Motion

Benoît Bardy held a very interesting guest lecture on the topic “Perception-Action Dynamics Underlying Gesture Classification” yesterday. An interesting opening remark was on terminology. He commented that in his field (kinesiology) they never use the term gesture at all, while in the ConGAS community noone seems to talk about movement. He suggested the following definitions for some key terms: Gesture: non-verbal communication, body language, sign, expressive movements Movement: change in position/orientation Action: goal-directed movement Skill: capacity to reach a goal with efficient performance I have tried to understand if there is a difference between movement and motion, but he couldn’t enlighten me there....

{#image292}Nick Rothwell reviews the Gypsy MIDI controller in Sound on Sound. An excerpt from his conclusion: I know some artists who could build great live performances around a Gypsy MIDI suit, and others who would merely look like plonkers. As to the first question, here at Cassiel Central we’ve been through all manner of MIDI controllers and sensing systems, from fader boxes (motorised and not) through accelerometers, ultrasound systems, camera tracking, joysticks, game controllers and Buchla devices, and some common issues emerge....

I am getting adjusted to my new MacBook and have realized that the remote control is a funny little thing. Cool features: Works with Keynote Holding down play button puts the computer to sleep Shows up as “Apple IR” using HI in Max/MSP, so that it can be used for controlling anything there. Only problem is that I can’t turn off the system functions while using it in Max. To avoid people taking control over a presentation, here’s a short description of how it is possible to pair the remote:...

{#image241}The Khronos Projector by Alvaro Cassinelli is an interactive-art installation allowing people to explore pre-recorded movie content in an entirely new way. […] The goal of the Khronos Projector is to go beyond these forms of exclusive temporal control, by giving the user an entirely new dimension to play with: by touching the projection screen, the user is able to send parts of the image forward or backwards in time....

{.imagelink}Eduardo Miranda and Marcelo M. Wanderley have just released a new book called New Digital Musical Instruments: Control and Interaction Beyond the Keyboard. The chapters are: - Musical Gestures: Acquisition and Mapping Gestural Controllers Sensors and Sensor-to-Computer Interfaces Biosignal Interfaces Toward Intelligent Musical Instruments So far most publications in this field have been in conference proceedings, so it is great to have a book that can be used in teaching....

For some experiments we are conducting on piano playing I have been looking for a way of measuring muscle activity, or electromyography as it is more properly called: Electromyography (EMG) is a medical technique for evaluating and recording physiologic properties of muscles at rest and while contracting. EMG is performed using a instrument called an electromyograph, to produce a record called an electromyogram. An electromyograph detects the electrical potential generated by muscle cells when these cells contract, and also when the cells are at rest....

Peter Robinson (University of Cambridge) are working on emotionally intelligent interfaces, and have made a setup for a summer show at a science museum in London where they can track 20 different types of emotional responses using computer vision: Can you read minds? The answer is most likely ‘yes’. You may not consider it mind reading but our ability to understand what people are thinking and feeling from their facial expressions and gestures is just that....

Still trying to get through all my notes from Resonances… Of the many installations at NIME 06, I found three of them particularly interesting: {#image227}Musical Loom by Kingsley Ng was based around an old loom standing in a dark room (or rather a “tent” built between the entrances to the toilets…). It was possible to “play” the loom and sounds and images would appear. The technical setup was built with a combination of infrared cameras and ultrasound sensors, and using EyesWeb for control....

My paper entitled “Using motiongrams in the study of musical gestures” was accepted to ICMC 06 in New Orleans. The abstract is: Navigating through hours of video material is often time-consuming, and it is similarly difficult to create good visualization of musical gestures in such a material. Traditional displays of time-sampled video frames are not particularly useful when studying single-shot studio recordings, since they present a series of still images and very little movement related information....

We have started a collaboration between between UiO and AHO, and some of the music technology students followed courses with the interaction designers at AHO this spring semester. This was a great success, and I was impressed with what came out of it. Henrik Marstrander has worked on a table interface where he can control various musical parameters, and Jon Olav Eikenes and Marie Wennesland has made a multi-touch multi-touch interface modelled after Jeff Han....