Florian Waldner

Sensor Bird for “The Birds according to Oskar Sala”

florian — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:41:57 +0000

“The Birds according to Oskar Sala” is a radioplay by Ammer & Console. The play was staged live at the German Museum in Munich 16th and 18th July 2010. I equiped the plastic crow in the picture above with a G-force sensor using a wireless eowave sensor box. The bird screamed and fluttered depending on how it was moved and was used on stage by the actor playing Hitchcock’s part.

Oskar Sala is a german composer and pioneer of electronic music who created the soundtrack for Hitchcock’s The Birds using his custom built instrument the Trautonium.

Does It Sound Like I Was Here?

florian — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:56:15 +0000

Does It Sound Like I Was Here? reacts to the sounds surrounding the listener and incorporates them in the installation. With mobile devices, headphones and a microphone, the installation accompanies the listeners in their everyday lives and creates an extended, acoustic reality. The software is at the heart of this and determines how the composition reacts to conditions and changes in the listeners’ sonic environment. Pics on flickr. Sound on Soundcloud. Video on youtube.

German text:

Does It Sound Like I Was Here? ist eine private Klanginstallation die den Hörer auf seinem Alltag begleiten kann. Musik wird immer mehr auf portablen Engeräten konsumiert. Die neueren Generationen dieser Endgeräte verfügen über Möglichkeiten die weit über das einfache Abspielen von Musik hinausgehen. Diese Arbeit bedient sich dieser neuen Generation an portablen Musikabspielgeräten um ein musikalisches Erlebnis zu gestalten das eng mit dem Hörer verbunden ist und auf diesen reagieren kann.

Does It Sound Like I Was Here? besteht aus einer Umhängetasche, einem mobilen Musikabspielgerät, diversen Kabeln und einem Kopfhörer an dem ein kleines Ansteckmikrofon befestigt ist. Das Mikrofonsignal wird von der Software in Echtzeit bearbeitet und wieder abgespielt. Die Software deﬁniert wie das Mikrofonsignal bearbeitet wird und bestimmt Aufbau und Form dessen was über den Kophförer abgespielt wird. Die Software ist ein Stück Musik welches erst zum Zeitpunkt des Hörens realisiert wird. Die grobe Struktur der Musik ist vorgegeben und wird zur Laufzeit mit den übers Mikrofon aufgezeichneten Geräuschen umgesetzt. Das Stück hört sich dementsprechend bei jedem mal Hören anders an. Die Arbeit ist für einen Fussweg von knapp 15 Minuten in urbanem Umfeld konzipiert. Der Hörer soll diesen Weg mit aufgesetztem Kopfhörer abgehen. Mithilfe des Mikrofons wird das jeweilige Umfeld des Hörers Teil der Arbeit. Für den Hörer ensteht so eine erweiterte Realität auf akustischer Ebene.

Processing and the RjDj API

florian — Sun, 02 May 2010 19:29:40 +0000

The picture above is a section of a visualization that displays the number of uploaded recordings made with RjDj scenes available on http://rjdj.me/music/. The picture was made using Processing and the RjDj API . The length of the bar indicates the number of uploaded recordings. The scene on the bottom is the oldest, the one on top the most recently added.

A very helpful and well documented tutorial to start using Processing with JSON is on http://blog.blprnt.com.

Here is the link to the source for the RjDj API visualization: http://13bit.at/RjDj_API_Recordings.zip To run this sketch you will need this JSON Processing library.

aware - RjDj Scene

florian — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:03:41 +0000

aware is a piece of music that reacts to the listeners sonic environment for the RjDj iPhone app. aware creates a lush and wide musical landscape. The microphone is used to produce swirling electronic sounds. A generative synth plays notes whenever there is an acoustic onset in your environment. Swipe through the pages of the scene to experience different modes! Page one is the generative listening mode, page two fuzzy layers of sound based on the mic input, and page three is made to sing along the harmonies and record. You can get the scene for free on RjDj.

A video of the scene in use is here:

Unowis - RjDj scene

florian — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:52:32 +0000

I made a scene called Unowis for the RjDj app. It accumulates loud sounds from your environment and plays them back using granular synthesis in realtime. Besides that it features some string sounds that are constantly modulated and filtered in various ways.

Kids on DSP Release Party Bootleg

florian — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:11:36 +0000

The Kids on DSP played a live set at their application release party at RjDj on a multiple speaker and microphone setup. Party guests were part of the music! Have a listen here.

Press reactions to the Kids on DSP: NME, The Guardian, MTV, appleblog.com, geobloggers.com.

Check out dizzybanjo’s blog for a post about the release party.

Zaubergarten

florian — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:55:56 +0000

I did some programming in Pd (Pure Data) for a sound installation by Acid Pauli at Grüne Sonne festival 3-5 July 2009. Several microphones and speakers were hidden in trees in the beautiful garden shown in the image above. Sounds from people sitting and relaxing in the garden were recorded, manipulated, and played back on the speakers in various ways.

Video

Vegaschleife at Raumsonde Alpenblick (Munich)

florian — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:41:30 +0000

Vegaschleife is an installation that evloved out of the work I was doing with Acid Pauli for RjDj. It is shown from 16.7.-12.9.2009 at Platform3. Vegaschleife listens to percussive sounds in the environment, records them, and plays them back in rhythmic patterns.

PLATFORM3
Räume für zeitgenössische Kunst
Kistlerhofstr. 70 (Haus 60 // 3. Stock)
81379 München

Flight data visualization

florian — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:13:14 +0000

The picture above shows a fraction of a visualization of flight data (click the image to enlarge). It shows all flights that passed Vorarlberg within a year. Each square represents a flight. Rows show all flights that happened during one day according to the time of their flyover. In sum there are 365 rows, one row for each day in a year. The colour of the squares indicate the altitude.

The data used for this visualization was colleceted by Dominik Bartenstein using a SBS-1 Virtual Radar Box and custom build software called sbstools, that reads, cleans and stores the data in a MySQL database. The image was created using the Processing Java API (archive of the processing sketch)

Loss of Rhythm at C17

florian — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:13:50 +0000

The Loss of Rhytm Installation was exhibited between January 15th and January 18th 2009 at the C17 gallery in Vienna. Pics: 1 2 ( by C17 - Thanks!.

Video: