Khan Academy Labs: Exploratory Exercises

One of the most exciting aspects of joining the Khan Academy team, was the potential to explore new ways of integrating video and software.

Mile high paper stack effect: Blender + Photoshop + FCP

How many five letter words are there? This many!…if you put one word on each page.

Finished an interesting 3D composite (and modeling) effect with for episode #1 of www.artoftheproblem.net. Working on this effect to help demonstrate the huge number of five letter word combinations if you enumerate them all with one on each page of paper. Planning to use Blender for the CGI paper stack. The idea is to have a stack of paper reaching 1.2 km high. Here was my process….

Art of the Problem – Kickstarter funding successful

I recently launched Art of the Problem on Kickstarter.com which is an interesting new crowd sourced funding network for creative projects. A total of 88 people pledged to the project and my $4,000 funding goal was reached. As of today (May 13th 2011) production work has commenced on the pilot episode titled ‘Gambling with Secrets’, soon to be available at www.artoftheproblem.net.

Real Time Control of Emotional Affect in Algorithmic Music

DEMO OF DYNAMIC INSTRUMENTATION:

Introduction

The purpose of this post is to propose a solution to the following future research directions offered in two papers on the Algorithmic Music Evolution Engine (AMEE) “A Flexible Music Composition Engine” and “Real-Time Emotional Adaptation in Automated Composition”, recently developed at UWO (Hoeberechts, Demopoulos, Katchabaw 2007)[10][11]. I’ve divided up the problems into two high level categories A and B:

Robot 1.2 – new Direction

Last year, the development of Robot 1.1 was an experiment in electrical Engineering and the Psychology (In terms of
rhythmic human-computer interaction). It is a hardware interface which interprets ambient sound as structured pulses (using low pass filter, peak detector and tempo filter circuits) that are fed into a microcontroller which controls a solenoid powered drum stick (see previous post for video):

I have been pondering both applications and new directions for this technology. One of the main questions I kept running into while working on this project, was the question of response time. In order for a rhythmic system to be interactive, it must operate in real time. The hardware aspects of Robot 1.1 were very effective at generating a real time response. Although, the functionality was limited:

Beat Induction and Analysis with Robotic Percussive Improvisation Systems

This Report will explore the past and current research into the areas of Beat Induction, Rhythm Recognition and percussive improvisation.First we must ask, why? In terms of current robotic systems, most focus simply on sound production (Mechanically reproducing a set of static instructions) and rarely address perceptual aspects of musicianship, such as listening, analysis, improvisation and interaction with human input. There has been some breakthrough work done on improvisation and robotic percussion in the last few years which will be explored. First we will introduce the problem of beat induction and the varying methods by which it can be achieved. We will then attempt to clearly understand how this problem will be applied to our robotic system. Furthermore we will show how we can use state-of-the-art research into similar robotic systems as a guide and stepping stone for our project.

Exploring Music Spaces – Computer Science Research Journal

A few years ago when I was introduced to Borges I was moved by the idea of a complete library. His short story, Library of Babel, most importantly reminded me of the difference between the infinite and the very very large.

Financial System Efficiency – Can we predict the stock market?

How Efficient Is The Financial System?

 

This post has received a lot of traffic, It recently inspired me to start a cinematic educational web series called Art of the Problem. Check it out at www.artoftheproblem.net

Background

 

In 1948 Claude Shannon wrote a paper entitled ‘The Mathematical Theory of Communication,’ later expanding this into a book by the same name. Shannon’s work was the foundation to the stunning achievements of information theory. In many respects, Shannon’s work deserves recognition as the foundation of complexity theory as well.

Jazz Music

I Spent some time this summer aside from school & work playing more improvisational jazz piano. I enjoy jazz because once you can place your mind in the time & space of jazz you can experience the thrill of it, even as a beginner (like me). This thrill being a dual sense of unknowing and knowing: The understanding of where you can go with musical statements, while being unsure of the actual execution or path to take. All the while being aware of some passing feeling that undulates with the music. Lately I’ve been a huge fan of Brad Mehldau – performance video.

I had a jam recorded with some friends in Waterloo last week – it was rough around the edges, but great a space to play in.

Also, I’ve acquired some old studio lights this summer and I experimented with them by making a jazz video. A guy named Luke brought over his Moog Theremin to try out as well – it’s a crazy device:

Intelligent Robotic Percussion System (Drumming Robot)

Below are the first live tests of robot 1.0 (Duncan Storey on Guitar):

Most musical robots systems focus simply on sound production (Mechanically reproducing a set of static instructions) and rarely address perceptual aspects of musicianship, such as listening, analysis, improvisation, or modification of human input. Our project aims to create a device that “listens” to a human player and responds dynamically.

We designed this (robotic drummer) system as educational and research device which makes use of interdisciplinary collaboration (Drawing from music, computer science, engineering and cognitive psychology)

Below is another video outlining some of the capabilities of this drumming robot:

Rap Sheet

Shooting of SO-LIVA’s ‘Heavy’ video was completed this weekend. This took place in Windsor, Ontario at a variety of local locations. It is currently in post production.

Production Photos:

Self Organizing Systems –

Autonomous Networks, Traffic Control and Intelligent Agents

Brit Cruise

Autonomous, self-organizing, adaptive systems

A popular question in physics, chemistry and biology is “where does order come from?”. The general laws of thermodynamics tell us that systems will follow the path of least resistance to dissipate any energy they contain. Eventually the system finds its lowest energy state and will remain in equilibrium until acted upon by an outer force.

Yet in nature we can observe many systems that maintain a high internal energy and organization which seems to defy the general laws of physics. An ant grows from a singled celled zygote into a complex multi cellular organism, and then participates in a highly structured hive society. What is so fascinating is that the organization seems to emerge spontaneously from disordered conditions. The laws that may govern this self-organizing behavior are not well understood, if they exist at all. It is clear that this non-linear process is based on positive and negative feedback loops among components at the lowest level.

Del Sol Quartet @ Glenn Gould Studio – Mr.Squeeks

I’m currently trying to organize a Del Sol Quartet concert at Glenn Gould Studio in
Toronto. The working date is Oct 9^th and the theme/style of the show is still being developed. I’m a fan of Del Sol, Glenn Gould and CBC so I’ll be excited to pull this off. I hope with the help of Lyndsay and Duane Seamans I can make this happen – Stage one is complete.

 

Next step: Funding, Charities, CBC Publicity, Content…etc

 

Hanna mentioned she put together a program called Peace Through Music, which teaches conflict resolution to elementary school kids. Perhaps we can incorporate a similar event at a local library or public school during their visit.

 

If this project is successful it would be their premier show in Toronto. A recent TV spot on Del Sol can be seen here.

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Mr.Squeek’s Technomania Nightmare

 

The experimental animation and we are working on has finally begun – Last night I shot the first angle for the Rotoscoping test. I took a medium shot of Cam walking in and out of the frame during a sunset, ”Can you do it again… more like a Cartoon??”.

 

I made sure I had moving elements (cars) in the foreground of the subject in hopes that it will had depth and spacial context to the animated/live action scene elements. Next step is to send Mark all the individual frames (not sure if I should go 24fps, 16fps or 12 fps) so he can render a character sequence. I think his name is Mr.Squeeks.

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The Hipbones had a recording session?

Winter Memorandums

Winter Pyjama Jam at the

Alex P. Keaton:

Ali - Rhodes

Brit – Piano

Arron – Drum

Cam – Drum/Guitar

Jordan – Tamborine

 

Pianos n’ Cellos

Here is a recent photo of my favorite string quartet, — The mighty ‘Del Sol Quartet’ in action. My cousin Hanna plays the Cello with great passion. Go to their website and order their CD now, I highly reccomend it. It’s always cool to support those who not only need, but overwhelmingly deserve support.

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