To work around the proprietary whims of digital audio software developers and laptop processor limitations during the mid- and late-1990s, a small band of technically-minded people, including the electronic musician
Blitter, pulled together in the late 1990s to engineer the open-source
OPEN DSP EZ-Kit platform, a 16-bit computer designed entirely with a focus on low cost and extensible control and DSP arithmetic capabilities. While this project and
similar commercial offerings never seemed to gain the critical mass needed to sustain long-term interest, perhaps the new
Arduino hardware project from MIT's
Processing hardware group may gain a foothold with
Processing and
Pure Data audio software hobbyists and artists alike, allowing the creative community to extend, enhance and share inventive uses of new technology. Arduino's use has
already begun in
fascinating museum installations around the world, and has become a part of this year's
SONAR and
Ars Electronica festivals.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Aug 12, 2006 -
10 comments
Nam June Paik passed away on
Sunday. We'll read
educated commentaries in the next few days, but what I most affectionately remember about him is how his work made me laugh happily during the 70s and 80s. A precursor of video art, he was the first to use plugged tv sets as building blocks in the most
playful ways. His
TV Buddha is arguably an unsurpassed classic (a motionless moving image, an outside observation of an inner meditation, even -why not?- a premonition of a blogger) (this last one is a joke: I told you Paik made me laugh). R.I.P.
posted by bru
on Jan 30, 2006 -
34 comments
Dewanatron : a family of electronic instruments ‘which hazard unpredictable behaviors and self playing tendencies.’ See, for example, the
Alphatron, the
Dual-Primate Console, and the
Courtesy Modulator. Besides his work as an instrument- and furniture-maker, the Dewanatrons’ co-creator,
Brian Dewan, is a
musician and
singer who has collaborated with
They Might Be Giants, among others. He is also a visual artist, who has created numerous
filmstrips, and who was responsible for the ‘flying victrola’ design for the the Neutral Milk Hotel album ‘In The Aeroplane Over the Sea.’
posted by misteraitch
on Apr 21, 2005 -
9 comments
