As an addendum to the last story, Ivica Ico Bukvic sends along an example of the [myu] Max/MSP + Unity game engine combination in action. Here’s the surprise: Unity isn’t generating visuals. Instead, Unity simulates ripples created by movement in the space, and builds physical models that are sonified and spatialized by Max/MSP.

Speaking of work involving art museums and the combination of Max and Unity, VJ Anomolee notes in comments his own work with the pairing. Lightbent Synth is an in-progress piece with alternative controllers and sensors that produces sound with a novel visual representation (sound’s very quiet in this preview — more hopefully once it progresses):

Lightbent Synth from VJ Anomolee on Vimeo.

Ivica explains the top work:

Surveying toys at a previous Handmade Music night.

Handmade Music, the monthly celebration of DIY musical instruments, electronics, and software hits its new home at East Williamsburg’s 3rd Ward tomorrow night, Thursday 12/11 7:30-10:30p. [Directions] Here’s a glimpse of a couple of the projects expected tomorrow night.

If you’re not in the NYC area, you can come visit us online at 8:30p Eastern time and hang with the crafty community denizens of Etsy.com:

Etsy Virtual Labs [not updated as I write this, but check in tomorrow]

If you are in the NYC area:

1. Workshop: We have more workshop spaces available in Michael Una’s workshop. For the cost of parts, and even if you have zero electronics experience, you’ll leave with a finished Beep-It optical Theremin! Walk-ups are okay if we have room, but to be safe, pre-register today:

http://beepit.eventbrite.com/

And it’s got a new form factor, as seen at right.

2. Projects to bring: If you’ve got a project you’d like to bring, just bring it! If you want to give us some warning, fill this out today:

Call for Works Form [Google Docs]

3. Facebook us: You can also RSVP on our Facebook page

4. Snacks/drinks! We’ll have pizza and (for a nominal fee, if you’re of age) PBR’s, and if the weather’s nasty, hot chocolates

Project previews

Handmade Music is a pot luck supper for everything from Max patches to strange acoustic instruments, so we never really know what will show up. Here are a couple of projects that are coming, though:

Any CDM readers who live in Chicago should check this out- it’s a weeklong festival exploring/celebrating sound design, motion graphics, and the overlapping regions occupied by both.

In addition to the week’s worth of discussions and skillsharing classes, there will be two “showcase” nights, Saturday Jan. 19th and Sunday Jan. 20th. For those interested, I will be exhibiting two audiosculptural pieces, Octophonopod and Snowy Day during the event on Saturday. There’s a riduculous amount of talent on both nights, amounting to some of the most fresh and innovative people working in sound and motion graphics today.

[- Michael Una]

Circuit Bent Casio SK 1 from Gijs on Vimeo.

Note: we are temporarily having problems with Vimeo’s embedded video. (So is MAKE, evidently, so it’s not our fault!) Click through to see the video, or enjoy the lovely garbled characters if they’re there.

Regular followers of the music tech blogs know the wild and wonderful work of bender/inventor Gijs Gieskes (here or all over here), in which Casio keyboards get massive mechanical add-ons and Sega games become fuzzy, distorted video art. Phillip Torrone writes us to let us know MAKE has taken a closer look at the artist:

In the illustrious world of case-mods and console hacking, artists and makers are re-inventing the design and function of these ubiquitous consumer electronics devices by creating hybrid systems and creative artifacts that challenge the corporate status quo. Taking this credo to an extreme with his inventive hardware projects is Dutch artist and maker, Gijs Gieskes. From casting a Nintendo Gameboy in concrete in order to build a garden path with “GameBoy Bricks” to creating an analog version of the hated spinning cursor in the Mac OSX operating system with “Spinning Beach Ball of Death”, Gieskes’ work and live performances are an inventive look at how closely entrenched we’ve become in the world of glitchy hardware and scrambled noise producing machines. MAKE recently caught up with Gieskes to discuss his practice, philosophy, and exactly how important the current crop of hackable consumer electronics might be to future generations.

Modding consumer electronics devices into DJ tools with Gijs Gieskes

The author of the interview, Jonah Brucker-Cohen, is an artist himself, so for a little meta-interviewing, check out Regine interviewing Jonah for we make money not art.

Of course, if you’d like to challenge the likes of Gijs and think your bending kung fu is better, get applying to this year’s Bent Festival.

And if you’re in London, MAKE also points to what looks like a really cool toy bending workshop there. Let us know if any of you go!

Expressive technologies, like any other media, will say whatever their creators want them to say and do what their creators want them to do. Surveillance? Entertainment? Worship? Porn? You can count on all of the above, and everything in between.

Usually, when you talk about interactive multimedia software Max/MSP and real-world sensor inputs, you expect live music performance. Multimedia artists Matt Ganucheau, Kyle Machulis, and Kelly Moore took their project in a different direction, building a mannequin that would respond interactively to simulate female pleasure.

Donald Bell (aka electronic musician Chachi Jones) describes this among other projects recently shown at the adult-only tech fair Arse Elektronika (a reference to the artsier European new media show Ars Electronica).

It may sound like Weird Science, but Matt promises that Lisa’s technology is nothing mystical. A cutaway in Lisa’s back reveals a Make controller board that works as a hardware router for all the touch-sensitive sensors mounted on the mannequin’s more sensitive areas. A USB plug found on Lisa’s ankle connects to a nearby computer that handles the software end of things. Matt developed Moaning Lisa’s unique software using a visual programming language called Max/MSP. The program uses a neural networking algorithm to monitor all of Lisa’s sensors and determine her state of excitement, which in turn modulates both her volume and number of moans.

More on Donald’s new blog for CNET, MP3 Insider (which I think will be far cooler than that blog name implies):
Weird science: Lisa the foreplay robot [CNET MP3 insider]
Making the ‘Moaning Lisa’ [CNET crave]

Donald also shot a video, but its adult subject matter and mannequin nipples were deemed too hot for CNET. As I said, technology clearly has a full range of possible applications, so I’ll leave it to you to decide. I’m not necessarily building a Lisa, but I assume you can determine on your own whether you find this offensive and choose whether nor not to watch. Not-safe-for-work / those who don’t like nude mannequins and iPod-powered sex toys: