Okay, easy on the Clinton jokes, kids, but just a day after we learn an online fashion ‘zine is making music by recording clothing, we see that a team at NYU is taking the next step: using zippers as musical controllers. (Safe for work — they didn’t get that carried away.) The neatest part of the installation is that you use physical zippers to zip and unzip the jackets and pants of people in video images projected on the wall. Now, how musical is this? Well, that’s up for debate. Maybe shoelaces next time? (I can finally learn to tie my shoes right.)

Zipper Orchestra by Joo Youn Paek with Gabe Barcia-Colombo and Leif Mangelsen, project page; via We Make Money Not Art

Now, making the zipper on your pants a MIDI controller while you’re wearing them? That sounds like the next technological leap to me. Just make sure you’re wearing rugged underwear, or that could hurt, and . . . how did I wind up on this topic?

NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program is a hotbed of exploring digital media, partly because — well — they actually focus on it in their degree, and make performance central. Nothing tests technology quite like taking your work live and making it convincing to an audience. And that’s exactly what those crazy ITP grad students are doing next weekend April 29, as they take over New York’s hip, experimental club Tonic. Upstairs will be performance, downstairs will be installations, and you can expect a strong emphasis on alternative musical instruments and experimental digital music-making tech. The work comes out of classes like “New Interfaces for Musical Expression” and “Live Image Processing for Performance” by faculty members Jamie Allen, Gideon D’Arcangelo and Luke Dubois. Last year was a big hit; this year should be no different. (Thanks, Jamie! Hope to see you there.)

TOOL Event, 4/29, NYC (and check out some great tidbits on alternative notation and performance planning, plus lots of deli.cio.us links, on the ITP New Interfaces for Musical Expression blog)

For the world beyond New York, it’s worth pointing out that NYU’s often art-focused, performance-based, experimental program has given its alumni powerful tools when they develop their careers. It’d be great to see more institutions recognize that the supposedly “soft” fields of art and performance can be just as powerful as traditional science and engineering approaches when developing technology. It’s a possible role model for any of you in academia trying to get colleagues to “cross the quad.”

Just came back from the ITP show at New York University and had a blast. (Ah, yesterday. Remember when we still had a transit system in this town? Good times.) I know we have some readers over there, so, NYU students, faculty, and ITP visitors, drop me a line. Let me know about your work and any impressions of the show — music/sound-related or otherwise. Rest of the world, I’ll have a write-up of some of the student projects later this week.

Spencer Kiser, another whiz kid from NYU’s ITP program, gives CDM our first look at his SpinCycle. It’s a new take on the turntable: instead of tracking grooves on a disc, the device reads colors and produces sounds (and hypnotic colors). Check out Spencer’s flickr gallery for pics for now, but he promises more documentation and video soon.

Another reason I’m jealous of Spencer: he made the Vancouver conference on new musical instrument interfaces. Check out what looks like an interactive washboard-computer interface! More on all this soon . . .

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to attend the 2005 IMC Expo at NYC’s Chelsea Art Museum, a showcase of new interactive sound/visual installation works. The show featured everything from “volumetric” LCD light cubes to sci-fi-style interactive displays to installation toys. For an overview of the new works:

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Coverage Elsewhere: See core77’s story or try NY1’s video (and you thought they only did ‘weather on the ones’)

Catalog of Works: Studio IMC has its own gallery with work descriptions for additional background.

Many of the works were best described in early-prototype phase, but it was nonetheless lots of fun playing with motion tracking, cameras, and of course the toy piano video organ! Don’t miss last week’s report on Cybersonica for more interactive creations from the other side of the pond.