Posts on TAI-Studio

Wicked Problems in Kilpisjärvi

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote a text about my stays at Kilpisjärvi for the German music journal Positionen. It is called “Wicked Problems in Kilpisjärvi” and is part of the August 2024 issue. The text is in German and can be ordered here.

The station activities

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is an updated version of an article originally published in 2023 on the Bioart Society website.

From 26.8.2023 to 16.9.2023, I had the pleasure and huge privilege to be an artist in residence at the Biological Station in Kilpisjärvi for the Kilpisjärvi Science trails project.¹

My experience as a field work apprentice Link to heading

Early in my stay at Kilpisjärvi Biology Station, I had the pleasure to meet Silja Veikkolainen, Maija-Susanna Sujala, Hannu Autto, Oula Kalttopää, and Anu Ruohomäki. All of them are in various ways associated with the field work that is conducted at the station.

The impacts

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is an updated version of an article originally published in 2023 on the Bioart Society website.

From 26.8.2023 to 16.9.2023, I had the pleasure and huge privilege to be an artist in residence at the Biological Station in Kilpisjärvi for the Kilpisjärvi Science trails project.¹

Impacting, or the wicked interrelations of Reindeer, their grazing patterns, and international relations Link to heading

Because of the scarcity of the land, Kilpisjärvi is a good place to witness, how various factors and stakeholders — no matter if human or non-human, current, historic or contemporary, cultural or natural (sic!) — and their interests and slowly but steadily collide into each other.

The revisitations

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is an updated version of an article originally published in 2023 on the Bioart Society website.

From 26.8.2023 to 16.9.2023, I had the pleasure and huge privilege to be an artist in residence at the Biological Station in Kilpisjärvi for the Kilpisjärvi Science trails project.¹

As the only artist in a team of researchers, I got selected to contribute pieces for one or more trail stations. Unfortunately, the project had already ended before I began my residency. As a result, I had to make some improvisations for my contributions. Fortunately, I had plenty of material about microworlds, the planned theme of my contribution from my visit in 2019. This means that you can already find three stops about microworlds in the Kilpisjärvi science trail app .

Reflections on Microworlds in 2023

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Some of the microworlds are like past lovers.
I do not really notice them anymore so much.
They had a certain charm when I was there, exploring them.

They are still beautiful in their own way.
They are still interesting, fascinating even,
I just do not really recognise them anymore when passing by.

Currently I see the concept of microworlds as a very loose definition based on prototypes on specific spots that I am returning to every now and then to watch them grow, change, keep on being the same and to conduct experiments with. I think I have to revise the web page for the microworld project on organisms.de to also reflect that.

TCP mode in SuperCollider

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Given a running tcp/OSC-server at port 12344, this code should make it possible to connect to it.

q = q ? ();
q.netAddr = NetAddr("localhost", 12344);
q.netAddr.tryConnectTCP;

This is untested since IMHO SuperCollider currently does not allow to create a TCP socket.

to disconnect, execute

q.netAddr.disconnect;

At a language reboot/recompile, all TCP connections are disconnected in Kernel:shutdown.

Remote `Server` Link to heading

To connect to an already running scsynth instance (here running on localhost with port 57115), use

Organisms Website online

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We set up a website for the upcoming residency at Eden Project where we will collect our impressions, thoughts and insights. Find it at friendly.organisms.de.

Silence London

Fri, 10 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Along with classical music performances, contemporary circus, ballet and a lecture on the influence of silence on contemporary music, I performed an improvisation piece based on computational deconstruction of silences and their counterparts that I observed around Hoxton Arches.

It was divided into a 30min sound walk and a subsequent livecoding performance based on field recordings I took the day before in Hoxton/Shoreditch.

![artifacter cover](/media/projects/artifacter/artifacter.jpg)

More info at the Artifacter page

Upcoming Residency at Eden Project

Wed, 30 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Together with Katharina Hauke, I will be on a journey to Invisible Worlds at Eden Project in Cornwall, UK!

Our residency resides under the theme … and then we see if we will be friends and is meant to be an invitation to all curious [[projects/Friendly-Organisms|Friendly-Organisms]] and life-forms in and around the Eden Project to create sounds and improvised experimental music together (with us).

Small networked music making systems will be set up within the various sites of the Eden Project that feature differing degrees of self-sufficiency and interaction possibilities for both visitors and inhabitants. We plan to adapt and extend our semi-autonomous platform fielding to both sense and provoke actions of the various actors, inviting them to explore emergent collaborative phenomena.

systems ∿ encounter video study

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I conducted a 13min sound improvisation to get a better understanding of Steno, a tiny language written in SuperCollider. The study was recorded in the studio of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) in Graz, Austria.

Sound definitions Link to heading

t.quelle('a', {|in, c|
    SinOscFB.ar(1400 * Amplitude.ar(in, 0.01, 1), (in * 2).clip(0, 2).lagud(0, 0.2))
});
t.quelle('e', {|in, c|
    LotkaVolterra.ar(SampleRate.ir*0.5,
        a: SinOsc.ar(in.lag(0.1), 0, 10).abs.clip(0, 5),
        b: 1.5,
        c: 0.5,
        d: 1.5,
        h: 0.01,
        xi: 0.1
    ).flop.flat.keep(2) * 0.1
});
t.quelle('i', {|in, c|
    Impulse.ar([3, 8])
});
t.quelle('o', {|in, c|
    SinOscFB.ar(ExpRand(100, 200), in) - in.lag(0.01)
});
t.quelle('u', {|in, c|
    SinOscFB.ar(ExpRand(100, 200), 0.1)!2
});
t.filter('f', {|in, c|
    var dyn = RMS.ar(in, 100).lag(0.1) * 2;

    RLPF.ar(in * 0.1, 1800 - (dyn.reverse * 400), dyn * 0.5)
});
t.filter('l', {|in, c|
    in * LFTri.ar(RMS.ar(in).lag(0.1) * 10)
});
t.filter('d', {|in, c|
    DelayL.ar(in, 0.2, RMS.ar(in).lag(0.1).reverse.clip(0, 0.2))
});
t.filter('n', {|in, c|
    in.scramble.clump(2).collect{|in|
        MyRotate2.ar(in, LFNoise1.kr(0.1))
    }.flat
});
t.filter('g', {|in, c|
    HairCell.ar(in,
        spontaneousrate: 0,
        boostrate: 200,
        restorerate: 1000,
        loss: 0.99,
        mul: 1,
        add: 0
    )
});
t.filter('x', {|in, c|
    CombL.ar(in, 0.2, 0.2)
});

Fielding @ NEXT

Sat, 25 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I was invited for a 2-day workshop and artist talk around Fielding at the 2017 NEXT festival in Bratislava.

The workshop was a breeze, the participants were eager to learn and we decided to perform with the systems ∿ encounter platform for the final presentation. Above is an excerpt of that performance. All in all it was a great experience and a lot of fun. Big thanks to everybody involved!

systems ∿ encounter

Sat, 04 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A performance lecture concluding my residency at the IEM. I intend to share aspects of dynamics, systems and encounter, that I collected over the last five months.

More here

OpenCUBE: 13.12.2017, 19h, Inffeldgasse 10/3, 8010 Graz, Austria

Fielding workshop

Sun, 22 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

An important part of my residency at iii was the offering of a public [[proposals/2017_FieldingWorkshop|workshop]] on Fielding in which I intended to introduce my ideas around inter-species music making to interested participants. The workshop took place last Saturday and I was able to lure in nine curious human beings, mostly having a background in computer music and studying Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire den Haag.¹

My workspace at the iii residency

SuperCollider Dev Workflow

Thu, 31 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

My current SuperCollider development workflow is based on this setup

I use sourcetree (I’m on OS X)
I forked SuperCollider to my github account (atm. http://github.com/lfsaw/supercollider)
I renamed the remote pointing to the official SuperCollider repo (http://github.com/supercollider/supercollider) upstream
I added my personal fork at http://github.com/lfsaw/supercollider as origin

If developing SuperCollider, I

check out recent upstream/master (atm. upstream/3.9 because we’re in release mode) and compile it,
branch a topic/branchname and commit my changes to it,
push the branch to origin,
create a pull request for the branch and wait for reactions.

If working on my own stuff (“composing”), I

IEM residency — 60 days

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A lot happened since the last post. Among other things, I took part in the ICSA conference here in Graz, where I learned about cutting edge technology and techniques for spatial audio, especially how ambisonics can be integrated into life audio production and about the recent commercialisation of the IKO, an icosahedral loudspeaker array developed at the IEM. For the latter the osil project provides a virtual setup called vIKO by which (fixed-state) compositions for the IKO can be composed and monitored through headphones.

BELA pin diagram

Wed, 16 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Stenography and Field Recordings

Wed, 16 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I made a [[posts/2017-08-16-bela-pin-diagram|BELA pin diagram]].

Field recording at Wasserkraftwerk Link to heading

I recorded Source material at and around the water power plant in Feldkirchen a.d. Mur.

Wasserkraft by LFSaw

Bug fixing and enhancing Steno Link to heading

The language steno turns out to be a wonderful way to explore massive sound synthesis based on simple base elements. Since it is quite young, it still has some bugs to be tracked and can also be enhanced with useful features. The majority of the last week, I explored the possibilities of the language, traced bugs and wrote little enhancements. Two of them are

A custom power cable for the BeagleBone

Sun, 06 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A custom power cable allows to power a BeagleBone via its barrel jack connection, e.g. from a USB powerbank. This allows to use USB devices with power ratings exceeding the 2 Amperes at which the USB power regulator maxes out. To do this, simply cut of the non-Type-A plug of a USB cable and solder a barrel jack to it. Typically, the wires within the USB cable are color-coded with red being positive and white black being ground.

Cross-compiling SuperCollider

Sun, 06 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is a rough guide on how to set up cross compilation between a BeagleBone BELA and an OSX machine. It is based on the description in the README_BELA file of the SuperCollider installation.

Set date Link to heading

For proper compilation, it is necessary that the BELA board’s time is reasonably similar to your main machine.

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata # configure your time zone
ntpdate pool.ntp.org    # sync time once with an ntp server
date                    # make sure this gives the right result

Since the BBB does not feature a realtime clock that survives reboots, you have to repeat this procedure every time you reboot the board. To prevent that, you might want to set up [[posts/2017-08-06-ntp-on-bela-board|NTP]].

IEM residency — fielding update

Sun, 06 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I now have two fielding nodes ready to play with! They feature the most recent SuperCollider, are wireless (i.e. connect to a portable WiFi router and run off batteries), sync their time and date with each other, and have speaker chassis connected to their amplifiers. This means that by remotely firing up an scsynth process on them, I can remote-control them to play sounds that I write in SuperCollider on my laptop!

NTP on a BELA board

Sun, 06 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For both proper compilation and, most importantly, remote operation of scsynth, it is necessary that the BELA board’s time is synced with the one on your main machine. It is possible to set the date once via¹

ntpdate pool.ntp.org    # sync time once with an ntp server

but this time will run out of sync over time with your main machine again. If you have an internet connection while doing live coding, a valid solution is to install and run a network time protocoll demon either as a server or a client on the BELA board. For the case that your livecode system requires you to be off-grid, i.e. especially off from the internet, it makes sense to get the time and date from your main machine. Since I did not manage to set up my OSX machine as an NTP server, I decided to configure one of the BELA boards as one that distributes its system time around the network.

remote-control BELA boards

Sun, 06 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote a script to remote-control BELA boards connected either over the USB connection or over a standard network connection like WiFi or Ethernet. you can find it in the fielding git repository. Current features are

send commands to one or many boards at the same time
send and execute a shell command
set date either from local date or via ntp
start scsynth process
start and stop BELA IDE (survives reboot)
halt board

I wrote it on a ruby 2.1.2 (standard OSX ruby) but it should be running on more recent versions, too. It uses the awesome Trollop cli option parser. Since it makes extensive use of ssh, you may want to set up your ssh configuration to use public key authentification

WiFi on BELA boards

Sun, 06 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Through this information, I found out about compatible hardware for wireless connections on the BELA board. Luckily, the local shop had two netgear a6100-100pes ac600 802.11ac USB-WiFi dongles available.

Set up WiFi on the router Link to heading

I first tried my luck with setting up an ad-hock network but experienced irregularities. Therefore I purchased a TPlink tl-wr902ac wireless router that can be powered over USB, making it the ideal choice for an off-the-grid setup. I configured it to create a wpa-encrypted network with the ESSID fielding. The router also has the option to assign permanent IPs to specific MAC addresses. This is handy because the boards now always have the same IP without having to be configured differently. This will make mass-production easy.

IEM residency — fielding

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

While my background is in computer science and sonification, I find myself increasingly working on and with sound art, interaction design and music making. Over recent years, a multitude of open ends appeared in my work and artistic practice which I intend to thread together within the IEM music residency. One major part of my residence is dedicated on what David Pirrò (unconsciously?) coined as “fielding”: integrating field-recording, improvisational, electronic music practice, livecoding, and sonic wilderness interventions with generative dynamic systems.

IEM residency — travelling

Wed, 19 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I am excited to be on a five months residency at the IEM in Graz! I know the IEM and many of its employees through my involvement in its SonEnvir project on sonification back in 2006 where I worked among others on QCD data sonification and juggling sounds.

Coffee with a view in the morning

So on the 15.7.2017, I took the night train from Berlin to Vienna, where I stepped over to travel via the incredibly beautiful Semmering alpine pass towards Graz. I can highly recommend the night train, especially in the luxury of a single or double bed room. All in all I did not sleep a lot but this was more caused by the incredible views (and my excitement) than by lack of comfort.

iii residency – windstruments

Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In the second week of my residency, I wanted to further my ideas of wind plants. Wind appears to be my goto-theme when it comes to environmentally aware instruments or sound installations. With my earlier work Anemos-Sonore, I have a starting point for listening to wind and since then, I am intrigued to build something less bulky yet equally expressive. Examples of those attempts are the more nature-inspired wind plants or the ill-named Anemos Sonore Maaum siilium. The latter is currently an empty shell waiting for a more elaborate behavior.

fungi readings

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A loose collection of thoughts and related texts circling fungi, soil and dynamics

Thoughts of a Spiderweb is an interesting text on distributed/externalised intelligence.

A friend of mine who works for the Baltic Sea Action Group recently pointed me towards soil respiration, i.e.

the production of carbon dioxide when soil organisms respire.

The closely related Carbon sequestration is

the process involved in carbon capture and the long-term storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon sequestration involves long-term storage of carbon dioxide or other forms of carbon to mitigate or defer global warming. It has been proposed as a way to slow the atmospheric and marine accumulation of greenhouse gases, which are released by burning fossil fuels.

iii residency – steno

Mon, 19 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I decided to spend the first week at iii concentrating on software setups. This included looking into recent developments in SuperCollider-based live-coding systems where I was pleasantly surprised to find Steno by Julian Rohrhuber,

a little concatenative livecoding language embedded in SuperCollider, [which] makes code for combining synth graphs very short, so that writing endless chains is like writing a single long word. A word is a program. A letter is a synth.

iii residency – bela cross-compile

Sat, 17 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I decided to spend the first week at iii concentrating on software setups. This included updating my Bela-based embedded environment. I was curious on the recent development on the SuperCollider-side there and found out about cross-platform compilation using distcc which massively speeds up the compilation of larger software packages on embedded platforms. Below, I describe the process in more detail, in case someone (me) needs to do this again later-on.

Bela cross compile via distcc Link to heading

Preparation Link to heading

As of writing, the cross-compile gcc is available for OSX here. The package installs the arm-linux libs on your host in

iii residency – concert

Thu, 15 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

There were also performances by two fellow iii artists in residence, Davide Tidoni and Yuri Landman. Davide describes himself as a researcher in the field of sound and listening, interested in the relational dimension of listening and the uses of sound in everyday life. His performance tested loudspeakers for the explosive capabilities. Yuri is a musician and inventor of musical instruments currently working on mechanically revolving instruments based on electric guitars.

Yuri performing with his instrument prototypes

PSOC capsense

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Together with Jeff Snyder from snyderphonics, we are excited to release a sketch on how to use the Cypress PSoC 4 CY8CKIT-049 Prototyping Kit as a capacitive sensing element that forwards the measured data via serial connection.

The PSoC4 is a low-cost (about 5 EUR for the dev-kit!) yet powerful and programmable microcontroller with integrated, re-programmable analogue cirquitry, developed especially for capacitive sensing demands.

Unfortunately, the whole process requires a windows computer but once it is set up, it is fairly easy to use. You may also install the whole software in a virtual machine on linux or OSX. Wine is unfortunately not supported.

Remember the fence

Sat, 01 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I had the pleasure to visit Kilpisjärvi this Autumn and, among other things, walked along a well-known area which I share some history with. I took this photo almost exactly one year after the fence concert.

Rotary encoders on BELA

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

How to connect a rotary encoder to a BELA-enabled BeagleBone Black.

Hardware used in this post:

BeagleBone Black with BELA board
simple Gray-code rotary encoder with hat switch
three 10k resistors
three 10uF capacitors

Connect rotary encoder Link to heading

The rotary encoder is connected to the digital pins on the BELA as shown in the figure below. The capacitors are used to do assure a minimum of debouncing.

UART on BELA

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Enabling UART2 as described in this post disables BELA’s analog inputs. Other UART interfaces might be fine (untested).

How to connect a UART serial interface to a BELA-enabled BeagleBone Black. As a sensor source, I used a PSoC4 chip that is programmed to capture six capacitively active areas and send their capacity values over a serial connection to the BeagleBone.

Hardware used in this post:

Pre-programmed PSoC4 board for doing capacitive sensing
BeagleBone Black with BELA board

Setting up the serial port Link to heading

The BeagleBone has six on-board serial ports. Only /dev/ttyO0 is enabled by default, and it is coupled to the serial console (for the debug connector). All other serial ports must be enabled before they can be used.

RMS UGen released

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I implemented RMS, a (pretty basic) SuperCollider UGen that calculates the root means square of an incoming signal. It is available at the sc-plugins directory.

It is a pretty rudimentary and straight forward implementation of a broadly used feature which I guess could well be part of the standard SC3 UGens collection.

Here is an example use case where it modulates delay times in a feedback patch and is used to analyse the input signal for a limiter:

Bee hive microphones revisited

Sun, 15 May 2016 19:35:29 +0000

For the upcoming bee hive concert (FB event), I revised the hive-microphone design from my previous attempts. From the last concert, I learned that one of my designs –attaching the piezo discs directly to the frame– does result in very little sensitivity, also I was interested in more fine-grained control over the capturing process.

I therefore now integrated three piezo discs into one frame, and suspending each from the frame by steel wires which also serve as signal ground. I soldered an additional (twisted) wire to each of the inner parts of the discs to get the signal from the vibrations. All cables run into one plug on the frame. This will hopefully make assembling and opening the hive much easier.

Diemer Vijfhoek recordings online

Tue, 10 May 2016 02:31:25 +0000

Diemer Vijfhoek by LFSaw

(sonic) Wild Code report

Mon, 09 Nov 2015 17:19:57 +0000

We wrote a report on the sonic wild code event that was part of Field_Notes 2015.

Tealemetree workshop

Tue, 09 Sep 2014 23:19:35 +0000

Here are some impressions from the tealemetree workshoop in Hyytiälä where I also realised the NeC. The work displayed below was done in collaboration with Kourosh Karibi.

All photos are from the “Tealemetree” workshop lead by Agnes Meyer-Brandis in August 2014 at Hyytiälä forestry station. The workshop was part of the Climate Whirl project by Ulla Taipale, Eija Juurola and Janne Korhonen.

Towards musical instruments for moments of solitude

Mon, 24 Feb 2014 18:49:20 +0000

Designing musical instruments for moments of solitude means to focus on instruments designed to play for one’s own pleasure.

It refers to historical contexts such as the playing context of traditional Guqin practice and re-interprets it towards todays cultural environment.

It puts up the question whether music is made only for being perceived by an audience (other than the musician). Furthermore it invites to interpret music making as a means for reflection and thought catalysing.

Research Based on Lateral Thinking

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 18:10:39 +0000

Here is a text I wrote in 2009 for a booklet published by Bielefeld University (pdf in german).

If I had to use one single phrase to sum up my research activities over the last few years, I would call it research based on lateral thinking. Lateral thinking, because the particular strength of the research teams I have been working in up to now has been to single out the most unusual links between otherwise only loosely related fields, and then go on to explore these further. This requires not only freedom but also the goodwill of those in charge if one is to generate research in highly differing fields such as informatics, biology, sociology, psychology, philosophy or even the arts—research that some would incorrectly view as unnecessary gimmickry—and then transform this into new knowledge. Bielefeld provides a particularly supportive environment for this way of working in which the core feature is thinking in unusual directions, that is, lateral thinking. Its research and administrative structures are characterized by a great deal of freedom—in the positive sense. An open and receptive attitude toward the unusual in science, technology, and the arts is essential for creating a climate in which new links can be forged between these fields. Such open-mindedness is not something that can be taken for granted, because it is difficult to say in advance where findings will be produced, what these will be, whether they can be applied in practice, or how they will fit into future research.

Years of Freedom — a Report on my Stay as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Media Lab

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 17:23:02 +0000

With this post, I want to give an overview of the last three years of my work-life that I spent at the Media Lab of Aalto University. I also take it as a possibility to look back in reflection, trying to identify my development as a researcher over the time, outline turning points and give credit to all the people that supported me to survive and celebrate both the beautiful Finnish winters and summers.

Presentation at the "Sound is Information" symposium

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 09:30:04 +0000

On 26. September 2013, I presented DEIND at Sound is Information, an open symposium arranged in conjunction with Gaël Dubus’ doctoral thesis defence.

Sound is indeed a very powerful multichannel information carrier. Church bells ringing communicate different meanings/events to people living in a neighbourhood through the day, footsteps sounds inform us about intention, gender, weight, age, and shoes of a person. These two everyday examples tell us how skilled we are in using sound for decoding information.

My field notes of the 2013 Field_Notes – deep time residency

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 19:10:59 +0000

I was lucky to be part of the 2013 Field_Notes residency held by the Finnish society of Bioart in Kilpisjärvi. Together with artists and researchers from around the world, I walked and talked and listened and experienced. Here, I share my notes and slides from the trip (for now in a pretty raw format), hoping that it will be of use for someone.

my field notes combined in a pdf.
my slides (pdf) from the symposium.
Here is a video of the symposium.

lightness and quiet microsound vs. maximal sounds

Wed, 07 Aug 2013 16:24:00 +0000

Based on the analysis of previous sessions, we intent to incorporate two prominent elements of electronic music into the project. We here make use of the classification by Demers [Demers, 2010]:

Small sounds (Demers: Minimal Objects) are common in microsound music; Miki Yui’s pieces are great examples (see below). The photo (taken in VillaKarelia) may serve as a visual inspiration for the intended lightness and openness.
Big sounds (Demers: Maximal Objects) as they appear in drone music are contrasting by almost physically filling up space, an element that we discovered to be highly embraced by the participants.

We introduce small sounds and Big sounds to differentiate the two kinds of sonic objects Demers describes in Part 2 of her book because talking about objects in our scenario would unintentionally blend meaning with the physical part of the project investigation.

Beehive Raw recordings

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 09:29:59 +0000

I uploaded the raw recordings of the recent weeks of bee observation to archive.org.

They are distributed under a Creative Commons license: Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, so please remix/edit/use at will but please let me know what you’re doing with them.

Bee hive recordings, 5th week

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 16:48:24 +0000

Today, I was the first time alone at the hives since Lauri was away for a conference. I had all the equipment I needed there (apart from matches and a hive tool). It tuned out that the smoker renders useless without matches to light it. Also, opening the hive without a sharp object to be used as a lever is difficult but manageable.

Without the smoke, the bees were a bit more aggressive today, also now there is something to defend: a lot of honey and breed.

Bee hive recordings, 3rd week, two days

Mon, 15 Jul 2013 17:13:31 +0000

Tuesday Link to heading

On Tuesday, 9.7.2013, I went to the hives alone. It was the first audio-only inspection. I was surprised that the sounds again developed into something different; now the overall tripping and buzzing stepped back to the background giving space for foreground activity such as individual buzzes and scraping.

Friday Link to heading

At the inspection on Friday, it became clear what made the change: instead of integrating the piezo element into the comb structure the bees decided to build around it. that way, their wings are often close to the disc and create the humming noise. I found on this webpage that, depending on their age, the base frequency differs a lot (estimates by Eddie Woods, inventor of the Apidictor):

Bee hive recordings, 2nd week

Thu, 04 Jul 2013 18:53:45 +0000

Sonic bee hive examination, 2nd week. First investigation on Tuesday was purely sonic, just connecting the (permanently installed) audio transducers to the pre-amp and then having a listen. Excitingly, there was a lot more activity on both channels. The emptiness in the sound of the initial examination just after installation was replaced by buzzing and the sound of many feeds running around.

Later, we opened the hive and it turned out that the bees started building combs around one of the microphones. This frame is installed near the centre of the hive, next to the busy areas, so it is natural that the bees adopted it. And, luckily, it turned out that it hosts honey, pollen and even breeding, so we will soon be able to hear larvae crawling around! The other frame with the two microphones is located in the upper part of the hive where by now there is no building activity. However, also here, more activity could be listened to, so it seems that the colony is spreading and at least exploring the upper part of the hive.

Setting up the microphones in the bee hives

Tue, 25 Jun 2013 00:06:29 +0000

Today, we installed the microphones in the bee hives. It worked out very smooth and we were even able to listen to the sounds of the bees walking on the microphones. Below, is a small sample of the raw sound coming directly from the microphones.

Bee-hive microphones

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 23:55:10 +0000

I built contact microphones to pick up bee hives. They will be used in the hexa hives that Christina Stadlbauer set up on Otaniemi campus. As this is my first attempt to capture the activity of bees inside a hive, I tried two different approaches: (a) attaching piezo elements to the frame in which the bees are supposed to build their combs to and (b) providing a metal structure inside the frame that has a piezo as its center element. As bees are reported to want to cover metal, I expect them to enclose the wires with wax or propolis.

Controller type semantics

Sat, 18 May 2013 22:27:37 +0000

Semantic description of controllers to be operated by one respectively two-fingers:

onoff — one-DOF controller with two states: [on|off]
Button : onoff — Button (on/off) with snap back (push button)
linear — continuous one-DOF controller, keeps state
linearSnapper — one-DOF contiuous controller, snapping back into a fixed default position
Fader : linear — one-DOF Fader
Knob : linear — turning knob
composite — composite of several controllers
ThumbStick : composite — small two-DOF analogue joystick with additional knob-functionality

The above list is taken from a very early attempt of mine to work out differences in one-finger controllers in order to build JInT, a generic control system in SuperCollider.

Crocheted prototype

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:28:49 +0000

For the next field trip, Ramyah prepared a new textile prototype to get in contact with the sonic material. This functional prototype has three types of active parts attached:

The long strips have a crocheted resistive lining; the sensor reading depends on if and where they touch each other.
The tubes have such a lining, too; here the intention is to have them as switches that are activated as soon as they touch another tube.
Inside the tubes is a contact that turns the inner side of the tube into a capacitive sensor. Depending on test outcomes, we plan to either use them as switches (on/off) or to capture continuous signals (indicating e.g. how far the finger is inside one tube)

For the interfacing, we intend to use the Minibee sensor network.

Sketching an interactive soundscape

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:19:47 +0000

For the upcoming field work session in Imatra, we are busy thinking about possible music and interaction patterns. The score above is one attempt to visualise our ideas. According to this, an interactive soundscape for the DEIND project will consist of three elements:

sustaining sounds — derived from microphones placed in the the room which will generate controlled and filtered audio feedback (coloured waves),
grain structures — highly dynamic grainlets that are closely associated with the performer’s interaction with the instruments (blue clouds), and
regular rhythmical patterns, predominantly located in the high-frequency range (orange dots).

Augmented score for wosawip

Sat, 11 May 2013 15:03:29 +0000

This is the score object used for a performance of wosawip at carpa. It consists of black yarn stitched on conveyor belt. The audience saw a static photo of the score while the performance happened.

Oulipop at live.code.festival 2013, Karlsruhe

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:30:59 +0000

We had a gig at live.code.festival in Karlsruhe.

From the program (accessed 2013-04-24):

2 Performers, 1 laptop, 20 minutes. Manipulating texts according to Oulipo rules. Metalevel live-coding. Each keystroke triggers a process that translates the current text’s characters into a set of commands for a fictional CPU. Treated as a sound signal, the ever-changing output of that CPU is played back, and thereby influences the performers’ decisions on how to further alter the text. Over the course of the performance, an initially meaningful text turns into nonsense before it eventually settles into a new and often surprising semantical meaning.

The sound of crocheted fur

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:35:58 +0000

Last week, I got a sample of crocheted fur from Ramyah. It consists of two different parts: a white part that has a conductive thread of low resistance woven into it and a blue part with high resistive thread.

Feeling Link to heading

When touching the sample on its upper side, it feels soft. Application of pressure reveals the firm ground from which the single woollen loops are growing from. Overall, the structure invites to be touched.

Anemos Sonore on display at CARTES FLUX festival 2012

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:05:57 +0000

[[projects/Anemos-Sonore|Anemos-Sonore]] was featured as an installation at the 2012 edition of the CARTES FLUX festival in Espoo, Finland.

Residency at the Kilpisjärvi Biologen Asema

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 14:41:02 +0000

This month, I did a residency at the Kilpisjärvi Biologen Asema. It was supported by the Finnish society of bioarts. Thanks!

Tunturi Link to heading

Microcosm Link to heading

I counted 17 plant species and three funghi on this about 2m x 1.5m x 0.5m pieni tunturi near Kiekula on the hiking path up to Saana.

A Kallio Movie with generative sound

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:17:48 +0000

  <div
      style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;">
    <iframe
      src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/49689462?dnt=0"
        style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;" allow="fullscreen">
    </iframe>
  </div>

Video created at the open video make session of OKFestival 2012 in Helsinki.

Credits Link to heading

I used material from the Kallio Archive. Footage by

Emmi Vainio (7 videos clips),
Cvijeta Miljak (2 video clips),
Kalle Kuisma (1 video clip),
Minna Tarkka (3 video clip).

All used video material (CC BY).

Transparency in coffee trading: An investigation towards IxD for world citizens

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:16:24 +0000

On Mon, 18.6.2012, I attended the web of things hackathon that took place in Newcastle, UK along the Pervasive Conference 2012. After a short introduction to the concept of the web of things and an initial brainstorm on possible projects for the day, the group of 8 people split up into two groups. One implementing a notification system for expiry dates on food items in the fridge incorporating NFC tags and twitter (They did a nice job on rapidly implementing a basic system where food items could be registered and a notification is sent to a twitter account when the item’s expiry date approached) and the other one (which I was part of) focusing on increasing transparency of the coffee supply chain for consumers. This post is mostly about the conceptual development of that idea over the day and how it turned into something valuable.

Upstairs – Supporting Peripheral Awareness between Non-Colocated Spaces

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 09:09:56 +0000

We presented the paper Upstairs – Supporting Peripheral Awareness between Non-Colocated Spaces at Pervasive 2012.

The paper can be downloaded here.

Media spaces have been trying to create spaces over physically remote locations for decades. In the tradition of these spaces, Upstairs supports peripheral awareness between non-colocated spaces but is follow- ing a different approach. upstairs is not built to tear down the physical borders, it is meant to weaken them. Instead of creating a large single space we use the metaphor of wall-diffused noises as they are known from neighbours living upstairs or next door. When sharing a space, we are subconsciously aware of other people’s activities, mainly because of their interaction with the environment. To extend today’s telepresence and social presence systems that mostly focus on the transmission of the conscious part of communication, upstairs is built to enrich these systems by supporting peripheral awareness.

Auditory Augmentation at DIS 2012

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:54:59 +0000

We presented the Auditory Augmentation system in the Demo session of the DIS 2012 conference in Newcastle, UK. The accompanying paper is available here.

Betablocker example code

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 15:12:41 +0000

Here I collected my attempts to produce a specific kind of waveform with the BetaBlocker engine.

Saw Link to heading

a = BBlockerProgram([\ORG, \INC, \JMP, 1]);
x = a.play(19000);
x.free;
a.plot(duration: 0.15);

Impulse Link to heading

a = BBlockerProgram([\ORG, \NOT, \JMP, 1]);
x = a.play;
a.plot(duration: 0.001)

pulse (202) Link to heading

(
var pulsewidth = 202;
a = BBlockerProgram([\ORG] ++ (\NOP ! pulsewidth) ++ [\NOT, \JMP, 1]); x = a.play;
)
a.plot(duration: 0.05);
(
var pulsewidth = 22;
a = BBlockerProgram([\ORG] ++ (\NOP ! pulsewidth) ++ [\NOT, \JMP, 1]); x = a.play;
)
a.plot(duration: 0.05)

Anemos Sonore at the SC Symposium 2012 in London

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:25:52 +0000

Pictures taken at the opening last Monday. Video to follow soon.

I got really positive feedback from people; enjoyed it a lot to show something I care for. Thanks to all the organisers and visitors that made this happen!

London day 3

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 11:17:27 +0000

Yesterday, I set up the Anemos Sonore installation over at Mile End park. Luckily, the package with the poles arrived in one piece and everything just worked fine. After approximately 7 hours of tweaking, I had all poles at where I wanted them to be and tested the sound part.A big thanks goes to Robin Fencott and team for their immense help and friendliness. You did an awesome job.

The exhibition opening will be on Monday and will continue until Friday. Come by when you’re around and drop me a line if you want more infos on site!

London day 2

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:46:27 +0000

Huh. What a day. Not very much on the list but I still struggle with the London. Other than that I had the pleasure to meet Robin Fencott today. He was so kind to sort me out with all my troubles concerning cabling and stuff for the Anemos Sonore exhibition. Afterwards I visited the installation site from outside. It’s a great space (see photos below); the poles will fit there just fine I think. Last parts bought and also prepared the Vowel talk. Getting there… Tomorrow, I’ll finally set up the Anemos Sonore poles at the Arts Pavillion in Mile End Park. Exciting!

London day 1

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:26:29 +0000

So, London. I arrived yesterday around 6pm at Goodenough Club, the place I’ll stay for the next nine days. It is a really nice place, my room has a proper shower (read enough pressure) and broadband internet access.

Today, I’ll do some preparation for the talks I have to give and later in the afternoon, I’ll head to Queen Mary to meet Robin, the exhibition chair in order to sort out last things for the installation setup. But now out for the sun and spring!

Color Sensor

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:50:48 +0000

In preparation for my materials project, I dived into color analysis with an adjd s311 color sensor. What I realised (thanks simon) is that for the cost of the chip (15 EUR for the breakout board plus an arduino and time to program it) and its quality (although it has 10bit resolution in each color it is not calibrated so analysing it and writing a calibration table, dynamics will decrease), it might be easier and more reliable to just buy a high-quality webcam (e.g. a PS eye) and work with a standard interface instead. We’ll see where it’ll lead to.

Alarm clock sound

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:01:01 +0000

Good morning!

Inspired by a Nokia alarm clock sound from one of their non-smartphone mobiles, I designed an alarm clock sound for your mobile. The basic idea is to start with a very simple and short grain, giving you a chance to reach for the phone and turn it off before it starts to get annoying.

Simply upload it to your phone or mess with the sources:

Cambridge, days 9 – 12

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:26:52 +0000

Day 9 Link to heading

That day, I set up the Fireface UFX for a combination of 2×2 channels of headphones plus 4 channel surround sound. Interestingly, it features multitrack recording onto a usb device out of the box. Eventually, we used this feature to record the performance. It made life a lot easier.

I also experimented with visual input to Betablocker but after discussing it with Tom, we decided together to not go further into this direction for now.

Cambridge, day 8

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 01:19:06 +0000

On Monday, I finally managed to implement frequency modulation for BBlockerBuf and added the for now final multi out interface:

#pC ... stack = BBlockerBuf.ar(<freq>, <buffer>);

This basically took the complete day since I had to understand the inner structure of UGen writing and selecting the algorithm based on the provided inputs. It eventually turned out to be quite straight forward, however, I was somehow expecting some fancy automation for which I searched for about two hours, only to find that basically all switching between modulation rates for inputs has to be written by hand. Which is, to my understanding due to realtime constraints.

Cambridge, day 7

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 01:08:22 +0000

On Sunday, we had a day out in Ely, a smallish city near Cambridge where it has an overly huge cathedral, eels and one of the most english tea rooms I ever had the pleasure to have tea: Peacocks tea room.

Later that day, I managed to make BBlockerBuf a true multi-out UGen with two outputs: the top of the stack and the program counter. This was achieved with the help of Dan’s SuperCollider book-chapter on writing UGens.¹

Cambridge, day 6

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:44:13 +0000

On Saturday, I was at the Mill Road winter fair with Tom and George. Lots of people, dance and food.

In the evening, I explained Tom the architecture and background of BetaBlocker in greater detail, mostly working with pen and paper. We managed to program some basic signals like a saw wave, an impulse and a pulse (to be shown in a later post in greater detail).

Later on, I forked my sc3-plugins repository and started working on a multi-out, non-demand rate version of the BetaBlockerBuf UGen. This is to get access to all values of the stack as well as to the program counter. In the graphics, you can see how I imagine a possible spatialisation of the UGen’s output.

Cambridge, day 5

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 03:16:15 +0000

On friday, I had the pleasure to visit Tim Regan at the HCI group of Microsoft Research in Cambridge. I was there with Tom Hall and Richard Hoadley. Tim showcased us recent projects of the unit he is working in, including

Domesticating the Web – A project they’ve done together with the Design Department of Aalto university (seemingly the embodied design group and Giulio Jacucci),
Sonic Interventions – A project from 2007 that is interesting in terms of its relation to Auditory Augmentation, and
Future Heirlooms – including a table for elderly people to visualise and communicate their memories and a projector for flickr sets.

Afterwards, we had lunch in The Punter, a pub near the MS research building. Tom and I then went to the Black Cat Cafe to talk about the day and our upcoming work. As Tom had to take care of the kids, he offered me to use his shed in the garden, a beautiful and soundproof place to work on the (upcoming) BBlockerProgram report. In the evening, after dinner, we set up Tom’s computer such that he can work with BBlocker.

Cambridge, day 4

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 03:00:56 +0000

Thursday, I gave an intro to Tom about BetaBlocker and the DetaBlockerBuf UGens. This was a great start into the day as I immediately knew what I’m going to do as the implementation seemingly lacked an easy way to prototype with sounds. So, I extended BBlockerProgram with play, plot and scope methods for rapid testing of configurations.

The rest of the day, I wrote code examples and listened to them. Shortly, I will post them here.

Cambridge, days 2 and 3

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:24:49 +0000

Day 2 Link to heading

On Tuesday, I woke up by the human alarm clock, comprising of the two sons of my host. What a great way to be dragged into the world again. After having breakfast, we went to the train station’s bike shop to hire a bike for me. Now, life’s gotten a lot easier since it now takes only some minutes to get from here to there.

Cambridge, day 1

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:44:05 +0000

After flying to London Gatwick and a short visit of a friend of mine working for Google UK (which allowed me to have a sneak peak into their offices), I arrived in Cambridge on Monday, 28th of November. Tom Hall, my host here at Anglia Ruskin University welcomed me and showed me around the place. We briefly met Paul Jackson, head of the Department for Music and Creative Music Technology of the Department of Music and Performing Arts, and saw the campus including the Digital Performance Lab (DPL), an experimental studio space in which I will work at for the next two weeks. Later that day, we met </a href=“http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/faculties/alss/deps/mpa/staff/dr_julio_d_escrivan.html”>Julio d’Escriván, a composer and reader at the department. It is nice to see that SuperCollider is extensively used here as at least Tom and Julio are part of the community.

Vowel class released

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:09:56 +0000

We are happy to announce the release of the Vowel Quark, a set of convenience classes for easy Vowel creation and manipulation. Currently, it is based on the CSound Vowel data (see helpfile for details), however, other data would be much appreciated to integrate. You’ll find the quark in the github quark repository.

There will be an article about this class and its application in Sonification on the next ICAD called A SuperCollider Class for Vowel Synthesis and its Use for Sonification. The paper will be available after the conference.

Vowel Pads

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:44:20 +0000

To celebrate the release of the Vowel quark, here are two example pads generated with it. Code is also on SCCode.

Ndef(\pad).fadeTime = 10;
Ndef(\click).fadeTime = 10;

(
Ndef(\pad, {
	var src;
	src = Formants.ar(([1, 2, 3, 4] *.t [31, 50].midicps * {LFNoise1.kr(10, 0.003, 1)}!4).flat, Vowel([\u, \e], [\bass, \tenor, \soprano]), 
		freqMods: LFNoise2.ar(1*[0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5].scramble, 0.1), unfold: true).sum * 0.1;
	Splay.ar(src.flat.scramble)
}).play
)

(
Ndef(\click, {
	var src, in;
	var mods = LFNoise2.ar(#[0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5].scramble 
		* {LFNoise1.ar(0.1).range(0.125, 4)}!5, 0.01);
	
	in = Impulse.ar(75 * [1, 0.66, 0.75, 2.33, 0.2387], mul: 1);
	src = Vowel([\a, \o, \e, \i, \u].scramble, [\bass, \bass, \soprano])
		.collect{|vowel, i|
	BPFStack.ar(
		(PinkNoise.ar * 0.0125) + 
			in[i], 
		vowel,
		freqMods: mods[i] + 1.1,
		unfold: true
	)};
	Splay.ar(src.flat.scramble)
}).play
)

Pixelache 2011

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:55:40 +0000

A fun week of pixelache is just over. It was filled with fun, challenges, technology, social live and dancing.

In this post, I’ll try to come up with a rather short report on my more general impressions. There will be another post on my investigations during the 5 day marin workshop.

The pixelache workshops took place in pajasali on suomenlinna, a beautiful island right in front of Helsinki. As the workshop started on Monday and continued until Saturday, I was most of the time in that venue.

Alternative Design for Storyboard

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 18:59:06 +0000

Being a bit disappointed with the outcome of the vibration experiment made last week, I thought of an alternative design for the table. Basically, it consists of several speakers that are hidden in damped chambers under the table surface. Only at some points, holes in the surface allow the sound to pass through. This is where people can attach the stethoscopes to amplify the sound and guide it to their ears.

Posts on TAI-Studio

Wicked Problems in Kilpisjärvi

The station activities

My experience as a field work apprentice Link to heading

The impacts

Impacting, or the wicked interrelations of Reindeer, their grazing patterns, and international relations Link to heading

The revisitations

Reflections on Microworlds in 2023

TCP mode in SuperCollider

Remote Server Link to heading

Organisms Website online

Silence London

Upcoming Residency at Eden Project

systems ∿ encounter video study

Sound definitions Link to heading

Fielding @ NEXT

systems ∿ encounter

Fielding workshop

SuperCollider Dev Workflow

IEM residency — 60 days

BELA pin diagram

Stenography and Field Recordings

Field recording at Wasserkraftwerk Link to heading

Bug fixing and enhancing Steno Link to heading

A custom power cable for the BeagleBone

Cross-compiling SuperCollider

Set date Link to heading

IEM residency — fielding update

NTP on a BELA board

remote-control BELA boards

WiFi on BELA boards

Set up WiFi on the router Link to heading

IEM residency — fielding

IEM residency — travelling

iii residency – windstruments

fungi readings

iii residency – steno

iii residency – bela cross-compile

Bela cross compile via distcc Link to heading

Preparation Link to heading

iii residency – concert

PSOC capsense

Remember the fence

Rotary encoders on BELA

Connect rotary encoder Link to heading

UART on BELA

Setting up the serial port Link to heading

RMS UGen released

Bee hive microphones revisited

Diemer Vijfhoek recordings online

(sonic) Wild Code report

Tealemetree workshop

Towards musical instruments for moments of solitude

Research Based on Lateral Thinking

Years of Freedom — a Report on my Stay as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Media Lab

Presentation at the "Sound is Information" symposium

My field notes of the 2013 Field_Notes – deep time residency

lightness and quiet microsound vs. maximal sounds

Beehive Raw recordings

Bee hive recordings, 5th week

Bee hive recordings, 3rd week, two days

Tuesday Link to heading

Friday Link to heading

Bee hive recordings, 2nd week

Setting up the microphones in the bee hives

Bee-hive microphones

Controller type semantics

Crocheted prototype

Sketching an interactive soundscape

Augmented score for wosawip

Oulipop at live.code.festival 2013, Karlsruhe

The sound of crocheted fur

Feeling Link to heading

Anemos Sonore on display at CARTES FLUX festival 2012

Residency at the Kilpisjärvi Biologen Asema

Tunturi Link to heading

Microcosm Link to heading

A Kallio Movie with generative sound

Credits Link to heading

Transparency in coffee trading: An investigation towards IxD for world citizens

Remote `Server` Link to heading