radarboy

I’ve decided to start release some of the stuff I’ve been working on lately, building up towards my show. I have so many experiments sitting on my hard drive that never see the light of day.

So here we have Sound Reactive Circle 1.

I wanted it to be able to play in the browser, but for some reason couldn’t get it to work, event though I signed the applet. Next time….

A video is here. For more of my work see the radarboy FLickr page.

Here’s the code. Build in Processing. It includes a Mac, PC and Linux application.

These screengrabs are part of a vast pool of sound reactive stuff I’ve been working on over the past year, which is finally getting into a presentable form.

After a long haitus, I completely rebuild the old award winning RBVJ in Processing – but it wasn’t as simple as I anticipated, and it’s still not 100% stable. Once it is I will release the code.

I’m not a programmer, I’m a designer/artist, whatever. However I do enjoy quite a few aspects of programatic design – the fact that code can lead you to unexpected places and taking on a life of it’s own can really surprise you.

I am really most inspired by the visuals of Raster Norton and Ali Demirel, which are pretty close to my own work in both style and substance. I’ve also been thinking plenty about space and I think, along with minimalism, these theme play out a lot in my work. I think the graphics also reflect the way my music production is moving.

I have always believed that club graphics should simple – there is too much noise in the world already – and the simplicity of the graphics allows us to go with the music and find meaning on our own, rather than being shoved down a visual mishmash. Not that these kind of graphics should necessarily be just shown in a club context, but that’s another whole conversation.

The plan is to combine the visuals with my live music/DJ sets – eventually controlling both light and sound through Ableton/OSC/Max.

Soon on a wall/dancefloor in Berlin. And beyond.

Project Links:
Gallery: Here’s the first of a three part set of screengrabs from my work:
http://radarboy.com/george/visuals1.html
Video: (Coming Soon – next week hopefully)

Some technical stuff:
I’ve decided to totally ditch Flash – it is just too verbose, annoying and slow. I actually considered moving completely over to Open Frameworks for speed, but eventually decided Processing was the best bet. Given the strides being made in ProcessingJS – the JavaScript port of Processing, the recent launch of Processing for Andoid and news that Processing 2 will be even better friends with OpenGL. Open Frameworks’ inability to publish on the web was also a clincher. Anyway, I digress.

Norman McLaren, was a genius animator and film maker best known for his groundbreaking and minimalist work for the National Film Board of Canada in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. One of the most important names in the history of animation McLaren was a also the godfather of music visualization. He won an Oscar in 1953 for his bizarre short film Neighbours. But here we pay homage to some of his more abstract work, most made without the use of a camera.

Norman McLaren Dots (1940):

Norman McLaren – Boogie Doodle:

Norman McLaren Le Merle (The Blackbird):

And finally, here’s a cool film about McLaren’s working method of drawing sound and played on the Moviola, with the great title of Pen Point Percussion:

Beautiful station ID for Finnish TV by Jopsu Ramu and Tokyo artist and designer and Shun Kawakami.

Check out Shun Kawakami’s other great stuff on his personal site: www.shunkawakami.jp.

Kawakami’s work if very much based in electronic music. And reminds me to an extend of another artist I really admire and have been meaning to post for a while – Carsten Nicolai who is exploring similar themes to myself in his artwork – light, sound and minalism.

Nicolai is well known in Germany for his sound and light specific installations, and his giant dream machine – called Rota, which has recently been turned into an iPhone App. Nicolai is also part of the pioneering record labelRaster Noton. I was recently lucky enough to attend their label showcase night at the WMF in Berlin to witness the future sound of music – a hybrid of dancefloor friendly electro and electronica that made the room and your body vibrate.

Here is Aoyama Spaces, spaces illuminated through a play of sound and light:

http://www.carstennicolai.de
http://www.raster-noton.net/

White Void have done some cool stuff over the years. I remember noticing them when they brought out their Midi Gun, alternative midi controller.

Here’s some of their projects:

Tone ladder – A ladder equipped with sensors becomes a musical instrument:

Polygon playground – a large scale interactive lounge object featuring a software aided 3D surface projection system covering the object with a seamless 360 degree projection mapping, with motion and proximity sensing:

http://www.polygon-playground.com/

One of my favourite creative coders Robert Hodgin aka Flight 404 created this beautiful sound reactive piece in Processing.

Read more about it here: http://www.flight404.com/blog/?p=101 and some great screenshots here: http://www.flight404.com/blog/?p=106

A well overdue idea. Installed at the White Hotel in Brussels. See videos here.

By The Popcorn Makers.

Dug up this old sketch I did – the Peter Saville Tribute, and added sound reactiveness.

Instructions:
Press ‘s’ to turn on sound reactive response.
Use up and down arrow keys to increase or decrease the grid.
Drag with mouse to change perspective.

View here. or download the application (mac/pc/linux).