Posts categorized “technology”.

Music Visualization


dynamic charted music from Colin Owens on Vimeo.

This is a visualization of music I composed called “Number Station.” The visualizations are generated by the volume of each channel from the original multitrack file.

Generated using Processing and Minim libraries with 14 channels of streaming audio on an unbelievably fast machine.

New project posts

I have posted proof-of-concept videos for three core thesis projects:

  1. cueTag–Software for image and film analysis based on composer’s cues.
  2. Associative Synaesthesis Mixer–An experiment in making assoications between sound, motion and image.
  3. shapeMix–A tool for mixing sound in visual space.

Electronic music nostalgia

It’s hard to think that a shot time ago, it was hard to make electronic music. 50 years ago, the first experiments in electronic music were made in Milan. That equipment is now preserved at the Museo degli Strumenti Musicali of Castello Sforzesco, Milan. Here is a magnificent set of photographs of the studio.

Audio Visualizer built with Minim and Processing

I’ve posted the latest version of the audio visualizer, with the latest tunes from an album my father and I are working on.

Built in processing with the minim library.

Dreams

I have been having serial dreams for as long as I can remember. “Serial dreams” are what I call them because I have dreams with overlapping landscapes with central themes. Sometimes seemingly opposing or different themes “break through” from one to the next with overlapping features or actions taken by the dreams themselves. There are people in these dreams, sure, but it is the landscapes and objects that bind them. The dreams are timeless and can span decades.
If the narrative of dreams is spacial, then time lives somewhat outside of the narrative. How does the mind make connections between scenes that seem disparate or disjointed? What is the difference between awake and asleep?

A designed object is an object of interest. If the object is interesting, why not make it part of the narrative? A playstation/ Xbox controller can trace its roots in handicrafts or pottery, where the interaction is closed around the body and the actions all take place around a small area of a semi-circle. A wiimote is a shortened stick very similar to the style of stick our ancestors used to chip away at nuts and presumably write messages on the ground for one another. What makes the wiimote different is the ability of the person using it to transform it into a metaphorical object capable of becoming anything.

What would a narrative controller look like in the dream world? It couldn’t be something stationary. It couldn’t be something you hold on to.

A controller in the narrative world would have to have to be an embedded symbol or a type of motion that would work well in the dream landscape. An entirely gestural interface–One without a hand-held object would be the best.

Panorama scroll interface with no hands


Scrolling a panorama using a non-touch interface from Colin Owens on Vimeo.

Charles and Ray Eames on the SX-70

A delightful short film that glosses over the fine details of photographic history–And gives us what we’ve all been waiting for in early 1970s–A leather bound instant camera. I wonder what would have happened if Polaroid paid as much attention to their digital cameras?

Silliness

Someone hacked a Nintendo Power Pad and made this foot controller.


Agata
, I sense a collaboration.

Tagging and searching flash video

This is a You-Tube-Like site for posting and tagging videos on the time line. This not only opens up the door to “online editing” but makes finding content within video useful. In the future I imagine seeing search results from google being a bit more useful. That is, if people tag their content usefully.

I was pointed to this site by my friends at The SEA, who are working with Viddler.

Direct video manipulation tool

Dragon is a tool developed by the Media Computing Group at RWTH Aachen University. It allows for direct manipulation of objects on the screen according to their trajectory. In their study, they  found that users preferred this method of interaction over a basic slider because it gave them more perceptual control. In the screen grab of their video (on the Dragon project page) you can click on the object to move it in time and trajectory.