Posts Tagged ‘Aaron Koblin’

« Older Entries

SENSEable Cities: Exploring Urban Futures

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Gray Area Foundation is pleased to announce:

SENSEable Cities: Exploring Urban Futures, featuring the works of MiT’s SENSEable City Laboratory.

Please join Researchers from MiT Senseable City Lab and Gray Area Foundation for the exhibition opening night reception:

Friday, June 11th, 2010 7:00pm – 10pm

Exhibition OPEN Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 4pm-7pm

Exhibition Description
Since 2003, MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory [http://senseable.mit.edu/] has been investigating how emerging digital technologies can be employed to make cities more livable, sustainable and efficient. We recognize that the digital revolution has lent our cities a new layer of functionality and that now is the time to explore how sensors, cellphones, micro-controllers and networks of other handheld devices can be used to more effectively manage city infrastructure, optimize transportation, analyze our environmental impact and foster new communities.

In this, the first retrospective of the lab’s work, we have chosen 15 past projects that represent the potentials of this new world of pervasive computing. A collection of works from MoMA, Venice Biennale, Expo 2008, and Design Museum Barcelona. The work ranges from a pollution-sensing e-bike, to tiny sensors that can detect the final journey of trash in the waste removal system, and from real time visualizations of calling patterns during Obama’s Inaugural speech to a new smart building from the London 2012 Olympics.

SENSEable Cities: Exploring Urban Futures commences with a series of public events, June 11th- 13th, with related programming running through August 11th.

Below are a few projects included in the exhibition:

Copenhagen Wheel

Cars have GPS and traffic awareness; now bicycles can, too. But the Copenhagen Wheel has a new feature no ordinary auto navigation awareness has: it can track pollution awareness as well – in real time. The state of the art hybrid bike also saves power when you pedal and lets you use it when you need a bit of a boost. Copenhagen Wheel is an example of the city data dialog taken to the next level – beyond dialog to interactive decision making.

New York Talk Exchange

Exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York Talk Exchange asks the question: How does the city of New York connect to the global conversation? Using phone and IT data, the images reveal the real time connections between various boroughs and the countries they connect to.

iSpots

The iSpots project maps the dynamics of MIT’s wireless networks across campus, revealing the ebb and flow of daily life.

Obama One People

For President Obama’s 100th day in office, MIT SENSEable City Lab created visualizations of mobile phone call activity that characterize the inaugural crowd and answer the questions: Who was in Washington, D.C. for President Obama’s inauguration day? When did they arrive, where did they go, and how long did they stay?

Amsterdam

Through partnership with mobile operators, Current Cities reveals the inner workings of a city through text messages, articulating the life of Amsterdam, here, These images depict the volume and intensity of text messages during on New Year’s Eve day and night.

Trash Track

Have you ever wondered where your trash goes? MIT researchers attached tags to trash to track it. Some trash is provincial – expiring not far from home, while other objects travel great distances to be disposed of.Trash Track has received wide attention in the national and international press. It has been deployed in several U.S. cities, including Seattle and New York.

–Complete List of Projects–

future NENEL / 2010
flyfire / 2010
the cloud / 2009
AIDA / 2009
the copenhagen wheel / 2009
trash track / 2009
currentcity /2009
spacebook / 2009
eyestop /2009
obama | one people / 2009
world’s eyes / 2009
real time copenhagen / 2008
digital water pavilion /2008
NYTE / 2008
The wireless City /2007
wikicity rome / 2007
wikiCity / 2007
venice biennale / 2006
real time rome /2006
zaragoza bus stop / 2006
tsunami_safe(r) houses / 2005
mobile Landscape Graz / 2005
iSPOTS / 2005
Raster Cities /2005
A.C. Milan / 2004
Sandscape / 2004
Illuminating Clay / 2004
Phoxelspace / 2004
Programmable Window / 2004
Cannes Reloaded /2004

–People–

Carlo Ratti / Director
Assaf Biderman / Associate Director

–Current Researchers–

Clio Andris, German W Aparicio Jr., Rex Britter, Francesco Calabrese, Filippo Dal Fiore, Giusy Di Lorenzo, Jennifer Dunnam, Xiaoji Chen, Carnaven Chiu, Luigi Farrauto, Cesar Harada, Lindsey Hoshaw, E Roon Kang, Kristian Kloeckl, Aaron Koblin, David Lee, Eugene Lee, Mauro Martino, Vincenzo Mazoni, Stephen Miles, Mahsan Mohsenin, Sey Min, Nashid Nabian, Walter Nicolino, Dietmar Offenhuber, Christine Outram, Francisco Pereira, Santi Phithakkitnukoon, Adam Pruden, Francisca Rojas, Christian Somner, Bettina Urcuioli, Malima Wolf, Caitlin Zacharias

–Past Researchers–

Alan Anderson, Burak Arikan, Dima Ayyash, Euro Beinat, Luis Berríos-Negrón, Daniel Berry, Andrea Cassi, Natalia Duque Ciceri, Enrico Costanza, Pedro Correia, Talia Dorsey, Sarah Dunbar, Samantha Earl, Paula Echeverri, Chris Fematt, Lucie Boyce Flather, Saba Ghole, Fabien Girardin, Lewis Girod, Gabriel Grise, Daniel Gutierrez, Tim Gutowski, Margaret Ellen Haller, Alex Haw, Bartosz Hawelka, Guy Hoffman, Teerayut Horanont, Sonya Huang, Myshkin Ingawale, Sarabjit Kaur, Jan Kokol, Sriram Krishnan, Xiongjiu Liao, Alyson Liss, Liang Liu, Jia Lou, David Lu, Andrea Mattiello, Justin Moe, Eugenio Morello, Kenneth Namkung, Kevin Nattinger, Sarah Neilson, Giovanni de Niederhausern, Yaniv Ophir, James Patten, Jill Passano, Fabio Pinelli, Riccardo Pulselli, Pietro Pusceddu, François Proulx, Daniele Quercia, Martin Ramos, Rahul Rajagopalan, Jon Reades, Bernd Resch, Renato Rinaldi, Susannes Seitinger, Andres Sevtsuk, Louis Sirota, Najeeb Marc Tarazi, Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Musstanser Tinauli, Andrea Vaccari, Kenny Verbeeck, Yao Wang, Sarah Williams, Shaocong Zhou

–Advisory Board–

Eran Ben-Joseph, Rex Britter, Gillian Crampton Smith, Joseph Ferreira, Dennis Frenchman, Hiroshi Ishii, Michael Joroff, Bruno Latour, Frank Levy, William J. Mitchell, Antoine Picon, Adele Santos, Saskia Sassen, Lawrence Vale, Mirko Zardini

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Exhibitions, Gatherings | 5 Comments »

Visual Music Collaborative Masterclass at Eyebeam NYC

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Led by Aaron Meyers, in collaboration with, Aaron Koblin and in creative partnership with Ghostly International, Visual Music Collaborative is a summer school masterclass hosted by Eyebeam this July in NYC.

Invited participants will explore the relationship between music, sound, and dynamically generated imagery and motion. Topics will include sound-analysis techniques, advanced OpenGL programming, and interfacing with mobile control devices. Guest speakers and musicians provide additional insight. The master class culminates in an event where participants perform using work created during the week.
Participation in this program is via competitive application process only. Applicants should be at least at the graduate level of study, or have an emerging creative practice, and have established experience using OpenFrameworks, Processing, or an equivalent programming tool. Content created during this workshop will be released under Creative Commons licensing and may be promoted by Ghostly International.

Qualified applicants can apply here.
Applications are due May 21, and participants will be notified by May 28.
More info on the event here.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Calls for Submissions, Inspiration | 1 Comment »

The Johnny Cash Project Launched!

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

After a ton of hard work Creative Directors, Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk have launched The Johnny Cash Project!

The Johnny Cash Project is a global collective art project, and we would love for you to participate. Through this website, we invite you to share your vision of Johnny Cash, as he lives on in your mind’s eye. Working with a single image as a template, and using a custom drawing tool, you’ll create a unique and personal portrait of Johnny. Your work will then be combined with art from participants around the world, and integrated into a collective whole: a music video for “Ain’t No Grave”, rising from a sea of one-of-a-kind portraits.

Strung together and played in sequence over the song, the portraits will create a moving, ever evolving homage to this beloved musical icon. What’s more, as new people discover and contribute to the project, this living portrait will continue to transform and grow, so it’s virtually never the same video twice.

Ain’t No Grave is Johnny’s final studio recording. The album and its title track deal heavily with themes of mortality, resurrection, and everlasting life. The Johnny Cash Project pays tribute to these themes. Through the love and contributions of the people around the world that Johnny has touched so deeply, he appears once again before us.

The Johnny Cash Project is a visual testament to how the Man in Black lives on – not just through his vast musical legacy, but in the hearts and minds of all of us around the world he has touched with his talent, his passion, and his indomitable spirit. It is this spirit that is the lifeblood of The Johnny Cash Project. Thank you for helping Johnny’s spirit soar once more. God bless.

Learn more and contribute here: http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com/

Tags: , ,
Posted in GAFFTA, Inspiration | No Comments »

Rhizome: Seven on Seven featuring Aaron Koblin

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Screen shot 2010-03-09 at 10.00.24 PM

Aaron Koblin will be featured in an exhibit for Rhizome at the New Museum in New York.
April 17th, 2010
http://rhizome.org/sevenonseven/

“Seven on Seven will pair seven leading artists with seven game-changing technologists in teams of two, and challenge them to develop something new –be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine– over the course of a single day. The seven teams will unveil their ideas at a one-day event at the New Museum on April 17th.”

Tags: ,
Posted in Gatherings | 1 Comment »

In Tandem: Max Mathews, Aaron Koblin, and Daniel Massey

Monday, March 8th, 2010

+dialog symposium series
presented by RML SF, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, and Phasor~

Friday, March 19, 2010
7-9 PM
Gray Area
55 Taylor St. San Francisco
Suggested Donation $5-10 – No one turned away for lack of funds.

The RML SF +dialog symposium series fosters discussion and interaction between audiences and artists, authors, theorists, educators, and producers of cutting-edge work.

This first edition traces the history of the most important song in computer music through two groundbreaking renditions. Max Mathews, the father of computer music, and new media artists Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey, will give presentations about their interpretations of the classic song followed by a open discussion moderated by digital arts technologist Barry Threw.

Computer performance of music was born in 1957 when Max Mathews made an IBM 704 at Bell Labs play a 17 second composition on the Music I program.

In 1962 Mathews synthesized the music for the song “Daisy Bell”, originally written by Harry Dacre in 1892, as an accompaniment for a vocoder speech synthesizer created by John L. Kelly. Arthur C. Clarke, then visiting friend and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility, saw this remarkable demonstration and later used it in the climactic scene of his novel and screenplay for “2001: A Space Odyssey” as the swan song of the dying computer, HAL9000.

In 2009, the online work Bicycle Built For Two Thousand by artists Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey took this first recording and created a crowd-sourced rendition using a custom tool made in Processing. Comprised of over 2,000 voice recordings collected via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk web service, participants were asked to listen to a short sound clip and record themselves imitating what they heard. The result was a reconstructed version of the song as rendered by a distributed system of human voices. Instead of programming a computer, they used a computer program to stitch together a cross section of humanity.

Max Mathews
Max V. Mathews worked in acoustic research at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1955 to 1987 where he directed the Behavioral and Acoustic Research Center. This laboratory carried out research in speech communication, visual communication, human memory and learning, programmed instruction, analysis of subjective opinions, physical acoustics, and industrial robotics.

From 1974 to 1980 he was the Scientific Advisor to the Institute de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Paris, France. In 1987 Mathews joined the Stanford University Music Department in the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) as Professor of Music (Research) where he developed a new pickup for electronic violins and a real-time computer system for music performance called the Conductor and Improv Programs and a 3D MIDI Controller called the Radio Baton.

At Bell Labs in 1957, Mathews demonstrated synthesis of music on a digital computer with his Music I program. Music I was followed by Music II through Music V and GROOVE, all were involved in the composition and performance of music on and with computers. These programs have been influential in the development of computer music. For this pioneering work he has been called the “father of computer music,” and most recently, “the great grandfather of techno!”

Max Mathews has conducted research on computer methods for speech processing, human speech production and auditory masking, and developed techniques for computer drawing of typography. The developer of “Music V” synthesis software and “Groove,” the first computer system for live performance, he is also the inventor of the Radio Baton, a computer-driven device that allows the user to conduct their own orchestral performances from MIDI files stored in the computer. Many multimedia patching languages such as Max/FTS, pd, jMax, and Cycling 74′s MaxMSP was based on Mathews’ ideas for a flexible, user-patchable sound generating system.

Mathews is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and is a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Acoustical Society of America, the IEEE, and the Audio Engineering Society.

Aaron Koblin
Aaron Koblin is an an artist specializing in data visualization. His work takes social and infrastructural data and uses it to depict cultural trends and emergent patterns. Aaron’s work has been shown at international festivals including Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH, OFFF, the Japan Media Arts Festival, and TED. He received the National Science foundation’s first place award for science visualization and is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Currently, Aaron is Technology Lead of Google’s Creative Lab where he helped to launch Chrome Experiments, a website showcasing JavaScript work by designers from around the world.

Daniel Massey
Daniel Massey (b. 1982, Mexico) is an artist, designer, and programmer based out of San Francisco, CA. Daniel’s recent work seeks to instigate new modes of collaboration, creation, and transformation by approaching technology as inherently malleable. His projects take on varied forms, from immersive installations and web-based work, to live visuals and music. Daniel earned his MFA in Digital Arts & New media from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was part of the Yahoo! Design Innovation Team and is now a resident artist at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Gatherings, Symposia | 2 Comments »

TRANSPOSE: The Work of Aaron Koblin and Robert Hodgin

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Transpose

TRANSPOSE
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 20th. 6:00PM – 11:00PM

Open Hours: Wednesday- Friday: 4pm-8pm

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts is pleased to announce our third exhibition, opening to the public with a FREE reception on Saturday, February 20th. The show will feature the work of artists Aaron Koblin and Robert Hodgin.

Help spread the word by inviting your friends on Facebook!

TRANSPOSE continues Gray Area’s investigation into expansive forms of technology and the painting of landscapes through digital means. Code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation. Here we present two artists who work visually and creatively with code, shifting data around into different compositions, transposing their received nature into an alternate one through interpolation and algorithms.

Screen shot 2010-02-04 at 8.37.28 AM

Aaron Koblin is an an artist specializing in data visualization. His work takes social and infrastructural data and uses it to depict cultural trends and emergent patterns. Aaron’s work has been shown at international festivals including Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH, OFFF, the Japan Media Arts Festival, and TED. He received the National Science foundation’s first place award for science visualization and is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Currently, Aaron is Technology Lead of Google’s Creative Lab where he helped to launch Chrome Experiments, a website showcasing JavaScript work by designers from around the world.

robert

Robert Hodgin co-founded the Barbarian Group. His work ranges from simple 2D data visualizations to immersive 3D terrain simulations. His primary interests include theoretical physics, astronomy, particle engines, and audio visualizations. He works in Java, Processing, C++, Cinder, OpenGL, and GLSL and has spoken at conferences around the world, including FlashForward, FITC, Flash on the Beach, OFFF, and FlashBelt. He was also a guest lecturer at NYU’s ITP program, UCLA’s DMA program, and SCI-ARC and his work has been shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Wing Luke Asian Museum, McLeod Residence Gallery, Wired NextFest, San Francisco Exploratorium, and the San Francisco Independent Film Festival.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Exhibitions | 9 Comments »

Decode: Digital Design Sensations

Friday, December 4th, 2009

optoisolator

Victoria and Albert Museum , London
Porter Gallery
£5 Adults
£4 Concessions

Digitally growing plants and a mechanical eye that mirrors the blink of a visitor’s gaze will be among the digital works that will feature in Decode: Digital Design Sensations. The exhibition will show the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small screen based graphics to large-scale installations. Curated in collaboration with leading digital arts organisation onedotzero, there will be works by established international artists and designers including Daniel Brown, Golan Levin and Daniel Rozin as well as emerging designers such as Troika and Simon Heijdens.

The exhibition will explore three themes. Code as a Raw Material will present pieces that use computer code to create new designs in the same way a sculptor works with materials such as clay or wood. This section will look at how code can be programmed to create constantly fluid and ever changing objects. On display will be a new piece by Daniel Brown from his On Growth and Form series, inspired by the V&A’s collection. Brown uses advanced mathematics to generate organic depictions of imaginary plants that continuously grow, producing new buds, blossoms and stalks. As soft, organic digital images, these generative flowers will continue to develop and grow over the course of the exhibition.

The second theme, Interactivity, will look at designs where the viewer directly influences the work. Visitors will be invited to interact with and contribute to the development of the works, many of which show designers playing with the boundaries of design and performance. One object will be Golan Levin‘s Opto-Isolator, a human-sized mechanical eye which follows the gaze of the viewer, blinking one second after its visitor blinks. Weave Mirror by Daniel Rozin is a responsive sculpture that recreates an image of the viewer on its 768 motorized planes. A smoky portrait comes into focus as the planes rotate into place.

The final theme, The Network, will focus on works that comment on and utilise the digital traces left behind by everyday communications, from blogs in social media communities to mobile communications or satellite tracked GPS systems. This section explores how advanced technologies and the internet have enabled new types of social interaction and media for self expression. Designers reinterpret this information to create works that translate data into striking forms. These range from live, real-time visualisations of flight patterns by Aaron Koblin to a data mining project by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar. Their project We Feel Fine extracts comments by bloggers from all over the world on how they are feeling and represents the information as colourful, floating spheres. Users can filter the information by selecting an emotion as well as bloggers’ gender, age and the city and weather conditions where he or she is based to reveal anonymous, often highly personal, statements about modern life today.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Inspiration | No Comments »

Web 2.0 Summit & Seaquence Debut

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

web

Artist Aaron Koblin will be giving a speech titled “A Vision for Digital Art in San Francisco: the Launch of Gray Area Foundation for the Arts”, addressing trends in digital culture and debuting Gray Area Foundation for the Arts to the tech community at the Web 2.0 conference. Aaron Koblin is a Gray Area featured artist, designer and reseracher who is focused on creating and visualizing human systems. Currently part of Google’s Creative Lab in San Francisco, California, Aaron creates software and architectures to transform social and infrastructural data into rich digital expression. Koblin’s work has been shown internationally and is part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Wednesday, October 21 – O’Reilly Web 2.0 Summit
When: 5:00pm
Where: Metropolitan Ballroom, Westin St Francis Hotel

For details see here.

Concurrently, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts will have a kiosk on display at the Web 2.0 conference debuting “Seaquence”, a project developed by Gray Area resident artists Ryan Alexander, Gabriel Dunne and Daniel Massey. Seaquence is an online social music experiment that allows users to create step-sequencer micro-compositions. Short musical patterns are represented as biology-inspired life forms which are heard as you navigate through their universe. Different sounds and timbres are visualized as unique character traits in each life-form. Users can navigate through the field of submissions, creating a unique musical and visual experience. Here is a preview video:

Screen shot 2009-10-20 at 5.13.09 PM(2)

Seaquence Demo from Ryan Alexander on Vimeo.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Calendar, GAFFTA, Special, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Bicycle Built For Two Thousand by Aaron Koblin & Daniel Massey nominated for 2010 Transmediale award

Friday, October 16th, 2009

GAFFTA is incredibly proud to announce that the collaborative project “Bicycle Built For Two Thousand” by our co-conspirators Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey has been nominated for this prestigious award!

Bicycle Built For Two Thousand (2009)  is comprised of over 2,000 voice recordings collected via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk web service. Workers were asked to listen to a short sound clip, then record themselves imitating what they heard. The result was a reconstructed version of the song ‘Daisy Bell’ – the first song to implement musical speech synthesis in 1962 – as rendered by a distributed system of human voices.

www.bicyclebuiltfortwothousand.com

From the Transmediale announcement:

“Every year transmediale and CTM invite submissions to the transmediale Award. The transmediale award seeks to honor outstanding experimental artworks that embrace, question and enrich our understanding and relationship to our immersed media and technologically driven society.

Out of more than 1,500 submissions nine art projects have made their way onto the list of transmediale Award 2010 nominees. On 6 February 2010 the award winner(s) will be announced.”

Congratulations to Aaron & Dan, and all the 2010 nominees! For more info on the other nominees and the Transmediale award visit: http://www.transmediale.de/en/award/all

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in GAFFTA | No Comments »

Meidalab Prado Visualizar’09: Public Data, Data in Public. Madrid

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Visualizar’09: Public Data, Data in Public – Call for projects and papers

International Workshop-Seminar on Public Data Visualization
November 12 – 27, 2009 in Medialab-Prado (Madrid, Spain)

Directed by José Luis de Vicente. Teachers: Ben Cerveny (Stamen) and Aaron Koblin. With the support of Bestiario.

Deadline for projects and papers: October 5, 2009
Call for collaborators: October 16 – November 11, 2009

http://medialab-prado.es/visualizar

(more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Calls for Submissions | No Comments »

« Older Entries
;