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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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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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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This past week, I have been involved in documenting the programming and rehearsals and finally, the recording of the audio for the musical quartet, EHRES. This is only one of the projects I have been involved in while I have been in Banff, and it has been very exciting to watch the MAX/MSP programmer, Ryan, work on creating a gesture control patch.

John DS Adams not only plays in the group, he was the recording engineer on a hugely complex session that included 36 tracks of recorded audio. I have lots of work to do editing the video and photos and  then editing them to the music that was recorded yesterday and today.  I should have some photos ready to post soon, but I want the group to see them first.

The next steps include processing the photos, editing the video, matching the visuals to the mixed audio and authoring a DVD.  I will be busy for a while doing this.

I have quoted some information about the ensemble sent to me by Norm Adams, composer, cellist and electronics player.

Exteme High Risk Entertainment System (EHRES)

EHRES is Pauline Oliveros, John DS Adams, Ione, and Norman Adams: a quartet of performers employing a groundbreaking system of acoustic and electronic interconnections for live performance. EHRES creates multilayered networks of connections allowing all sounds to be shared, processed and distributed to a multi-channel sound system.

The web of connections begins with the interaction of the artist’s immediate music making process. EHRES balances on the unique qualities of listening, intuition, emotion, timbre, and range that make their individual methods of music making present. Their web extends further into electronic sound, as the musicians process various signals, as the artists interact with one another’s acoustic and electronic sounds and as the sounds move through the performance space, via the immersive, eight channel speaker array.

Musical structures are created spontaneously within each of the performer’s instruments/systems and extends into the interconnections and interactions between the artists and the control of their systems.

EHRES has performed on the suddenlyLISTEN Series in Halifax, Nova Scotia; on the NUMUS Series in Waterloo, Ontario; and at The Lincoln Center Outdoor Festival in New York City.

Tech Notes: I have tagged this post as Open Source because all of the photos will be processed in Ubuntu Linux using various software. Ubuntu software handles RAW conversion with a Gimp plug-in or in RAW Studio.

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Mac users click on the first picture to open the slideshow.  See Tech Notes below for known issue with the Cooliris plug-in required to operate the PicLens option.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

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I have arrived safely in Banff, but not without some adventure.

There is a sacred connection to the mountains for me and the air here is very different. I always feel a profound change when I enter the Rockies. These are serious mountains; they have roots that reach deep and their heads reach into the heights where the air is thin. Riding through them as the clouds gathered and the wind gusted was a real challenge to the spirit and the body.

The final result is that I made it safely. The details will be for another day, but for now, enjoy the photos.

Tech Notes: I am still using the Nextgen photo Gallery plug-in, but they have made some changes and now are compatible with the Cool Iris 3-D Firefox plug-in. I have it working in Ubuntu Linux and it is really an excellent navigational tool, showing the photos in a moving wall. So far, it does not work on the Mac — all I get is a black screen and without the plug-in the PicLens slideshow is low resolution and very pixeled. I may have to change plug-ins to one that is more if this one is not cross-platform /browser friendly. Let me know your experience with the slideshow.

Tech update: If Mac users click on the first photo, a slideshow will open, clicking on the photo will close the slideshow. Full screen does not work. On this Mac it crashes Firefox. I tried disabling the Lightbox Gallery plug-in, but it had no effect. Cool Iris Firefox plugin claims to support mac OSX but it does not seem to be as compatible as the Ubuntu version.

Tech update 2: From the Cool Iris site. This worked for me. Now the PicLens option opens the Cooliris plug-in and the navigation is 3-D.

Some Mac users report launching Cooliris brings up a blank screen and hitting ESC crashes the browser. If you have an Intel-based Mac, turn off Rosetta emulation. To do so, open your applications window, click the browser icon once to highlight it, and then hit Command-I to get an info box. Uncheck “Open using Rosetta.”

Now to try it with Windows and other browsers. Let me know your experience.

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The weather has been absolutely perfect as I left Vancouver and rode my bike to Abbotsford before stopping for gas. I had noticed that gas prices in Vancouver had jumped to $1.06 this morning, so I took a chance that in the valley, the price would be lower. My educated guess paid off and I topped off the tank for $1.04 per litre. After getting back on the freeway I headed towards Hope and took the Coquihalla Hiway. I was very surprised to find that the toll has been removed from the road as I was prepared for the toll booth to appear around the next bend. At first I thought they had been moved, but when Merritt came in to view I knew that the road is now a real “freeway”. I had to drive into town to get gas, so I think there must be a closer station to the turn off. A friendly gentleman with a pickup truck, painted with the name of St. Agnes Hot Springs,  pointed me in the right direction to take the highway to the Okanagan and I passed him on the road. He passed me again when I stopped to take some photos  and was kind enough to check on me to see if I was OK before motoring on.

The highway between Merritt and Peachland has always been a mix of desert and lake areas and I stopped by a slough where I took a photo of a red winged blackbird and some ducks.  The land is all fenced, with cattle gates on the dirt roads that branch off because most of it is still open range land with cattle roaming free until round-up time. It is very high over the pass and there was still a bit of snow near the road as the sun created heat waves off the pavement. The ride was uneventful and I pulled into Summerland very satisfied with the peformance of my Yamaha FJ.

Happily, my hosts here have already discovered Ubuntu and I am remaining open source as I type this post on their computer. I hesitate to work on photos on someone else’s hard drive, so the trip gallery will have to wait until I unload everything and get on line in Banff tomorrow.

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