16 research outputs found
Autopan Max Patch: Automated Audio Panning for performance spaces
No full textREAD ME FIRST:
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- The alps-autopan Max patch has been developed together with the Acoustic Localisation Positioning System ALPS, and the al-Qt software in particular. Source code and binaries for macOS 11 can be found in the latest release from https://github.com/spatmus/alps
- The alps_autopan.app is a Max 8 Standalone application for macOS, and should work "out of the box" for macOS 10.12.6 (Sierra) to 11.5.2 (BigSur): You don't need to have Max installed on your computer.
- As a Max standalone, not all "inner workings" can be explored in detail. For a more in-depth understanding of the workings of the patch, we thus recommend to download the patch and run it in Max.
- PLEASE NOTE! To use alps_autopan.maxpat you need to download all other patches too, and save them to the same folder. (Or somewhere in your Max distribution's search path.) Otherwise it will fail and ask for the missing files/patches
- The files have been created in Max7 and tested on Max8, but not on any older versions.
Dom Schlienger, 27.10. 2021
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Leluhelikvartetti - a hommage à Stockhausen
No full textLeluhelikvartetti (Toy Helicopter Quartet)
Leluhelikvartetti is an homage to Karlheinz Stockhausen's concept of the Helikopter- Streichquartett, wherein the players of a string quartet are placed in a helicopter each, together with a pilot and a broadcasting engineer equipped with a camera. The sound and images of the quartet are broadcast to a nearby concert venue, where the audience can hear the instruments' sound mix with the sound of the helicopters outside and watch the musicians perform on giant screens.
Leluhelikvartetti uses, due to funding cuts in academia throughout Europe, toy helicopters. As the toy helicopters don't accommodate much personnel, some trickery is needed, whereby the individual instruments' sound will seemingly, as per magic*, come from the helicopters flying around the performance space.
The Free Improvisation String Quartet, (FISQ, Hermanni Yli-Tepsa: Violin, Dominik Schlienger: Viola, Sergio Castrillon: Cello; Timo Pyhälä: Bass), in a further protest against any rules and regulations, will not adhere to any form of score, but will happily take cues and inspiration from the flight of the toy 'copters, in a audio-kinaesthetic conversation with the pilots.
The sound of the helicopter blades mixes with the sound of the actual instruments, the trajectories of the players through the performance space intermingle with the public, the flight of the helicopters respond to the musical dynamic. "
*The magic
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The performance space shall be a circular area of approx. 12 m diameter, wherein 4 toy quadcopters of type WLToys V262 are flown by 4 pilots, moving around freely. The audience surrounds this area. The players of FISQ are set-up somewhere at some distance from the performance area. Their instruments are close-miked, so that each instrument is available as one mono channel to the sound system at the centre of the performance space.
In the centre of the performance space stand 8 near coincident radially outwards facing loudspeakers of type Genelec 1029 or similar.
The loudspeakers send an acoustic measurement signal just above the frequency range audible to the human ear. (18 - 30 kHz)
The four toy helicopters are equipped with wireless microphones: Using time difference of arrival measurements by correlating the original signal on the loudspeakers with the measured signal on the helicopters, the positions in relation to the loudspeakers can be estimated.
The positions are then used to apply amplitude panning to the signal from the quartet's instruments, thus spatialising the quartet's sound as if each instrument was playing from one of the helicopters. (That is, for an audience surrounding the performance space.)
Further, the musicians of FISQ are also equipped with wireless audio senders, allowing them to move around freely during the performance.
The multiple layers of audio (Direct sound from the quartet; amplified sound through the loudspeaker array; the sound of the the helicopters) and the layers of movement (the helicopters trajectories; the musicians trajectories through the audience) create a densely woven spatial narrative.
The performance was recorded at the Klingt Gut! International Symposium on Sound in Hamburg, Germany in 2016
How Do We Experience Digital Arts? An Exploration through Latour’s Modes of Existence
No full textAccording to Bruno Latour the technical, despite being everything, is mostly experienced through its failure. If we take him by his word, what is it then that we experience when we speak of “digital art”? How does this bear on conceptualizations of technologies? In addition to the technical, the fictional mode and the mode of reference help to understand the notion of the digital as it pervades culture and media. Using examples from music, visual arts and an experimental artistic practice dystopian visions of technology are disentangled, re-configured. Embodied agency and kinaesthesia play a major role in this process
The Fallacy of Autonomous AI
No full textIn the mainstream media, concerns are voiced about the potency of AI as a threat to humanity. Some of the academic literature that gives credence to that threat, does so in reference to posthumanism, where we find, besides conceptional tools for thinking technology in an indeterministic way, also an appeasement towards strong AI. This paper’s aim is to demonstrate that a possible threat by AI does not come from the alleged attainability of autonomous, cognising machines. Starting out from the conception of technology as a socio-material arrangement, if becomes clear that AI, like any other technology, is socially performed. What is more, supposedly autonomous machines run on algorithmic, linguistic, written code, as I show in an analysis of computer language as Derridean writing. As such, they are extensions of human cognition. To proclaim machines conscient and autonomous, is hence not just misleading per se, but disguises the human agency that uses the AI-autonomy as a proxy
Testing the Acoustic Localisation Positioning System-algorithm: Data sets
No full textThe data is from 2 separate experimental setups: Tracking a device of constant speed using the Audio1 (single processor) software (B.1); and tracking a faster device using the al-Qt (multi processor) software (B.2) The experiments were also recorded on video. (see Video folder). For the experiments in B.1 a visualisation of the data has been made with the help of a MATLAB script which also included. The dimensions of the room and loudspeaker spacings were identical for both set-ups, namely 3 x 2 meters, with the loudspeakers at the corners of the rectangle. the loudspeakers were situated on the floor, approx.level with the tracked device.
The source code for Audio is available from: https://github.com/spatmus/alps/tree/master/Audio1
The source code for al-Qt is available from: https://github.com/spatmus/alps/tree/master/al-Q
Acoustic Localisation for Spatial Reproduction of Moving Sound Source: Application Scenarios \& Proof of Concept
No full textDespite the near ubiquitous availability of interfaces for spatial interaction, standard audio spatialisation technology makes very little use of it. In fact, we find that audio technology often impedes spatial interaction: In the workshop on music, space and interaction we thus developed the idea of a real-time panning whereby a moving sound source is reproduced as a virtual source on a panning trajectory. We define a series of application scenarios where we describe in detail what functionality is required to inform an implementation. In our earlier work we showed that Acoustic Localisation (AL) potentially can provide a pervasive technique for spatially interactive audio applications. Playing through the application scenarios with AL in mind provides interesting approaches. For one scenario we show an example implementation as proof of concept
Immersive Spatial Interactivity in Sonic Arts : The Acoustic Localization Positioning System
No full textThe Acoustic Localization Positioning System is the outcome of several years of participatory development with musicians and artists having a stake in sonic arts, collaboratively aiming for nonobtrusive tracking and indoors positioning technology that facilitates spatial interaction and immersion. Based on previous work on application scenarios for spatial reproduction of moving sound sources and the conception of the kinaesthetic interface, a tracking system for spatially interactive sonic arts is presented here. It is an open-source implementation in the form of a stand-alone application and associated Max patches. The implementation uses off-the-shelf, ubiquitous technology. Based on the findings of tests and experiments conducted in extensive creative workshops, we show how the approach addresses several technical problems and overcomes some typical obstacles to immersion in spatially interactive applications in sonic arts
Imagining otherwise : critical interviews with artists
No full textThis publication brings together interviews produced as part of the Praxis—Curating and Writing in Contemporary Art course Conducting Critical Artist Interviews run by Elham Rahmati at the Academy of Fine Arts at Uniarts Helsinki. Students were tasked with interviewing artists participating in the research exhibition Idiorrhythmic Imaginaries, curated by Henk Slager and held at the Kuva/Tila gallery from 5–21 December 2025.
Artist interviews offer a means of encountering artworks through the voices of the artists who create them, voices shaped by years of thinking, experimenting, researching, and refining. Yet artist interviews should not be treated merely as contextual additions or supporting material, as they constitute a key genre in their own right, positioned at the intersection of art history, inquiry, and dialogic aesthetics.
Critical artist interviews differ substantially from promotional ones in their intentions, methods, and depth. Whereas the latter tends to highlight biography, networks, neatly packaged narratives, news about forthcoming exhibitions, or market positioning, a critical interview opens a space for genuine inquiry, engaging the artist in a process of reflection - a rare opportunity to explore the intellectual, cultural, and political contexts that shape their decisions. These conversations do not seek to present a seamless narrative. Instead, they welcome complexity, disagreement, vulnerability, and contradiction. They reveal not just what artists make, but how and why they make it.
Interviews were conducted by Heidi Backstrom, Tuija Huovinen, Amalia Kasakove, Isa Lumme, Lyenne Palü, Anna Stuart, Gabriel Thiam.
Interviewed artists:
Amanda Beech, Jaime Belmonte & Paola Fernanda, Sophie Durand, Kerry Guinan, Heidi Hänninen, Marleena Huuhka, Joanna Kalm, Noora Karjalainen, Kristiina Koskinen, Veli Lehtovaara, Dominik Schlienger, Kerstin Schroedinger & Angela Melitopoulos, Rut Karin Zettergren.Foreword / Elham Rahmati
Mapping Complexities: Interview with Amanda Beech / Isa Lumme
Narrative Devices: An Interview with Kerstin Schroedinger and Angela Melitopoulos / Isa Lumme
Cellular Ecologies: An Interview with Joanna Kalm / Amalia Kasakove
Tangible Earth: An Interview with Kerry Guinan / Anna Stuart
Aquatic Universes: An Interview with Paola Fernanda and Jaime Belmonte / Anna Stuart
Becoming Entanglements: An Interview with Kristiina Koskinen / Tuija Huovinen
Being in an Experience: An Interview with Sophie Durand / Tuija Huovinen
Representing Parallel Art Worlds: An interview with Heidi Hänninen / Heidi Backström
The Rhythm of Deaf Artists: In Conversation with Noora Karjalainen / Heidi Backström
Defining Agency: An Interview with Dominik Schlienger / Gabriel Thiam
Play, Performance and Action: An Interview with Marleena Huuhka / Gabriel Thiam
Ecological Poetics in Dance: An Interview with Veli Lehtovaara / Lyenne Palü
Healing Through Space Travel: An Interview with Rut Karin Zettergren from Whyte & Zettergren / Lyenne PalüResearch exhibition Idiorrhythmic Imaginaries, curated by Henk Slager at the Kuva/Tila gallery from 5–21 December 2025.fi=ei tietoa saavutettavuudesta|sv=okänd tillgänglighet|en=unknown accessibility
Connectivity and Adaptability : Evaluation of Signal Flow Scenarios in Shared Outdoor Electronic Practices on Mobile Devices
No full textMobile devices and portable loudspeaker systems allow for a shift of electroacoustic sound practices to the outdoors. This paper reports findings from the ExoSound research project, which explores electronic co-musicianship in Nordic outdoor conditions. Three signal flow experiments that have been designed to enhance inter-musician and musician-environment connectedness are tested, evaluated, and discussed. In these successive experimental Scenarios, mobile devices are configured as individual instruments, as an output matrix using a WLAN, and an input-output network integrating a live microphone feed. The results point to a shift at the core of electroacoustic practices and aesthetics, from fixed pieces and instrumental agencies towards relationality and situatedness. Connectivity and adaptability emerge as concepts for the further development of approaches for networked electronic music making in the outdoors
