Readers of my twitter feed will remember a series of tweets a few weeks back about my performance at the Centre for Contemporary Art Glasgow called Exercise Magic!!
This performance was part of a Cryptic Night with fellow artist Rachel Maclean. The night featured videos by the both of us (including my “Penalty Shootout” and “A story about techno”), a wacky Q & A session, and my performance, which was specifically commissioned for this night.
Exercise Magic!! was based around an exercise video (Real Results with Beverley Callard). I donned a specially designed suit designed by Kristina Johansen containing Wii remotes – you can read through the process she went through to make it on her website. The wiimotes, and a wii balance board on the floor, sent data to custom built Max/MSP/Jitter patches, which controlled the video and audio in real time based on my movements. If you’re interested, you can see a screenshot of that patch in my previous post.
The performance started off with me entering the stage and warming up, before beginning to exercise along with Beverley and Co. Slowly, though, my movements started to create strange sounds that clashed with the perfect world of the video. Eventually the lines began to blur between who was controlling who – was I following the video, or controlling it? Throw in some jamming remixes of the exercise music and you get the idea of Exercise Magic!!
I hope to do this performance again at some point soon, and develop it even further. For now, here is a video that shows the first couple of minutes…it was very dark in there so it’s not great quality, but I hope you get the idea.
Photos by Tamara Polajnar
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago at 11:58 am. 1 comment
Anyone in Glasgow over the next week can drop the Centre for Contemporary Art on Sauchiehall Street to say hello to the Gelkies! It’s all a part of the leadup to this Thursday, when I’ll be showing work and performing at Cryptic Nights at the CCA. I’m sharing the night with film artist extraordinaire Rachel MacLean, and we’ve got lots of wackiness planned. We’ll both be showing some of our videos, and I’ll be premiering a brand new performance called “Exercise Magic!!”, which I’ll write about more soon. It involves Wiimotes, an exercise video, and spandex. A screenshot of the Max/MSP/Jitter patch I’m working on, for those of you into that kind of thing!
Posted 6 months, 1 week ago at 2:57 pm. Add a comment
I’m off to Wales tomorrow (more on that soon!), but before I go I wanted to mention that I was interviewed for the most recent installment of the Tech Weekly Podcast from The Guardian about my work making music software for Wii remotes. I had a great time chatting about my successes and challenges…you can listen to the episode here, or in the player below. You can also subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.
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Posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago at 8:56 pm. Add a comment
I’ll be heading down to London early next week to play at a very exciting launch party for My-Um.com! The show starts at 8pm on Monday the 15th on June at The Dublin Castle in Camden, and is only £6. Expect Wii remotes, Jam Jars, and other excitement. I’m looking forward to it!
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 12:01 pm. Add a comment
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:
Goodness me, yesterday was amazing. I met tons of interesting people here at the Maker Faire, and I’m sure today will be no different! Thanks to everyone who dropped by and said hello and played with the Jam Jars and the Wii LoopMachine. My favorite moment so far?
Boyfriend: “beep beep boooop” (playing with jars)
Girlfriend: “What’s it for?”
Boyfriend: “What do you mean ‘what’s it for’? It’s awesome!!”
I’ll be posting the schematic and directions for building your own Jam Jars in the days following the Maker Faire, I’m afraid I don’t have time to do it right away! So check back soon for all of that. In the mean time, if the first people to come down to booth number 121 (next to the Tesla coils) today and say “Jam Jars For Life!” get a free Amazing Rolo t-shirt!
Okay! They just made the announcement that the doors are opening for day two in less than five minutes. Let’s power up those Jam Jars!
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 5:57 pm. Add a comment
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!
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 10:34 pm. Add a comment
Here’s a demo video of a new mini piece of wii music software, made in preparation for my trip to the Maker Faire next week. The BeatLooper is a fun scratching looping device! I’ll be posting this software very soon, along with the Max Patch, and of course there is much more on the way!
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 9:20 pm. Add a comment
Next week I am going to California for the very first time, where I will have a stand at the Maker Faire, an intimate gathering of 80,000 of my closest friends. Over the next week I will be getting all sorts of stuff together for the trip to San Francisco, and of course I will be documenting it all here and on my Wii LoopMachine site. Check back soon for video and software download treats, and maybe even some special gifts for Faire attendees!
click for a pdf of the Maker Faire poster
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 12:17 pm. 1 comment
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here yet, but I’m currently on a tour of the music industry in Poland, thanks to the British Council. It’s been an amazing experience, and last night I played a show using the Wii LoopMachine at Jadlodajnia Filozoficzna, a totally awesome independent venue in Warsaw. The crowd was fantastic, thanks so much for being so supportive!
For those of you who were asking about the music, my Music page is in need of a refresh, I’m afraid, but if you poke around my blog you can find the songs I played last night! Here are two of them right away:
The Amazing Rolo is sound designer, musician, and digital artist Yann Seznec. He is based in Edinburgh, and is currently guest lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee, where he recently completed the Digital Media Arts Residency. He specializes in interactive installations, ragtime piano, Wii music software, and sound art.
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