very low latency musical interaction between Chris (in Toronto) and Pauline Oliveros and Ione in Banff. This concert could also be experienced live in Second Life, a virtual reality, on-line world. These mixed reality concerts, where avatars are watching concerts that the real person is playing in are a new experience for me.

After he returned to Banff, a rehearsal with Jonas, who I met in WA, and another musician I did not know, both  in NY state;  joined Chris and Pauline in Banff through the internet connection facilitated by jacktrip. They recorded in Banff using Ardour on Ubuntu Linux.

This is a really interesting area to explore in Linux and he will be an invaluable resource to help me develop my move into Open Source music. “The Chris Chafe Trio”, including Chris, Pauline and Ione,  also performed live in the Walter Philips Gallery in Banff and I produced the film that accompanied their musical performance. I will devote a post to this concert, and write much more about all of the exciting work that I was involved in supporting Fleck Fellow, Pauline Oliveros. While I was in Banff, I was too busy doing the work to write about my experiences. I did take photos and will be posting them as soon as I can.

Right now I am at an internet cafe in Calgary and I plan to start my journey home to Vancouver with stops in Banff, and Summerland. More photos and posts as soon as I have reliable internet. Thanks to Pauline Oliveros for the corrections.

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