Working with Arnold Agency and Todd Vanderlin+Ryan Habbyshaw from their R&D team, we created an interactive display for Citizens bank in branches in major cities in the US.

Using motion tracking, the pedestrians can interact with the display, signaling birds to come flying in and drop coins, grow plants, create wind to blow the plants around and spray pollen etc. The display is also time-reactive, automatically theming itself depending on time of day.

Photos can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/habbyshaw/sets/72157608742269830/

My Secret Heart is a music and film installation & performance commissioned by Streetwise Opera with music composed by Mira Calix. Working with video artists Flat-e, we created visuals for the 48 minute performance, as well as versions for an installation and short film.

The visuals were created primarily with custom software written with C++/openFrameworks, with some Quartz Composer elements, rendered AfterEffects sequences and live action footage. The custom C++ app is audio-reactive and user-interactive, allowing the visuals to be 'performed' live with full control over the behaviour of the virtual inhabitants of the cylindrical aquarium-like rig.

Excerpts from the visuals (I recommend the HD version at http://vimeo.com/2131989):

Early tests of visuals on the 'aquarium' (rig built by Gaianova):

More stills and photos from the piece and performance can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/tags/mysecretheart

Photos from Lucerne, Switzerland:

I was fortunate enough to be part of the OF Lab team this year at Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria.

Apart from building a 3 storey lab, tons of random little bits of software and visualizations for our environment, we also had the challenge of creating pieces inspired by 5 words submitted by the public - with only a few hours upto a day per project.

Below is an excerpt from "one second before big bang". Visuals all realtime and purely controlled by motion.

(watch the HD version here)

"Roots" is an interactive musical/visual installation for the Brick Table tangible and multi-touch interface, where multiple people can collaborate in making music in a dynamic & visually responsive environment. It is a collaborative effort between myself and the Brick Table creators Jordan Hochenbaum & Owen Vallis. It will premiere at the Minitek Music + Innovation Festival September 12-14, 2008 in New York.

The essence of the interaction, is that you control parameters of a chaotic environment - which affect the behaviour of its inhabitants - which create and control music.

To breakdown very briefly without going into much detail:

• There are vinelike structures branching and wandering around on the table. They live and move in an environment governed by chaos.
• Audio is triggered and controlled entirely by how and where the branches move.
• You - the user - control various parameters of the chaotic environment. Parameters which range from introducing varying amounts of order, to simply changing certain properties to let the chaos evolve in different directions.

There are varying levels of interaction, ranging from traditional one-to-one correlations - 'this movement I make creates that sound', but also to more complex relationships along the lines of 'this movement I make affects the environment in this way which sends the music into that direction where it evolves with a life of its own'. The visuals are purely generative, as is the audio, and as user you can play with the parameters of that system and watch and listen to the results...

Demo of drawing with roots:

Demo of using fiducials to create magnetic force fields:

"Pi" is an interactive audio/visual installation commissioned by Trash City of the Glastonbury Festival to be shown at the festival in June 2008.

Working with arts and technology collective Seeper, our concept was to take a 50ft tent, and convert it into a giant audio/visual instrument - all of the music, audio and visuals inside the tent are generated and controlled purely by the movements of the occupants.

The space was divided into 6 zones. Two of the zones were purely visual, this was the waiting area. Here people could dance, chill, run about and do what they pleased. Two cameras tracked their movement and applied it to the fluid/particles visuals - so people could 'throw' plasma balls at each other, or send colorful waves propagating around the space. The other 4 zones had the same visual interactions, but in addition were also connected to an audio system. Each of these four zones was allocated an instrument type (drums/beats/percussion, pads, bass, strings etc.), and movement within these zones would also trigger notes or beats - depending on precisely where in the zone the movement was triggered. A lot of effort went into designing the sounds and notes triggered to make sure the end result would almost always sound pleasant and not be complete cacophony.

The first psychedelic fluid/particles interaction prototype developed in processing.org:

Camera -> osc/midi interaction tests (developed in Quartz Composer):

The two concepts strung together and written in C++ with openFrameworks:

Aldeburgh Music is an organization based in Suffolk, UK working with musicians - both professional and just starting out - to help them reach their full potential by providing them with the time and space to discover, create and explore - as well as providing inspirational scenery and a rich musical heritage.

The New Music New Media / Britten–Pears Programme offers advanced performance experience to young professional musicians in the inspiring surroundings of Snape Maltings, home of the Aldeburgh Festival founded by Benjamin Britten in 1948.