PERSONALDEBRIS  

Two related projects: Pictured above is Phrases Collide by Jeff Gray, a musical instrument created with conductive threads sewn into a fabric casing for two ropes. When handled by a performer wearing conductive fabric gloves the two trains of conductive thread connect shorting the contact. The resistance between the two threads is measured as a variable resistance and alters a pre-recorded sound.

Contrast this with the Electronically Sensed Rope by SQUID Labs, a rope webbing with integral sensing capability. Pictured below is the rope installed for the Extreme Textiles exhibition in 2005. In this form the “Rope and Sound” acts as an interactive musical harp. Pulling on any blue rope on the installation produces sound and affects a visual display which illustrates the activity on all ropes. The display provides “finer grain” feedback to supplement the auditory information.

Some interesting information about the Electronically Sensed Rope.

“Nylon, polyester and advanced polymeric fibers such as Spectra and Kevlar can be combined with integrated conductive fibers to transform conventional rope applications. Conductive fibers are braided with traditional fibers to produce a rope that is capable both of carrying a load and monitoring the weight of that load. Squid Labs is developing this technology to provide load, abrasion and localised wear information to assist rope users in assuring the quality and reliability of their ropes while in service.”

“The rope acts as its own strain gauge, monitoring tension constantly while the rope is in use. In this installation, changing the tension in the blue active ropes creates an electrical signal that modulates the music that you hear through a synthesizer. Just as the human muscular-skeletal system is a tensegrity of muscle and bone, the ropes and aluminum tubes form a tensegrity of tension and compression, pushing and pulling, weightlessness and gravity.”

UPDATE: Thanks to Michelle, who sent in this link, to the Global String project by Atau Tanaka and Kasper Toeplitz.

“Global String is a multi-site network music installation, connected via the internet. It is a musical instrument where the network is the resonating body of the instrument, by use of a real time sound synthesis server.”

A real physical string is connected to a virtual string on the internet. Vibration sensors monitor when the string is plucked. So unlike SQUID Labs‘ rope there is no integrated sensing and no use of conductive fibers in the structure of the rope, but it is a beautiful award winning interactive artwork.

We just returned from Scotland today where Jonah and I led two workshops, one in Glasgow at Urban Learning Space and another at the new Distance Lab in Forres. We also gave talks at New Media Scotland’s Poker Club in Edinburgh. The trip was a good one, though very quick. Thanks to all who came, participated, and helped us to make it happen, especially Gillian, Stefan, and Michelle.

Jonah’s show, Deconstructing Networks opened this last weekend at OBORO Gallery in Montreal. As part of the exhibition Tim came over and two thirds of Family Filter (Jonah and Tim) got together to hold a performance of Simpletext. As one participant texted to the performance, “simpletext is like crack.” - Yes indeed! Jonah’s show runs from September 16th - October 21st. If you’re in Montreal go check it out.

Friday we held a Midi Scrapyard Challenge at Oboro Gallery in Montreal. We all had a blast. Pictures can be found here and at Jonah’s site. Meanwhile the number of people posting their own Scrapyard photos on Flickr keeps increasing. Pictured above is a turntable/beat machine created by Eric, one of the workshop participants. He used springs, screws, and other scrap metal parts to hold down wires against the metal of the turntable which had been intermittently insulated with duct tape. As the leads moved from covered to uncovered sections chords of sound played. In addition, Eric included an old speaker that he used as a variable resistor to control the pitch bends of the notes. Good stuff!

While in San Jose for ISEA 2006 I got to check out the Edge Conditions exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art. One of the projects, Light From Tomorrow by Thomson & Craighead stirred some interesting thoughts.

The project is comprised of a lightbox in a gallery (or in this case museum) space which is connected to a light sensor located in the Kingdom of Tonga, which lies at the edge of the International Date Line. The light readings from Tonga are sent over the internet to the lightbox, which reproduce the light levels. Two seperate clocks display the local time of the installation and the local time in Tonga. The piece is intended as a poetic reflection on distance, time, and global communications. (In the gallery, the light from “tomorrow” can be seen “today.”) We’re meant to perhaps feel a sense of interconnectedness, wonder, and perhaps optimism. But for me the project causes me to think of the problematic questions which only recieve oblique treatment in the piece.

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The ISEA 2006 symposum begins today. Our DIY Urban Challenge ended yesterday. Check out Jonah for more photos or the Scrapyard Challenge website.

Found over at uji-making. Total awesomeness, in the form of the only type of SUV I would ever feel good about supporting on the streets. The Green Hummer Project looks like a bicycle on crack and consumes no gas. It’s all human-powered, baby. Right on!

Jonah and I did a Midi Scrapyard Challenge at Machine Project on July 9th. Photos are up on our Scrapyard Challenge site and Mark Allen and Zota have posted their pix on Flickr. (Here’s a photo of Mark Daggett rocking out on his weight scale guitar like a true rockstar!)

Jonah and I leave for Amsteram this Friday for ten days. We’ll be holding a Scrapyard Challenge for Virtueel Platform. The workshop location is at Steim. We will also be giving talks while we’re there.

Jonah and I have our work Umbrella.net featured in New Media Art, by Mark Tribe and Reena Jana. The book is published by Taschen and available now at Amazon.