Amy Alexander's Posts - The Visual Music Village

Percussive Image Gestural System (and the AlgoCurator)... new updated videos, writing, and everything else...

2018-07-28T05:54:07.000Z

http://amy-alexander.com/pigs ; (Go there for videos, writing, show list, etc.)

Updated videos, writings, list of live shows, etc., on this research/performance project I've been working on for several years. In its latest version, there's a nod to Stan VanDerBeek's 1960s utopian vision of the Culture:Intercom. Could YouTube, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, have held the answer within it all along? ;-)

PIGS is a software/hardware/percussive instrument designed for liveness in improvised visual performance through the use of silent percussion — i.e. visuals are performed by playing drums. PIGS has two broad aims:

To propose a formalized approach to visual improvisation that is structured while remaining intuitive and fluid.
To make the human aspect of visual performance more relatable for audiences.

PIGS’s approach to structured improvisation combines approaches from experimental abstract animation, musical performance, and object-oriented programming to allow for the performance of visually rhythmic structures that can be played (by playing drums) while maintaining “liveness” — i.e. the connection between a performer’s action and the result that is intuitive to both performer and audience.

Although PIGS is performed by playing (silent) drums, PIGS research does not involve sonic-visual (color/pitch, etc.) correspondences.

Current PIGS performance interfaces include iPads, Leap Motion controller, and quiet MIDI drums. Strokes are scribbled using the iPads and Leap Motion and can then replayed with variations by striking the MIDI drums. (This in some ways resembles how traditional drums work – each strike of the same drum or cymbal generates roughly the same pitch, but may vary in loudness, choking, etc.) The PIGS system allows for an assortment of variations from the original scribble in both duration and form with each drum stroke. The performer may also use this functionality to create theme and variations or looping structures. Individual drums/video layers may also be set to auto-loop, allowing the performer to improvise on the other drums/layers against the rhythms of the looping background layers.

While PIGS uses musical instruments and strategies as general models for thinking about performativity and temporal structures, care is taken not to attempt to simply translate musical approaches to visual ones. Rather than approaching audiovisual integration as a matter of synchronization of sound and image, the idea is to create an instrument that is performable as a part in a duet or ensemble (analogous to the way various instruments in an ensemble play different musical parts even though they are performing the same piece.) Likewise, while twentieth-century gesture and drawing-based abstract animators like Len Lye and Walter Ruttmann are progenitors, PIGS combines abstract drawing with live action, and it integrates contemporary visual influences from cell phone videos and YouTube, CGI, concert light shows and holographs.

Our research aim in developing PIGS is not to create an “end user” tool for other artists, but to present an expanded approach to live visuals and collaboration between visualists and musicians. Some of the specific issues PIGS addresses are: parity and integration with musicians in improvisation; alternatives to rectangular screen space in live cinematic composition; performance interfaces that are both intuitive for the performer and relatable by audiences as performed with the body and causative to the experience (the way, e.g., audiences understand the movements they see a violinist make as the cause of the music they hear.) Although these problems are by no means completely solved by PIGS, we hope to contribute to the discourse around these issues through its performance and presentation.

PIGS has been performed seven times as of August 2017. In the course of these shows three different “compositions for PIGS” have been performed. Each composition involves building and editing a specific set of video content for performance. Curt Miller created a software instrument in parallel with PIGS, in which he combines live clarinet and talk box with real-time processing of recorded source material. Curt’s instrument focuses on facilitating musical improvisation with visuals. The first four PIGS performances were audiovisual collaborations between Amy and Curt.

As of April 2018, PIGS compositions can be created using a pseudo-artificial intelligence. A “curator” algorithm analyzes newly uploaded YouTube videos for specified characteristics. Loosely provoked by the question: “What if an algorithm attempted to convert YouTube into Stan VanDerBeek’s utopian vision of a networked ‘culture intercom,'” the algo-curator currently works against YouTube’s algorithms, which encourage posters to upload content intended for commercialization, in the fervent hope of finding “real life.”

Percussive Image Gestural System Debuts in San Diego! Thursday, Sept. 3rd

2015-08-30T21:30:00.000Z

IDEAS Performance: Rocket's Red Glare

Date: September 3rd, 2015
Time: 5pm-7pm
Location: Calit2 Auditorium, Atkinson Hall, UC San Diego

Debuting the PIGS (Percussive Image Gestural System) visual instrument I've been working on for the past coupla years in San Diego this week. Lots of real-time drawing, inspired by cameraless animation techniques of Len Lye and many others. I'll be performing Rocket's Red Glare with clarinetist/sound artist Curt Miller. Hopefully will have some good video/images to post here after the show.. but if you're in the area, hope you can make it. PIGS R&D begun during my residency at iotaCenter in 2012.

Part-Time Lecturer in Animation: Philadelphia

2008-11-15T22:21:54.000Z

Hi, I've been asked to forward this announcment to interested people. I'm told they may have more than one position available:

Part-Time Lecturer in Animation - University of Pennsylvania

The Department of Fine Arts in the School of Design at the University of
Pennsylvania is seeking candidates to teach animation in a studio art
program. The part-time load can consist of one or two six-hour studios per
week. Candidates must have a Master of Fine Arts degree or lengthy
comparable experience in the field and be able to teach the production of
computer animation or traditional animation. General knowledge of hardware,
operating systems, and software associated with animation and digital
imaging is necessary. Storyboarding, narrative development and strategic
concept development are essential. Knowledge of the history of animation is
desirable and an interest in and a facility with drawing for animation will
be viewed favorably.

Candidates must work with other faculty in the program and with office and
technical support staff in the maintenance of the facilities. They must
have a significant exhibition or professional production record, and three
to five years to teaching experience at the university level.

A letter of application, resume including the names, addresses and telephone
numbers of three references, applicant work samples (DVD and jpegs if
applicable), samples of student work, and SASE if the applicant wishes for
materials to be returned, should be sent to:

Julie Schneider, Department of Fine Arts, 114 Addams Hall, School of Design,
200 South 36th Street, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA
19104-6229

Application review begins Oct 2008 and continues until the position is
filled.

The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity/affirmative action
employer and is strongly and actively committed to diversity within its
community. Women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply.

VJ Übergeek performance and talk in Reykjavik

2008-09-27T04:15:39.000Z

I'll be doing a CyberSpaceLand performance and a talk at Pikslaverk 2008 in Reykjavik, Iceland - November 6-9. Stop by if you're in the neighborhood!