The UK Sony PlayStation site has posted Josh Randall’s keynote at the Cybersonica arts fest in London. Josh Randall, a sometimes CDM reader (still out there, Josh?), is Creative Director of Harmonix, the groundbreaking game shop that created Guitar Hero and other interactive music games like Amplitude, Frequency (pictured), and (soon) Guitar Hero II.

Interview with Josh Randall [Video, PlayStation.com]

Cybersonica Keynote Excerpts [Video, PlayStation.com]

Via: Interactive Music for the Masses [Pixelsumo, blog of Cybersonica curator Chris O'Shea]

Josh talks in the interview about the upcoming PS3, Cybersonica, and the possibility of other instruments. (Keytar Hero? Accordion Hero? Ukelele Hero? I’m game, Josh!) In his keynote video, he charts the history and past games of Harmonix, talks about the creation of Guitar Hero and the potential of music games, and looks to the future — not only Guitar Hero II, but the future of musical games in general.

Of course, the convergence of music and gaming remains a story that’s dear to our hearts here. That makes it all the more fantastic seeing Guitar Hero hit the big time. It could be just the beginning.

Since I couldn’t be at Cybersonica in London, some of the fabulously imaginative sound art slipped through the cracks. Here’s a brief look at the remaining pieces:

Schizoporotica is a music box that plays torn scraps of paper. The object itself is quite gorgeously decorated, and it looks like people had great fun tearing up the tickets that fed the installation:

Schizoporotica on Pixelsumo
“The melody shredder” on We Make Money Not Art
Project page from the Troika Design Studio that created it, complete with MIDI file samples (it’s been a long time since I saw a project documented with MIDI!)

Interchange by Wojceich Kosma is an application for PSP (built with open source / PSP-hacking tools), one of the PSP sound toys on offer at the show. What’s unique about it is that, in addition to controlling a sequencer on the PSP, you can control simultaneous 3D animations projected on the wall. PSP coding is very tricky indeed; I expect we’ll see more of this work as time goes on.

Interchange project page with pics
Interchange on Pixelsumo

Art blog We Make Money Not Art caught several projects that didn’t even make it onto curator Chris O’Shea’s blog:

Cybersonica roundup including details on a musical gate
Death Before Disko, the wonderfully impossible-to-describe art of Herwig Weiser
Digital shadow puppets by Philip Worthington

The Etch-a-Sound, shown at London’s recent Cybersonica sound art fair, lets visitors draw in 3D using their voice. It’s a bizarre idea, and the right-angle pipes recall a classic 3D animation as much as the original Etch-a-Sketch (awful model for intuitive illustration that the toy was), but it’s great fun. The creators also did a good job of documenting the process. It’s a great glimpse into a process that’s spreading rapidly: after a long drought, people are again making stuff with computers and electronics. It’s a new golden age for magical audiovisual toys.

Process of making Etch-a-Sound [flickr set]
Etch-a-Sound at Cybersonica [flickr set]
Etch-a-Sound on Pixelsumo (blog of the Cybersonica curator, Chris O’Shea)
Project Page, atoyfactory

And the video:

Brilliant work, Seulki Kang and Kenichi Okada!

Fijuu2 is the kind of art that seems to have dropped in from a wormhole from the future. It’s tough to describe, a rotating three-dimensional world in which visitors can sculpt glitchy and resonating sounds, represented by fluid 3D models, all using a standard PlayStation2 controller. We got a chance to see some stills earlier this month, from London’s Cybersonica show where the latest version of the work was installed. Now, the artist has shared a video, and you can really see what this is all about:

Fixed YouTube link after it moved; thanks, Chris! -Ed.

The best news is, thanks to the rapidly-expanding real-time 3D capabilities of consumer computers, this could be just the tip of an iceberg. A pulsating, glitchy, morphing iceberg. Further details at the project site. Thanks to Chris O’Shea, Cybersonica curator and sumo of pixels.

Continuing our coverage of the uber-cool Cybersonica Festival, here’s some quick eye candy. It’s just as interesting to watch how people interact with the sound art installations, from the sound “gate” with its nice blue light to the interactive shadow puppets, or this more analog mechanical installation.

Curator Chris O’Shea tells me he’s getting lots of press, much of it from the UK gaming publications. That just demonstrates how this technology can bridge worlds: not only is the Guitar Hero creator there, but the common theme of many of the works is turning music and art into a game. And, dispensing with all the theoretical gobbledygook you could spout about “involving participants,” this stuff looks wicked fun. I’d love to see this kinds of shows happen in other parts of the world aside from London and New York (bet you would, too).

Sonic Arts Exhibition, Flickr Photoset by escolate