abstractmachine

• Installation: ^3, a.k.a.³, a.k.a. “cubed”
• Concept+Design: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Exhibition: ZeroOne San Jose
• Dates: August 7 - 13, 2006
• Play! Online (requires Shockwave)
• Video (via YouTube) : Cubed Demo
• Video (iPod compatible) : Cubed Demo

Since the video from my last post was referenced over at Metafilter, I’ve received a lot of traffic. There are some interesting critiques over there, although I have heard a few of them before in private. The most common is the fact that you have to have the cube analyzed, instead of manipulating the emulated cube real-time. I will adress these issues in more detail at a later time, but it should be said for now that I have tried a real-time version, only to be frustrated by the lack of musical advantages — i.e. it just made everything messy, as it is ultimately a real-time sequencing instrument, and not a real-time note-for-note instrument. Added to this, is the problem of technically analyzing a cube without adding active electronics into the cube itself. I am researching the use of passive electronics in the cube, but that still means designing a Frankencube. I want people to Bring Your Own Rubik’s Cube (yes, that stands for BYORC Music), and even use the cube as a sort of floppy (floppy cube?) where you can “store” each composition and move back and forth during the performance.

Shortfuse quite correctly reminds me that I had originally spoken of the fluidity of a guitar. Although my inspiration was right (I think), the idea of using the guitar as an example was more confusing than obvious. A guitar, like a piano, works with discrete notes that are often played in combinations. On the guitar these notes are stroked using various rythmic motifs, i.e. via strumming. This is what I originally was interrested in: you have the permutation on the neck that you stroke with your other hand — permutation + interpretation. But of course the way the guitar is stroked is so much more expressive because variations can also be applied on the neck, and can lead to all sorts of amazing improvisations, putting it in a whole other league. I probably should have just avoided the guitar comparison altogether and talked about making a kick-ass interface for Max/MSP.

Like I said, there will be more information on the design of the instrument when ZeroOne opens and people can play it live. Also the conceptual framework for this instrument should be clearer. See you there.

Update: due to traffic problems (this video has been downloaded a lot) I’m trying YouTube for the first time. If it works out, I’ll move everything over.

I’m getting swamped with Spam, and the WordPress filters can’t seem to stop it anymore. So I’m changing the rules for posting comments. I don’t want to close comments, and I don’t want to moderate everything, so if you’ve already posted a comment, you’ll pass automatically. But if you haven’t, you’ll have to wait for moderation. Sorry, but as anyone who has a blog knows, there’s a lot of spam. It’s insane.

One thing I have say about spam though, is that I’ve been reading it for years and I find it more and more poetic. Here are some recent examples:

“He went into the street and hailed a cab. He told the driver to go to stalker to fall into the meatgrinder and live. He was lucky. The fool…”

“Brendan said he was going to teach me how to be a judge someday. God help the boy, interjected Mrs. Cooper. That man dresses like a peacock flowering to mate. You may go into our room and watch television, overrode Marie quickly. But only for a half hour — Aww!”

Sometimes, it’s almost a simple haiku:

“in letitia see formaldehyde it place try istanbul , medford try caracas it breadfruit on goldwater the petrify or prince not merlin , stormbound try monsieur not tum”

Let’s try formatting that for a little more style:

in letitia
see formaldehyde

it place
try istanbul ,

medford
try caracas

it breadfruit
on goldwater
the petrify
or prince
not merlin ,

stormbound
try monsieur

not tum

It’s only a matter of time before some smart-ass contemporary artist strikes gold with this powerful new world of spam. If you’ve ever lived in North America, you know that spam has been a viable medium for years — long before it discovered the Internet. In fact the american economy, it might be argued, depends on it. It’s not going away anytime soon.

Whatever the case, we’ve got to get Jean-Pierre Balpe involved. He could finally have a forum for his brilliant poetic generators, and could probably teach a thing or two to these two-bit automatic poets.

• Installation: ^3, a.k.a.³, a.k.a. “cubed”
• Concept+Design: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Exhibition: ZeroOne San Jose
• Dates: August 7 - 13, 2006
• Play! Online (requires Shockwave)
• Video (via YouTube) : Cubed Demo
• Video (iPod compatible) : Cubed Demo

The « ³ » terminal is working and ready for the august show. One down, three to go.

I was so excited that I quickly set up a camera, forgot to do a decent white balance, and did a one-take video recording with the crappy Quicktime Midi Instruments. So don’t expect much. Obviously I’ll have better instruments for the exhibit, but you’ll have to wait for that. I need to move on to the next terminal as this one took a long time to finalize. But if you’re curious as to how the system works, you can check out the vidceo. Just keep in mind that this is an early demo…

I was suprised to discover that several of the various methods for “solving” the cube are actually musically interesting. Although I’ve been learning several methods over the past few weeks, I figured that I’d have to create new algorithms for permutations that do not seek to solve the cube, but rather seek to make interesting music from it. As it turns out, these two approaches are not incompatible. That said, I really need to speed up my cubing skills. It takes me around 3 min. average to solve it when I’m not making music, and that just won’t do for a live performance when permutations should switch back and forth quickly. Some have got it down to under 20 seconds, so 3 minutes is a joke…

I never said the instrument was designed to be easy to use…