One perhaps unexpected impact of technology has been to change the way we think about ourselves and our experience. Recording equipment – from photography to phonograph – has given us a new sense that memory itself might be fixed, unchanging, an accurate record of an unmoving truth.

Except, of course, neither the recorded object nor the thing it is recording ever quite seems to work out that way. (Ask your local theoretical physicist, or for a more localized, humanized, sociological view, any loved one.)

UNRAVEL is an installation that uses just those sorts of technologies to construct a narrative, and push and tug at that narrative. And if you don’t like it, well, that’ll impact the video, too. (Just complain via Twitter, and you’ll make the narrator “increasingly insecure.” As a blogger, I can relate.)

Combining record playback, a robotic band contributing incidental music, and a set of interactive dials, the installation recounts a story with mechanically-reproduced soundtrack, as the audience adjusts what happens. It’s all clear in the extended video:

More information:

UNRAVEL opens to the public on 20 April – 7 May as part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art at Arch 24/ SWG3.

UNRAVEL is a collection of devices making up a gallery-based, reactive sound installation, through which the audience will attempt to unravel the truth about The Narrator’s life by playing records from his collection.

When we tell the story of a memory, how much of it is true and how much is shaped by who we are talking to? Once we’ve told the story many times, how do we even know what is true any more – what is constructed and what actually happened?

The installation is the work of Edinburgh based arts collective / experimental pop band FOUND, whose members include Ziggy Campbell, Simon Kirby and Tommy Perman and Glasgow-based author and musician, Aidan Moffat best known as one half of the band Arab Strap. FOUND and Aidan Moffat are signed to Glasgow record label Chemikal Underground.

At the heart of the installation is a vinyl record player and ten 7” records of familiar singles from pop music’s heyday. Visitors to the gallery are encouraged to select a record from the collection to be played. As soon as they drop the needle on to the record the installation springs to life. The vinyl controls a series of acoustic, self-playing musical instruments positioned throughout the gallery which soundtrack the story as the narrator recounts a memory he associates with that record. Each 7” record represents a different memory, but unlike conventional vinyl recordings they sound different each time they are played.

Just as a real narrator alters the way they tell a story depending on their mood, audience and context, the memories embodied in the installation will distort, evolve and warp depending on external influences: the time of day, the size of #UNRAVEL’s audience, the local weather, and what people are writing about the installation on twitter from moment to moment.

A year in the making, #UNRAVEL is the first collaboration between FOUND and Aidan Moffat and represents a major new body of work for both. The project required Aidan to write 10 short stories with multiple variations of each, to be soundtracked by a total of 160 new musical compositions by FOUND.

With Investment from Creative Scotland’s Vital Spark programme and New Media Scotland‘s Alt-w Fund with the support of the Centre for Design Informatics, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, SWG3 and the University of Edinburgh.

Funny side note: I recall some evenings out drinking with Scottish people that also questioned the boundaries of what is real and not real and the imperfection of memory, though more in a performative, real-time sense than in an interactive installation. (I was a willing and active participant, so I’ll not hold this experience against the fine countrymen and women of Scotland. Indeed, I hope to toast with these chaps next time I’m in Glasgow. I, of course, do not condone such behavior, and you will find that by contrast, this particular interactive installation has no ill health effects that I know of.)

For something completely different, here’s a beautiful set of instrument robotic solos incorporating acoustic instruments, plants, and bamboo:

A composition for plants, yangqin, bamboo robot and robotic chimes, Three Pieces is designed as a collaboration between robots, traditional instruments, and living things, housed in Victorian Palm House of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. A traditional Chinese dulcimer is played by a robot with many bamboo fingers while the surrounding foliage hides an ensemble of robotic chimes. Despite being separate individuals, the robots communicate and perform together. The robot performers are conducted by all the living things in the Palm House. The moisture content of the soil changes slowly as the plants absorb water, while on a much faster timescale, the temperature changes in the building as animals, including humans, move about. The installation detects this living presence in the Palm House and the music changes accordingly. The robots react to humans, but their mood alters with the plants. For more info visit… foundcollective.com

Previously:

Plant-Reactive Robots Play Bamboo, Chinese Instruments at Royal Botanic Garden, Scotland

Reconceived Acoustic Music on an Interactive Table: Etiquette in Edinburgh

Add this to the Internet of Things: imagine data recording scratching and scratch performances.

Technologists Jamie Wilkinson, Michael Auger, and Kyle McDonald propose a new way of storing scratch moves as data. They’re not just working in traditional ways, either: they’re hacking turntables and optical mice and cameras, and imagine not only recording performances, but having machines recreate scratching. (Robots!) And they want your help. Kyle writes:

i’m going to be leading a group at art hack day ( brooklyn, january 26th-28th www.arthackday.net/ ) about scratch markup
language, a tool for recording performances from turntablists.

this describes the general idea and who we’re
looking for. we need everyone from web designers/developers, to
hardware hackers, coders and musicians. if you’re interested, or know someone who is interested, contact me or join the google group groups.google.com/group/arthackday/

(We cover the awesomeness that is Graffiti Markup Language on Motion, which goes further to explaining why this sort of data storage can be powerful and enabling.)

All is described – rather bizarrely – in an image. (Can we have plain text, please? It is, at least, a pretty picture!)

The very word “robot” comes from a Czech author, Karel Čapek and his 1920 sci fi theater work R.U.R.. In terms that resonate today, class, economics, and freedom play into that narrative, as Čapek introduced not only a word but the modern concept of android.

So, it’s fitting that the Czech Republic would be the scene for an artist carrying on the author’s legacy. Inventor Stanley Povoda doesn’t just imagine robots; he builds them and makes them into a musical band. Repurposing refuse, the robotic creations have eyes for knobs, and play percussion and other instruments. These are liberated robots, making music, not the oppressed, soon-to-revolt robots in R.U.R.

And yes, speaking of the Czech Republic, this is another case in which the once-unknown technological innovation and exploits are making themselves heard (literally) outside the nation’s borders. See, previously, the story that inspired this tip:

Meet the Little-Known DIY Music Pioneer of the Czech Republic, Standa Filip

Thanks to sout-side for the heads-up!

More importantly: dancers. On stilts. Shooting sparks and flame. This guy is a hell of an inventor. (See video, top.) Watch the interview below, then read lots more on his work in this article:

Stanely Povoda & His Robot Band [vivelesrobots-education.dk; site also in Czech]

And while I wish there were more documentation (time to hop Easyjet, perhaps), there are some short clips from his Prague kitchen:

Also, some links to his tube theremin:

http://www.midi.cz
http://midi.cz/Comment.aspx?id=89045
http://midi.cz/Comment.aspx?id=90456
http://midi.cz/Comment.aspx?id=90472

Sydney-based duo Electrocado (Bill Day + Ryan Whare) have been busy making machines to make music – and banging things. In the video above, their inventive robotic percussionist, triggered via MIDI, plays tunes and rhythms. The CP1 (Creative Project 1) uses servos to control drum sticks (chopsticks, in fact) pivoting on rods, which can then strike metal, plastic, and drum skin surfaces. Playing a G# Minor scale on a xylophone along with drums, the robot responds here to MIDI patterns sent to it by Ableton Live.

You can read loads of commentary on the process of making it in a PDF paper:

“Aesthetic and Practical Applications for Robotics in Electronic Music: Further Development of CP1 MIDI Triggered Robot [all for the Bachelor of Audio at SAE Sydney]

These two aren’t just about building flashy hardware, though. They also have a full-length album debut out, with diverse, stuttering, danceable music. I like “psychedelic glitch trance electro” as the label; various other keywords could easily fit. (The opening track even recalls Akufen; keep listening for a gamut of other goodness.) Intricately composed, sometimes tending into tech-house, the record is as finely-tuned as the robotic machine.

I could ramble on, but it’s pay-what-you-like on Bandcamp, so have a listen:

The Hass Effect | http://electrocado.bandcamp.com/

We’re also treated to the delightfully-named track “The Lugubrious Frog,” complete with some froggy drawing timelapse. Artists, too contribute to the project.

Yet more music, in the form of earlier EPs:

Thanks to Bill for sending this along; you’ll find his site worth a look, as well:
http://www.mrbillstunes.com/

Brilliant work, mates. We’ll be watching.

If you have any questions about their work, ask them here and perhaps we can do a follow-up interview.

We focus primarily on new machines and technology that make music directly, but of course, these tools make instruments that make music, too. Having seen an image of a guitar string vibrating from German firm Plek A+D Gitarrentechnologie earlier this week, reader Brian Turley observes that the work that company is doing is impressive.

We’re not necessarily talking mass-manufactured, machine-made guitars, either. The device in this case augments more traditional techniques, and can be put in the hands of an expert luthier. Plek’s technique scans guitar necks in multiple dimensions, creates a virtual fretboard in which you can adjust frets, then cuts some combination of frets, nut, and saddle for the desired result. The upshot of all of this: if the frets are adjusted precisely, it’s easier to play notes and string action is least likely to impede intonation. (It plays better and sounds better, done right.)

Here’s a bit on the technique:

The computer ascertains a 3-D like graph of the fretboard surface, including the position and height of the strings. Thanks to the plek scan the relief of the neck created by the string tension is taken into account while calculating the process parameters.

In the Virtual Fret Dress menu the operator can not only determine how much needs to be cut off from each fret but can also set the fretboard radius and amount of fall-off suited for the instrument or player. You can see the height of each fret, how high each fret will be after processing as well as where fretboard buzz occurs because of frets being too high or too low.

More information:
Plek: Technology

Guitar makers and repair shops then buy these machines for their own use; it’s just one tool in a larger toolchain, and it needs a very skilled operator. Humans, therefore, are no less a part of the equation.

I’m of course way out of my depth here; I think the last time I made a guitar it involved rubber bands and a cardboard box in school. But I’d be fascinated to hear from someone working with these machines. And even for us lay people, it’s a small but fascinating window into the sorts of tools now available to luthiers.

In a responsive, real-time sculpture, the simple sonic qualities of a rainstick become electronically enhanced. Rainlith, a “kinetic sound art” work by Rui Gato, makes the rainstick itself robotic, its sounds transformed in space in a way that is itself sculptural. Responding to movement in the space using Microsoft’s Kinect, the apparatus is a geektastic brew of just about every tool you could imagine involved in this sort of construction.

The artist shares full details, reproduced here in both English and Portugese – and Rui, thanks for sending this in:

Rainlith 2 – Kinectic sound art piece.

On Rainlith, the primitive naturally granular sound of a big rainstick gets explored in real-time by cyber-age sound manipulation tools.
It’s an interactive piece in witch the movement of the audience’s body activates an electric motor, making a reflex movement on the structure that embraces the instrument.
The sound of the rainstick is captured and processed in realtime, and sent 24 meters above, filling the empty space of a old industrial cereal container. The reverberated acoustic mix is then received back by the audience in the spot right below the opening of the container.

Na peça Rainlith o som primitivo, naturalmente granular, de um pau de chuva é explorado por ferramentas modernas de sound design, em tempo real.
É uma peça interactiva em que o movimento do corpo do público activa um motor eléctrico, provocando um movimento reflexo na estrutura que sustenta o instrumento.
O som captado em tempo real é processado e enviado 24 metros acima, enchendo o espaço de um silo de cereais industrial. A mistura acústica reverberada é absorvida pelo visitante no local imediatamente abaixo da abertura do silo.

hardware:

microsoft kinect
arduino duemilanove
H-bridge (hand made)
24v 6A DC motor
CPU
zoom H4N
FM emitter / receiver
ion ipa3 portable speaker

software:

MAX/MSP
Max for Live
OSCeleton
OpenNI
Nite
toxiclibs

agradecimentos especiais:

Nicola Henriques
Susana Luiz
Luís Pereira
Paulo Carocinho
André Sier
Daniel Coimbra
Ruben Santos

By the way, if you’re intrigued by the potential of Kinect, be sure to read sister site Create Digital Motion for more. Just today, we have news of a new version of EyesWeb that could be relevant to musical use:
EyesWeb, Powerful Computer Vision Software for Windows, Adds Kinect Support, Fixes, More

The first law of musical robotics: rock hard.

We’ve seen plenty of robotic musical experiments, but finding a robot that can seriously shred is another matter altogether. Meet the robotic string instrument, Poly-tangent, Automatic (multi-) Monochord – let’s just call her PAM. Built by Expressive Machines Musical Instruments, a group of University of Virginia PhD students and composers, PAM is capable of creating raucous musical performances like the one above, by composer and EMMI member Steven Kemper.

Musical robotics is cool, but it also hasn’t evolved much technologically in fifty years. It’s gotten cheaper and more accessible, but the fundamental design hasn’t changed – and that accessibility hasn’t translated into widespread use.

Now, the EMMI crew, in anticipation of a residency at Amsterdam’s famed STEIM research center, are hoping to take robotic music to the next level. MARIE is a project to put robotic music in a form that you can easily take on the road. They want to make the project open, so others can benefit, complete with schematics and code.

There are several aspects that make the MARIE project special beyond just road-ready design. The new instruments are intended to be more modular and controllable, to make the robotics as flexible as classic MIDI and analog modular gear has been. They also benefit from acoustic sound creation, controlling columns of air and physical strings instead of just digital or electrical models as on synths.

To fund their vision, the EMMI crew have started a Kickstarter project. You get something in return from your investment, including even training on robotics and good, old-fashioned instruments like the sax and bassoon. (That should put to rest any fears that these guys want a robot-only musical future.) Here’s how they describe their work:

MARIE are a set of virtuosic and expressive music robots that are portable, reliable, user-friendly, and fit within the dimension/weight limits for international checked baggage. In other words, these are music robots for touring musicians. The hope of EMMI and the EAR Duo is that the usability and portability of MARIE and similar music robots will finally push this powerful technology out of research labs and onto stages around the world. Within this aim, the entire project will be publicly documented online and the source code and hardware diagrams all provided as public knowledge for other enterprising musicians and technicians to construct similar robots.

EMMI-ers, I hope you keep CDM posted as you go. It looks like a very worthy project indeed.

Fundraiser for MARIE, open music robots for touring musicians [STEIMblog]

Expressive Machines

MARIE: a virtuosic band of robots made by and for musicians [Kickstarter]

Shimon, an adaptive, improvisational, percussion-playing robot, is getting smarter – and more famous, with appearances in places like the Stephen Colbert show. Now, humans have been known to get a big head under such circumstances. Shimon’s head has gotten “more social” – gestural intelligence helps the robot relate to fellow players and nod its head in time to the music.

I got a chance to talk more to project creator Dr. Gil Weinberg, director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology. He’s also taken some of this technology and built it into mobile app ZOOZBeat which you can spot in one of the videos here alongside the (much more expensive, no you can’t have one) robot.

What might surprise you about the Shimon project is that it isn’t just about copying what humans can do with a robot. In fact, if anything, says its creator, it’s about human-robotic relations. “The project was always aimed at creating new and inspiring interactions between humans and robots, with the goals of creating new and exciting musical outcome that cannot be created otherwise,” says Weinberg. He emphasizes that, while the robot assimilates human listening, it has a musical style all its own.

And yes, if there’s any doubt that Georgia Tech students can kick our ass in smarts and drum chops, even the ones who aren’t advanced robots, that’s Caity in the new promo video at top, an architecture major with LEED certification and drum line experience right up to the pros (having drummed for the Atlanta Falcons). That’s their fight song at the end. In fact, the only thing Georgia Tech students can’t do, evidently, is sing. (Though, based on my undergrad alma mater, I really, really, really can’t make fun.)

Shimon on Colbert from Georgia Tech on Vimeo.

Talking Machine Music

CDM: You talk in the NPR interview about not wanting the robot to play just like a human. So, I wonder – would you think of the robot as an expression of the musical taste and instincts of its designers? In some ways, it does sound different from a human; could we think of Shimon as having its own style, or being interesting because of its non-humanness?

Weinberg: Our motto is “listen like a human, play like a machine”. The idea behind it is that in order to connect with humans, Shimon has to understand music the way we humans do. For this purpose we developed perceptual modules based on music perception research for concepts such as tension and release, stability, similarly, etc. When Shimons responds, however, we want him to be surprising and inspiring, introducing new ideas that humans are not likely to use, whether by using mathematical processes that humans cannot process in real time or just through mechanical abilities. For this purpose we developed algorithms that utilize concepts such as genetic algorithms, fractals, morphing of HMM-based improvisation, etc. So for example, Shimon can respond by morphing the styles of Monk, Coltrane and his human co-player, in a way that humans probably will never use. In that sense he has its own musical style. For each different piece, though, Shimon may have a different style or “taste” based on the algorithm we use. I assume that one could say that his “taste” is a combination of all of his styles, which are inspired by the designers’ input.

How has the robot’s algorithm evolved since we first talked about it? What sorts of modifications have you found useful?

An important recent addition to the project is Shimon’s social head, developed with the help of my former post doc – Guy Hoffman. In order to create the connection with humans, we explored ideas of embodiment and gestures, as instrumental aspects of expressive musical group play. Currently Shimon can detect to the beat and nod his head accordingly, which helps humans get into the groove. He would look at what he finds interesting (if one player is playing something different than before, or different than the other players, Shimon would look at her rather than the other players). If Shimon plays something sophisticated, he is more likely to look at his own arms etc. We are also working on anticipating and coordination. We installed a camera in his head, and are currently working on letting Shimon use the visual input to anticipate and coordinate his playing with humans, along with the auditory information it currently processes.

Did the Colbert Bump go to Shimon’s head?

First Shimon was somewhat insulted, for himself and for the idiom of Jazz in general. Then he realized that they spelled his name correctly, so he started bragging about it. He also started to play in other styles to distance himself from the genre

But seriously, I am wiring a new piece for Shimon in an African Marimba Band Play style, which will help show its versatility in genres. (And here is an old clip where he plays an Indian Raga.)

Any other work we should know about, or other research growing out of the Shimon project?

To validate the importance of visual cues in music group play (i.e, validating the importance of Shimon’s embodiment and physically of the robot in comparison to interacting with computer generated music) we conducted this research: Visual Cues:
The Effect of the Visual Modality on Musical Ensemble Synchronization

Also, check out this paper, which won the Best Cognitive Paper in ICRA 2010. [That's the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, for those of you not in the know. And IEEE originated as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Whew. -Ed.]
“Gesture-Based Human-Robot Jazz Improvisation” by Guy Hoffman and Gil Weinberg [PDF link]

Shimon in Videos

Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology

dromama from Altitude Sickness on Vimeo.

Wherever you are in the world, here’s some geeky inspiration to kick off this summer weekend. And if you’re in the Los Angeles area, you should absolutely, positively be on Venice Boulevard tonight at 8pm at hacker venue CRASH Space for Handmade Music, gone LA.

In the lineup: circuit bent toys, robotic guitars, MakerBots, monomes, and microcontroller synths, with Altitude Sickness, Ian Hattwick, The Sweaty Caps, Theron Trowbridge, and Vince Wong.

It’s free at 8 pm, but if you can donate the recommended $10, you can help CRASH Space become a not-for-profit.

Full details at handmademusic.noisepages

Here’s a look at what these crazy California kids are up to. At top, Altitude Sickness is known for his Tupperware-housed creations. Check the Vimeo page for that video to grab MIDI remote scripts for Ableton Live plus Max patches for nanoKONTROL, monome, and more. Inspired by a previous post here on CDM, he assembled a bunch of custom controls for live performance and then uploaded the results for anyone to enjoy. But Altitude Sickness isn’t the only guest star tonight…

The Makerbot, the homebrewed, open source, 3D fabrication / CNC product, has been making music for some time. Above: a stirring rendition of “Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton. But Crash SPACE have not one, but three Makerbots, leading to the first (that I know of) Makerbot ensemble. And they’ve got some extra MIDI code running between them.

Result: extra polyphony.

Lastly, Ian Hattwick’s Guitamaton, inspired by African rhythmic modality, turns the guitar into a robotically-controlled percussion instrument. Ian describes it thusly:

Guitamaton is a computer controlled musical instrument which explores the percussive and resonant qualities of the acoustic guitar. It melds the precision of microprocessor control with the unpredictability of vibrating metal and wood, and brings an added level of embodiment to computer based music by placing the sound creation process firmly in the physical world.

Enjoy these videos and links, and anyone who is in LA and makes it, be sure to send us any documentation you capture. (I’ll be in NYC, perhaps watching your Dodgers play the Yankees.)

Updated: There’s also the Xylovan, which is exactly as awesome as it sounds. California, always innovating in the vehicle department.

Facebook event page/RSVP

Robots may not yet surpass the piano-playing skills of master musicians, but they can at least blow a few piano students out of the water. And the latest musical robots aren’t priceless models out of big corporate R&D departments. They’re hacked together from off-the-shelf toys, use cheap parts, and are assembled with instructions you can grab free off the Internet. Now, what was that about the age of DIY being dead again? (Sorry, Radio Shack; maybe it just moved to Toys ‘R Us.)

Behold a programmable robot made of K’nex interchangeable toys. Recently featured on the how-to site Instructables, this robot can play simple musical sequences. Toys, as always, make for great rapid prototyping: this project makes use of an intelligent base unit and a system of interchangeable building blocks that make the design both easy to build and easy for others to replicate. It’s proof positive that while the digital age may tend to the virtual, mechanical invention still has plenty of room. And, hey, if this seems too advanced, there’s always the K’nex music stand project.

Programmable Knex Piano-Playing Robot – More DIY How To Projects

One more video follows below. And yes, the ‘bot can play Heart and Soul, even if it has neither. Congratulations to New York-based plysaxaphone on the work.