Monochrom on Computers in Popular Music @ Machine Project

The Monochrom folks are awesome...this is worth checking out....

“I can count every star in the heavens above but I have no heart I can’t fall in love…”

The image of computers in popular music

Machine Project
1200 D North Alvarado
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Saturday, June 6th, 2009
8pm

A talk (with audio examples) by monochrom, presented by Johannes Grenzfurthner

Bourgeois culture was paralyzed and finally overrun by modern technologies which broke through the traditional class barriers. It went into a panic and produced these very stupid technophobic manifestos and images e.g. of “the computer”. Pop music discovered and explored the computer not only as a musical instrument but also as something to sing and reflect about in a less aversive way. In doing so it influenced the conception people had of computers. The public image of computers was shaped by groups such as Kraftwerk as well as through obscure Schlager songs such as France Gall’s “Computer No. 3”. Not only was that image influenced by high culture computer panic but also by naïve technomania, and so it delivered the very dialectics of the computer as a means of cultural technology in capitalist society.

monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna:

OSC control from iPhone to pd on Mac

Everyone seems to be using Open Sound Control (OSC), so I figured I'd try controlling pd (aka Pure Data) on my MacBook from my iPhone using the TouchOSC app.

Here is how you do it...

1) Get a recent build of pd, I used this build.

2) Set up a new computer-to-computer WiFi network:





3) Connect to the WiFi network "osc" on your iPhone.

4) Find your PC's IP address on that computer-to-computer WiFi network:



5) Put your IP address into the "Host" configuration on TouchOSC on your iPhone, and set your outgoing port:



6) Set up your pd patch:



"dumpOSC 9999" receives on port 9999, "OSCroute" parses the command, and I use "unpack" to grab the second element of the message, which is the fader value or toggle setting:

6) Play!

Dorkbot SoCal 34

Next Dorkbot SoCal meeting...

Sunday, March 8, 2009
1:00pm [warning: first day daylight savings time!]
Machine Project
1200 D North Alvarado Street
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Presenters will include:

Dan Goods

Dan is the "Visual Strategist" for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech where he develops creative ways of communicating science. He recently has done artwork with aerogel and on a team to develop a 108-foot long data driven sculpture at the San Jose airport.




Eric Gradman and Brent Bushnell

Mindshare LA Labs' Eric and Brent will present ArtFall: a dynamic physical simulation by drawing on a whiteboard.




Brian O'Connor

Arduino + Chumby = Fun!: The Chumby is an open-source, ambient Internet device running Linux while the Arduino is an open-source prototyping platform. Brian will show how to connect an Arduino to the Chumby and develop a simple application that monitors the environment.




Upcoming.yahoo.com Link

Facebook Event

Cheap Absolute Optical Encoder

If you need a cheap absolute optical encoder, check out the Bourns EAW which is ~$15 from Mouser.

I'm again considering my spinning head driven by the Parallax PIR sensors.

The only question is whether I use a gearbox servo or build my own motor & encoder.

New Ethernet/USB Microcontrollers

The Cyan Technologies USB/Ethernet-Solved board based on the eCOG1X14Z5 microcontroller looks interesting.  It appears to come with a nice IDE and you can download projects to do Web and FTP servers.  The eval board is $99 from Mouser.

Also ATMEL has a new family of microcontrollers, the AVR32 UC3A which features a 512K bytes Flash, an embedded 10/100 Ethernet MAC, 12 Mbps USB 2.0 and an SRAM/SDRAM external bus interface. .  The eval kit is $129 from Mouser.

Dorkbot SoCal Jan. 10 - Aschheimm, Evans, Guttman

http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbotsocal

Saturday, January 10, 2009
1:00pm
Machine Project
1200 D North Alvarado Street
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Presenters will include:

Deborah Aschheim
http://www.deborahaschheim.com/

Deborah Aschheim creates works that blur biology and technology, exploring concepts of memory, architecture, and neural networks through drawings, sculpture, writing, installation and sounds.



Brian Evans
http://www.bwevans.net/

Brian Evans explores the intersection between reductivist sculptural form and the aesthetics of behavior, where structure and thought are fused.  He creates simple moving objects with seemingly life-like qualities - electromechanical life forms with motivations only just beyon our understanding.



David Guttman
http://www.davidguttman.com

David Guttman creates interactive works that generate unique colors and shapes from sound and EEG.

Stacking Arduino Shields

So what if you need two shields on your Arduino?  Try using wire wrap sockets.  The wire wrap bit will fit into the socket below (snugly), and the socket bit will serve as a socket for the next shield up.

From Digikey, I picked up two SAM1125-06-ND (CONN RCPT .100" 6POS TIN WW) and two SAM1125-08-ND (CONN RCPT .100" 8POS TIN WW) to replace the standard header pins in a SparkFun Protoshield.  That is where I will be placing the support circuitry for the "Breath" project.  On top I will have a LadyAda Ethernet Shield.

Here are the results: