abstractmachine

The abstractmachine:synchronizer is the latest of the practical, rapidly developed, small-scale algorithmic tools that I’ve been working on as of late — along the lines of abstractmachine:wrap, abstractmachine:crypt, and abstractmachine:background. Like those programs and protocols, it was designed to be a machine that you could use in some practical capacity, despite its particularities ;-)

The idea is very simple: each participant downloads a plug-in for Firefox from the abstractmachine website and installs it into their browser. Once loaded, this system allows for people to navigate their browsers collectively, with each click onto a new page or site carrying the entire synchronized community along for the ride. Collective navigation, synchronized surfing (hey, sounds like an olympic sport), active/passive web flanerie…

From the documentation: The Synchronizer is a system for synchronizing browsers. It allows all of its users to synchronize with each other by literally « getting everyone on the same page ». Pages are called « settings » so as to emphasize the temporary and spatial nature of collective travel. When a user changes a setting by entering a new url, this changes the collective setting for everyone else; i.e. everyone’s browser moves to the new setting.

For more information, and detailed installation/usage instructions: head to http://www.abstractmachine.net/synchronizer, ou aller sur http://www.abstractmachine.net/synchroniseur pour les instructions en français. Also note that while the instructions are only in French and in English, the plug-in itself contains several languages, including Polish(!) and Icelandic(!), and more should be on the way soon. Translation participation is welcome. Contact me for details (it’s only a couple of lines, nothing special).

Please note that this is a public beta, and although we have already tested the system for the past month, we have only done so as a small group and not all that professionally. Don’t be suprised if real-world use with many more synchronizers doesn’t reveal some hidden design flaw. Be sure to post comments here for any suggestions/complaints you might have.

And finally, for those that want to access the backend of this system, for example in order to create some dynamic client in Flash ;-) or Processing, there are full instructions on accessing the public API at http://www.abstractmachine.net/synchronizer/backend.php.

Just in time for the holidays! abstractmachine.net offers you do-it-yourself wrapping paper! Charm your friends and loved ones with algorithmically designed decorations! Join the hip crowd and use the same algorithms as abstractmachine does. Try now, it’s free! Nothing could be easier. Just download the « abstractmachine wrapping paper » software from http://www.abstractmachine.net/wrap/, choose your own randomly generated motif, print, and wrap.

Please note: this software is friendly-ware, i.e. if you use it, be friendly : send an email , post a link, or best of all, send a picture (please pretty-please!) of your presents :-)

• 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…

I might dissapear for a while, as I’m working again on The Game Machine. This is a cool interface I designed a few years back, but never really took the time to prepare it for the rest of the world. It’s been an on-again off-again project as I’ve never really had the opportunity to show it. This time I’ve gone out whole-hog and started integrating the system with some Gameboy Advance experiments I was working on last year. People should be able to make games for their Gameboy Advance and share them online.

Just in time for the holiday season: Free Wrapping Paper!.

I really like the simple little background system I made for the blog. Instead of calling a fixed image, the CSS instead calls a PHP script that generates a random image on the fly. In fact, there is not just one image-generator, but a folder full of them. I just have to add a new program to the folder and hop! it’s added to the system. So for now there are only a few patterns; but when I’m bored I’ll doodle some more.

Here’s a link, if you want to admire (or print) the modular Wrapping Paper in all its unencombered beauty.

P.S. I originally said it was wallpaper (visions of Vasarely in my head), but Colette scoffed at that idea, “That’s ugly wallpaper! It should be wrapping paper.” Hence the current moniker.

• Machine: ^3 ( a.k.a. Cubed, a.k.a. ³ )
• Concept+Development: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Play!

I’m pretty proud of the lastest machine I’ve added to the abstractmachine arsenal. It’s a musical sequencer integrated into a Rubik’s Cube®. You can play it online, or you can hire me to plug in a physicalised version, with real live Cubes generating the musical sequences. I’m trying to find someone to bite for the later, which might have already taken place, with an installation next summer for a music festival (I’ll keep you posted).

Like most of my interactive/musical instrument work, I’m working against the idea that a musician has to create music digitally — algorithmically — while sitting behind a laptop. The listeners should be given some hook to attach them to what the musician is doing: at least a videoprojection if we must generate behind a screen. What are they doing back there, playing iTunes? I’m also poking fun at the over-programmed nature of many of the current electronic tools that pass for high-tech instruments. For, trying to “program” a Rubik’s Cube, as anyone knows, is not an easy matter. So while one might be freed of the obscur interface (everyone understands a Rubik’s Cube), each permutation screws up permutations on the other faces, making the musical progression a true art to master.

There’s also a performance aspect to ³. Music is a live medium, and has been modular and algorithmic for centuries; the digital field should reflect this and allow for musicians to perform digital algorithms with their hands, just as they do with the guitar. Obviously, I’m speaking under the influence of Michel Waisvisz‘ Hands when I talk like this.

Basically, each face is an independant sequencer, with variable speeds (note: the sequencer was designed to keep each of the faces in sync, notably for electronic dance music). Each face of the cube uses a different instrument to play notes generated according to the colors on that face. The darkened square on each face indicates the currently playing note. The cubes are permutated by dragging one of the edge cubes and rotating it around one of the center axes. Each face is identified by its center square. Center squares never change color and are pratical for keeping track of activity. Dragging with the mouse from the center square rotates the entire cube.

³ loads with default instruments chosen from the MIDI instrument library. These synthesized instruments can be changed on each face by clicking on its current number and entering a new value between 0 and 127, followed by the enter key. The volume of each instrument/face can be adjusted independantly. The tempo for each face can be adjusted independantly. Each color represents a specific note to played by one of the six instruments/faces. Each face can have its own pitch value for each color.

Specific permutations can be memorized in a key, then recalled at any time by simply pressing that key on the keyboard. For example: by clicking on the on-screen ‘A’ button, the current permutations are recorded into the ‘A’ key; subsequently, whenever the ‘A’ key on your keyboard is pressed, the cubes immediately return to this memorized state. In the off-line version of ³, current key memorizations, as well as volume, tempo and note configurations, can be saved to disk. This allows a DJ to have a full set memorized, then work off that set. It’s cheating, I know (the whole point is it’s gotta be tough, right?), but you’ve gotta be pratical too.

As with Trane, ³ uses MIDI to generate the music on each face. Music can be generated by the computer using its internal synthesizer, or connected to an external MIDI synthesizer, sampler, or sound module. The MIDI output can also be rerouted within the computer via MIDI to other music software. This allows musicians and DJ’s to expand ³ and plug it into an infinite variety of electronic sound generators. Just open up the ³ window, and your midi devices should show up.

• Machine: twothousandfour
• Concept+Development: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Play!

Happy New Year!

Here’s an interactive greeting card to welcome you to all the great things that await us in 2004.

• Machine: Remap
• Concept+Development: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Play!

Just in time for the war, a mapping program that’ll give you real-time updates on the White House’s geographical expansion program.

• Machine: Browser War
• Concept+Development: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Original website: www.w4r.net (update: this has, ironically, been cybersquatted)

Browser War is an online battle between two randomly selected HTML files. Participants in the war design the code and then upload it to the server. The server then conducts skirmishes, called “Discovery” : it selects possible files and allows each of them to run against one another.

The rules are simple: only one HTML file is allowed, and no server-side embedded code is allowed. All PHP scripts, for example, are disactivated (no hitting below the belt!). Javascript, on the other hand, is allowed, and makes for a fun battle.

• Installation: Object vA7D2
• Concept+Development: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Exhibition: Fête de la science
• Location: Saint-Denis, Paris
• Date: 17, 18, 19 October 2002
• Video: Abstract Machine : Object

I just had an interresting meeting with Mme le Ministre de la science, Claudie Haigneré (the first French woman in space!). She came to see the installations at the “Fête de la science” where I’ve been showing the Object Machine in conjunction with the Paris 8 research lab Laboratoire Esthétique de l’Interactivité. Since my installation was pretty popular — especially with the teenagers that had been dragged there with their school — Mme Haigneré’s assistants wanted me to give her a demo. So I recorded her into the Object Machine saying a highly original phrase “Que l’on fête la science” (oh la la!) then played her back mixed in with a bunch of “banlieusard” rascals that had been playing with the machine a few minutes earlier.

She didn’t really notice my play, and was oddly speechless. I too was puzzled, and asked her why so silent. Finally she muttered, “Je ne sais pas quoi dire. C’est génial. Je ne savais pas que des choses comme ça existe!” (“I don’t know what to say. It’s brilliant. I didn’t know things like this existed!”). I was suprised by this reaction. She’s the minister of research, for god’s sake. Multimedia’s not really all that new after all. The last time I met the the Minister of Research (Socialist that time), it was in 1999: he’d just come back from the MIT Media Lab and was trying to find things of a like nature in France. Ah, the endless musical chairs of politicians.