The Amazing Rolo

Gelkies at the Hannah Maclure

Last year I was lucky enough to be the Digital Media Artist in Residence at the University of Abertay, Dundee, a position funded by the Scottish Arts Council. It was an amazing experience for me and my career, and it officially culminated in the production of my first solo gallery show, which took place at the Hannah Maclure Gallery. This show was called “Gelkies”, and opened in November 2009. The show was presented as a sort of zoo, with the eponymous Gelkies being strange creatures native to rural Scotland. I even made a nature documentary about them:

Here is a video that documents the installation itself:

Tomorrow I’ll be giving a talk about the Gelkies to the fabulous folks from Central Station as part of their exciting Dundee Pop-Up tour. Looking forward to it!

Running Time at the National Galleries

It makes me very proud to say that one of my videos, “A story about techno”, is included in the massive and groundbreaking show currently on at the National Galleries of Scotland. The show, Running Time, is the biggest ever exhibition of Scottish video art, and the first ever dedicated exclusively to artist films in Scotland. The show has been going for a couple of weeks now, and each week there is a new theme. This week’s theme, within which my video is included, is Sound and Vision. From their website:

Sound and Vision explores the influence of sound and music on artists’ work, revealing a distinctive stylistic approach to film-making. Artists such as Katy Dove and Craig Mullholland integrate experimental music into their practice whilst others, including Sam Spreckley and Will Duke, use a range of manipulated sound recordings to create unsettling soundtracks.

If you happen to be in Scotland be sure to check this out, it’s at the Dean Gallery and is completely free!

Mujik 1.1 released!

Hooray! After weeks of waiting, I’m happy to announce the release of Mujik 1.1. This update has all sorts of awesome new things, such as three brand new loop packs by the wonderful Nick Janaway, Surachai, and Dave Meckin (aka Dave the Machine). Other new features include the ability to save your creations, and the appropriately named AutoMujik function!

This update is once again the result of lots of hard work by the Lucky Frame team – myself, Jon Brodsky, and Mike Greer. If you already own Mujik the update should be available in your iTunes account now…if you don’t already own it you can go now and get it for yourself!

Lumièrophone

This week I was very happy to present at The Sounds of the Silents, an event at the University of Edinburgh about the history of film sound. There were some amazing lectures and demonstrations from historians and foley artists and more. My presentation was about the Lumièrophone, a screen that I made with Kristina Johansen. As you can see from the photo, this screen has light sensors sewn onto the surface. These sensors control a synthesizer I built that generated sound based on what was projected on the screen. All the sound was thus generated in real time, and without any computers or anything, just a 9 volt battery and some speakers. The Lumièrophone (named after Auguste and Louis)was designed especially for the showing of an abstract film by Walter Ruttman, and I think it worked very well! You can see a video for yourself:

The Gelkies in Dundee

The Gelkies will be at the Hannah Maclure Gallery in Dundee as part of the “Word Games” exhibit with Gayle Meikle. The opening is tonight at 6pm, and the show continues until July 17th. Here is the text that will accompany the piece:

The Gelkie is a strange and mythical creature, whose very existence was in doubt until recently. Native to Scotland, the Hannah Maclure Centre is delighted to present these highly endangered specimens in something resembling their natural habitat. Researchers are still puzzling over their mating habits, but what is clear is that male and female Gelkies must form pairs in order to communicate in their peculiar language of light and sound. A solitary Gelkie is a sad sight indeed, unable to express the slightest noise. But while they naturally form couples, scientists are perplexed by their tendency to spend most of their lives arguing. With time, and your support, Gelkies can flourish throughout Scotland. Please contact the Scottish Gelkie Appreciation Society (SGAS) for information about how you can help these remarkable creatures.

Dispatches from the Maker Faire

The Maker Faire was absolutely incredible for all sorts of reasons, not the least being meeting all sorts of brilliant people working on amazing projects. I brought my camera along to San Francisco with the aim of interviewing some of the other musical Makers. These videos are now on Create Digital Music, but I thought I would post them here too.

First up, Elly Jessop, a Masters Student at the uber-cool MIT Media Lab, and her Vocal Augmentation and Manipulation Prosthesis (VAMP):

Next, Barry Threw from Keith McMillan Instruments shows off the K-Bow (and accompanying software) for extending stringed instrument performance into the digital realm:

And finally, the amazing Moldover and his totally bonkers Syncomasher:

Unique Beats

Last week I was sorry to miss the amazing sounding Unique Beats festival of electronic music here in Edinburgh. I was able to make a few short appearances via video, though! Here is the first video I made for them, a tutorial explaining how I made the Wii BeatLooper in MaxMSP:

The Unique Beats podcast also features an Amazing Rolo song in episode 1!

Wii BeatLooper download

The Wii BeatLooper, which I showed off a couple of days ago in this video, is now available for download! Click here to download the standalone application for Mac OS X, as well as some free samples, a pdf that explains connecting the Wii remote to your computer, and the Max/MSP patches for anyone who wants to play around!

Introducing the Chicken Box!

Here’s a little demo video of me playing around with a synth I finished building this weekend. It has just three knobs (whose function I don’t really understand) and it sounds crazy cool!

This project, like the Jam Jar, was inspired by a tutorial on hackaday.com. All of this synth building will eventually culminate in an interactive installation called “Don’t Talk Back”. More on that later…

Penalty Shootout

On the 28th of January 2009, Dundee United and Glasgow Celtic battled to a 0-0 tie in the semi-final of the CIS Scottish League Cup. The game thus went to penalty kicks.

Celtic won, but not before every player on both teams (including the goalies) took shots in what must have been one of the most epic penalty shootouts in Scottish (if not world) football history.

Watching the coverage I was struck by how the camera angles were always very similar for each penalty. I edited the footage and layered each of these similar camera angles on top of one another to create a composite version of the shootout, compressing the 24 shots into one. The angles were all different lengths, so sometimes you only see one or two layers, and occasionally you see many. I did a similar process with the sound, although I wasn’t quite as rigid, as you will hear.