Tonight is the premiere of the second season of Mad Men. Yeah! If you live in the USA at least. But if you want to catch up and see the first season, then you’ll have to get this DVD box.
For those of you don’t know what Mad Men is all about:
The series (set in the 1960s) revolves around the conflicted world of Don Draper, the biggest ad man (and ladies man) in the business, and his colleagues at the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency. As Don makes the plays in the boardroom and the bedroom, he struggles to stay a step ahead of the rapidly changing times and the young executives nipping at his heels. The series also depicts authentically the roles of men and women in this era while exploring the true human nature beneath the guise of 1960s traditional family values.
Playing Fold Loud involves folding origami shapes to create soothing harmonic vocal sounds. Each fold is assigned to a different human vocal sound so that combinations of folds create harmonies. Users can fold multiple Fold Loud sheets together to produce a chorus of voices. Opened circuits made out of conductive fabric are visibly stitched onto the sheets of paper which creates a meta-technological aesthetic. When the sheets are folded along crease lines, a circuit is closed like a switch. Thus, the interface guides participants to use repetitive delicate hand gestures such as flipping, pushing and creasing. Fold Loud invites users to slow down and reflect on different physical senses by crafting paper into both geometric origami objects and harmonic music.
‘Dipping Duck Orchestra’ by Kitty Clark.
8 Dipping ducks (a.k.a happy birds, drinking birds…) and their respective drinking glasses are wired up to the 8 notes of a modified keyboard. Each time a duck tips down and touches the water to ‘drink’ the circuit is completed and a sound is produced. Being thermodynamic, the ducks continue to produce random compositions depending on temperature.
This new music video for ‘House of Cards’ by Radiohead is quite different. This video wasn’t shot with video cameras or even lights, but with a laser device and some sort of scanner which delivered 3D data.
Two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.
So far so good, the cool thing is that is an open source project on Google Code. Even the 3D data was composited with Processing, an open source programming language and environment, to make the final video. You can also download that data and make your own remix and submit it to the YouTube ‘House of Cards’ group. Here is an interactive Flash 3D data visualisation to get you excited.
Yuri Suzuki is a Japanese product designer and electronic music artist living in London. Here are 3 projects by him.
Sound Chaser
A train-style record player. Users connect the chipped pieces of records together to make new tracks. The records pieces are from cheap records bought at jumble sales or used record shops. This record player revives forgotten, old records.
Prepared Turntable
A turntable that focuses on actively composing and playing music.
This record player has 5 tone arms, each of which can have its volume controlled by its own fader.
This is an analogue answer for the digitalized DJ.
Finger Player
I guess that the video and the pictures explain everything.
The AirPiano is project by Omer Yosha, an Interface Design student from the FH Potsdam (Germany).
The AirPiano is an innovative musical interface which allows playing and controlling software instruments simply by moving hands in the air.
Above the AirPiano is a virtual matrix of keys and faders, each assigned with MIDI messages and ready to be triggered. The length of a triggered note is equivalent to the time a hand
is placed on the corresponding virtual key.
This is also confirmed by LED feedback.
The AirPiano Software allows easy setup, loading/saving presets and transposing notes.
The AirPiano is still in its prototype phase and its concept of a virtual matrix might eventually be used for other applications and purposes.
The AirPiano concept is filled as a Provisional U.S. Patent Application (Number: 60/989,986).
In this video he uses his AirPiano to control Ableton Live.
Maybe you have noticed, I’m quite a big fan of Joy Division. This video for Disorder was cut together from scenes from the movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Excellent work!
So today is my last day at work, almost everything is done …
This time I’ll only have a fews off, till I start my new job at Plantage Berlin.
This is short clip from a live set by Etienne de Crécy, a French house producer, during the Transmusicales festival in Rennes, France, last year. 10 years ago he was quite popular with his Super Discount album, but apparently the French filtered house is still not dead … But the only reason to watch this clip is his stage show, or to be more precise the projections. He stands inside some sort of half transparent Rubik’s Cube on which some very nice animations are shown. Exyzt, an architectural collective form Paris, was responsible for this unique light show. (Their website doesn’t seem to be available now.)
So watch it now and don’t forget to turn down the sound!
An other one is the ‘BeggingBot’ by Alexander Gurko, it plays music just by floppy and hard drive mechanics. A 3³/4 and 2²/5 inch floppy drive and a very old hard disk represent different instruments playing a nice tune by just moving their heads and motors. When the tune is finished the CD drive opens asking for money. Just pay some cents and the bot plays again.
found at Aram Bartholl’s Blog
