[Photo: Anne Helmond]

Crackle-canvas is an ongoing electronics project of the Netherlands-based media artist Tom Verbruggen (aka token). This endeavour playfully challenges the conventions of artistic consumption by reimagining gallery space as an interactive musical playground rather than an arena of sullen observation. Each Crackle-canvasis a modular ‘synthesizer painting’ equipped with switches and knobs that allow rudimentary control over the sound generated by the device. While these objects can be played individually, things get considerably more interesting when they are patched together into a collaborative cacaphony. Verbruggen has developed several iterations of these devices that range from stark white minimalist surfaces to more colourful, user-friendly controllers complete with graphic prompts for novice operators. While there is an abundance of video documentation of the artist performing on arrays of these controllers, the work is most interesting when there is are participants involved – the above image from a recent exhibit in Paris speaks to the type of engagement these objects engender.

Continue reading.... Crackle Canvas [Environment, Sound]

Upverter is a web service, similar to GitHub that allows you to discover, share and work on hardware.

Taking full advantage of HTML5, the included editor has all the basics you have come to expect such as undo, redo, rotating, versioning, and sharing designs. Create your schematics on an infinitely large canvas and organize your designs how you want to. Also included is their crowd-sourced part library to choose your parts, or add your own. Get insight into what parts are the most popular and cost efficient.

Here is an embeded drawing of Arduino-Uno:

Continue reading.... Upverter [News]

Developed during the few days residency at La Gaîté Lyrique, Lumenoise is a project by Niklas Roy that enables you to turn your old CRT-TV into an audiovisual synthesizer. Using a specially devised pen, you paint abstract geometric patterns and sounds directly onto the screen. Niklas calls it a playful and performative device, as anything that you do will cause an instantaneous reflection in the gadget’s sonic and visual output.

 I was always fascinated by light pens as I think they have a somewhat magical touch. Today it is normal to interact with devices by touching onto their screen. But old CRT screens didn’t have a touch sensitive surface – and still, due to the particular way a raster scan tube draws an image, it is quite easy to find out the location of a little photo transistor on its surface. Engineers have found out about this simplicity very early and implemented the first light pens already during the middle of the last century. If you’re interested in computer history, watch this fascinating 1956 IBM video about the SAGE project. At minute 4:30 you can see a light gun (the light pen’s predecessor) in action. Furthermore, the film features beautiful background music, which you deserve after watching the Lumenoise screencapture.

Niklas explains that unlike modern flat TV’s, old school CRT’s draw the image line by line onto their phosphorescent screen. A photo transistor, placed on a tube TV’s surface, can recognize when the part of the image is drawn underneath it. The transistor is connected with a micro controller which generates the video signal, the controller can localize the exact position of the photo transistor on the screen.

Photo transistors – however – have a very high resolution in time. They respond very quick to minimal changes of brightness. Placed on the surface of a CRT-TV, a photo transistor can recognise the exact moment when the beam passes at its location. It changes its conductivity according to brightness changes, so with a little voltage divider circuit, you can read the voltage peak that the electron beam causes on a digital input pin of a micro controller.

Continue reading.... Lumenoise [Objects]

In the decade where videogames were born, everything virtual looked like rectangular blocks. From today’s perspective, the representation of a tennis court in the earliest videogames is hard to distinguish from a soccer or a basketball field.
‘PING! – Augmented Pixel’ is a seventies style videogame, that adds a layer of digital information and oldschool aesthetics to a video signal: A classic rectangular video game ball moves across a video image. Whenever the ball hits something dark, it bounces off. The game itself has no rules and no goal. Like GTA, it provides a free environment in which anything is possible. And like Sony’s Eyetoy, it uses a video camera as game controller.

What I found interesting when I developed this game, is, that it could have been made already in the seventies. The technology that I used for it is (in a way) similar to what Atari used for the first Pong. It becomes even more awkward, if you think that the electronic components for capturing and evaluating a video signal are cheaper than the rotary game controllers that Atari used. But still, from an economic point of view it makes sense that Eyetoys weren’t the ultimate controllers of thirty-something years ago, as a video camera was probably very hard to afford back in the days.

For those who want to know how it works:

The game is programed with AVR-GCC on an ATmega8 microcontroller that runs with 16MHz. The controller gets basic videosignal synchronisation information from an LM1881 sync separator that triggers two hardware interrupts. One for a new image, the other one for a new line. The controller evaluates the brightness around the pixel (/ball) via its comparator input. Drawing the white image overlay is realized with a simple pull-up resistor in the signal line.

Continue reading.... PING! Augmented Pixel [Tutorials, Games]

Muze is the latest creation of Teaugue Labs, a collective operating alongside Teague, a long established industrial design agency and a name behind products for companies such as samsung and microsoft. The device itself is a musical instrument that ‘plays with you’ and aims to provoke a two way dialog between musicians.

The device reads a palette of notes that it can in-turn interpret and compose into various rhythms and phrases that are strung together to form something musical. The user can then influence these strings of notes and rhythms to create entirely new compositions using a simple collection of 8 triggers/knobs which are manually inserted. No single knob controls a single function, but rather a blend of functions derived from it’s rotation.

The team explains the thinking:

A couple of us started talking about the state of musical instruments, digital music creation, and how so much of it buckles under the weight of heavy user interfaces and the desire for more knobs, buttons and faders. What if we were to create a device that sings to you and has its own musical inclinations, yet can also engage in a two way dialog with another musician? Not something that can be controlled as much as be guided and influenced – and as a result guides and influences the user.

But Muze also has its own desire to explore and will continually improvise on the melodies it creates with you. It is out of this ability for it to self-create that Muze becomes a partner and not just an instrument. For instance, we have played with it and then left it to play over lunch. When we return it has come-up with something completely new, yet derivative. Sometimes what Muze creates is enjoyable, sometimes not. At which point you give Muze a little nudge and it creates something new.

All of the code and circuits are open source. You can check out the Arduino code and Eagle circuit schematic on the site. The team is planning to make it more musical, robust, and simple and would love to hear your thoughts, suggestions.

Project Page

Back in 2010, trying to find a flat screen for his final project, Ishac Bertran found one on the trash that seemed ok. Unfortunately the VGA connector was broken but he managed to use the DV only to realise that the screen was also cracked. As it was useless (for normal purposes) he cracked it a bit more, pushing the liquid crystal move along the cracks with a screwdriver and produced these beautiful images below.

More interesting projects @ ishback.com

The Scan Processor Studies are a collection of works by Woody Vasulka & Brian O’Reilly.

The full work is of total approximate duration of 45 minutes, with sections of various lengths, textures, and dynamic qualities.

The works use sources excavated directly from the output of the Rutt-Etra Scan Processor of the 1970′s, as well as further manipulations using Tom Demeyer’s ImX software, developed with input from Steina. Extensive editing and layering and additional augmentations were done using Phil Mortons IP. The Sound was generated (mostly) by custom software developed by Chandrasekhar Ramakrishnan and myself called NETHER GENERATOR, which sets up a number of complex real time feedback networks filtered and processed by various means.

via @mikecreighton + Scan Processor Studies (excerpts pt.1) on Vimeo.

Karl Klomp (’79 – NL), media artist – vj – theater technician. His research focus on live audiovisual expressions and interfacing with a fasination for glitch-art, hyperkinetic audio visuals and glitch grabbing. Dealing with video circuit bending, frame grabbing, hardware interfacing, max programming. Also doing commissioned video hardware tools for other artist. Together with Tom Verbruggen (Toktek) they play live av performance (toktek vs mnk) across the country. Bookings via AllesLos. Also doing audio/video circuit bending workshop, often in collabaration with Gijs Gieskes.

Below are few of many videos available on Kar’s website and vimeo. For full details on the projects please see karlklomp.nl

See also Digital Decay [Reference, Theory]

Daito has just posted this amazing video of smart laser tracking (see below). Laser is projected onto paper and at the same time can read constraints as well as obstacles in physical world. Examples include being able to contain the laser using hands, laser behaviour on drawn paper and more.

Some note from this laser research: The piece is based upon a 3d tracking technology developped in our lab in 2003, using a laser diode, a pair of steering mirrors, and a single non-imaging photodetector called the “smart laser scanner” (for details, see here). The hardware is very unique: since there is no camera nor projector (with pixellated sensors or light sources), tracking as well as motion can be extremely smooth and fluid. (The laser power is less than half a milliwatt – half the power of a not very powerful laser pointer – and does not supposes any hazard). Read more

Project Team:

* Alvaro Cassinelli: concept, software and hardware development
* Daito Manabe: sound concept and sound generation
* Kuribara Yusaku: latest software development including contour
tracking and interface
* Stephane Perrin: participated in early development of the smart
laser scanner technology used for tracking.

You can see more videos on the smart laser research project page.

YouTube – Lasor + Sound test-0.

Continue reading.... Fritzing [Mac, Windows, Linux]