Workshops & Papers

Key: Presentation Hands On

Sunday Workshops

These workshop are held on Sunday 29 Nov from 12.00pm to 4.00pm. An extra charge of $50 (inc-GST) per person is charged to cover catering and running costs. Workshops must be booked and paid for at the time of registration.

Quartz Composer Workshop for Digital Media Artists

Luke Toop, The University of Adelaide

Quartz Composer is an Apple developer tool with many applications for artists working with visual media, ranging from customised image manipulation to completely interactive real-time installations. Quartz Composer is a free program, included with every version of OSX since 10.4 (Tiger)

The workshop will start with a brief overview of the tool and how to use it, followed by short experimentation segments and personal interaction with the presenter. The presentation material will be aimed at getting new users to the point where they understand how to compose simple interactive video manipulation patches. Users with experience in other node-based modular synthesis environments (MaxMSP/Jitter, Isadora and VVVV, for example) can get assistance to rapidly apply their skills to the Quartz Composer environment.

Improvising over the internet with jam2jam

Dr Steve Dillon, Queensland University of Technology

Dr Steve Dillon is Project leader for the Australasian Cooperative Research Centre for Interaction design (ACID) Network Jamming Research Creating new instruments and ways of learning for media performance. He is founding director of the save to DISC (Documenting Innovation in Sound Communities) Research Network which examines and documents the qualities and relationships between music, meaning, cognitive and social benefit, health and well being. Steve is a senior lecturer in Music and Sound and music education in the Faculty of Creative Industry, Queensland University of Technology. His research focuses upon meaningful engagement with music making in schools and communities.  


http://www.jam2jam.com/


http://www.savetodisc.net/


This workshop explores the social and educational applications of generative media systems as it has been applied to jam2jam a software This software has been developed specifically for collaborative ensemble and performance activity with computers. The workshop will provide a personal identity experience, a  band/ensemble experience  and an internet sharing cultural experience. Workshop participants will perform and record music video clips and transform them like DJ/VJ’s and upload them to a custom designed social network site. The sessions will use both computer based laptop instruments and Nano controller  interfaces to demonstrate the different kinds of interactions and physical setups of  generative media systems.
Participants will be asked to reflect on each jam and discuss the educational and social applications of the experiences.

Attendees are requested to bring their own headphones for this workshop.

Introduction to Making Machinima

Amanda Hassett and Noel Jacobson, founders of Australian Second Life Solution Providers Top Dingo

Learn how to capture video from virtual worlds, simulations and games and turn it into a movie you can use for teaching. This workshop will provide you with the basic knowledge and skills to be able to use a Mac to create simple machinima for instructional or creative pursuits.

Participants will learn how to plan and act out short action sequences in Second Life(R) then use the popular Snapz Pro(R) software to capture video footage. Editing will be done using standard iMovie software.  The session will include a discussion on common formats and ways to share or publish your work to your Mac, iPhone or the Internet.

The workshop assumes no advanced knowledge of Second Life (R) or video editing.

Attendees are requested to bring their own headphones with built in microphone for this workshop.

Papers

CW09_Draft_Papers.pdf

Kuuki: the things we take for granted, but cannot live without.

Gavin Sade, QUT

Gavin is a designer in the field of interactive computational media, with a background in music and sonology. Gavin is currently a director of Kuuki, and the Study Area Coordinator in Animation, Interactive and Visual Design at the Queensland University of Technology.   Gavin has exhibited interactive media works nationally and internationally.

Kuuki is an art, design, and media production collective directed by Gavin Sade and Priscilla Bracks, based upon the Japanese concept of kuuki.  Kuuki in Japanese, written as either 空気 in Kanji or くうき Hiragana, commonly means air or atmosphere and is used colloquially to refer to "the things we take for granted, but can't live with out".  This presentation will survey how this concept is explored through several interactive media arts projects produced by Kuuki.

Inside-Out Flutes: The Emergence of the Transformative Meta-flautist

Jean Penny, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University

This paper discusses the performance of music for flute and electronics from the perspective of the flautist, the impact of technological interventions and the new performative elements introduced by this genre.

Computer use in music for the pipe organ and real time dsp - or the music of Janus

Andrew Blackburn, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University

In this presentation, I will place contemporary practice in music for the pipe organ and dsp - both recorded and real time - into an historical context, explore how every pipe organ spatially and acoustically relates to the room in which it is placed, and quickly move to consider the musical tasks required of the computer, and how this is being achieved within current compositional practice.

The Unity Game Engine

Paris Buttfields-Addison & Jon Manning, University of Tasmania and SecretLab

Session attendees will get hands on experience with a real game development platform known as Unity. Unity provides a modern integrated development environment (IDE) for 3D content development on the Mac OS X desktop platform. It allows developers to assemble 3D games and simulations using a flexible drag-and-drop environment, and a fully integrated scripting environment, based on the JavaScript, Python and C# languages. Users develop on the OS X platform, and can deploy native applications to all OS X platforms, Microsoft Windows, the iPhone and the Nintendo Wii.

Presentation of a New Media Work

Ben Hamblin: WAAPA. Edith Cowan Uni

The main concept behind the works is the attempt to redefine the common sonic perception of the clarinet, via the use of electronics, and Max/MSP in particular. I constructed four distinct sound ideas based around the clarinet's acoustics and ideas of general auditory perception. Four pieces are vastly different in their sonic aesthetic. Works convey varying sound worlds, using the clarinet and the laptop. Sounds are created live based on one acoustic source to create four unique pieces. The work is divided into four simple acoustic properties; the clarinets tone, the clarinets reverberant chamber, the clarinets body (and it's percussive qualities), and the acoustic space in which the clarinet is heard (and reverberant objects in the space that may differently perceive that sound). The construction of the work will be discussed.

The war on the critical edition Volume 1

Dr Kim Cunio, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University

This paper documents 2 methods of consciously working against the notion of a critical edition. The first is three recorded realisations of the prologue to Hildegard of Bingen’s 12th Century music drama Ordu Virtutum, (ABC Classics 2007). Each realisation becomes an existing work in itself and sets to prove that early music notation allows the space for significant new composition.

Interactive Show Control with Riiwind: A Communications Protocol Mash Up for manipulating audio visual performance via remote

Tim Landauer, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts

Riiwind is a program developed to use in conjunction with a Nintendo Wii controller, an Apple Mac computer running Max/MSP and standard lighting and sound theatre technology set up in a performance space. It is coded to interpret physical gestures of performers or technicians using a Wii controller into audio and visual control formats that interface with a lighting desk, visual playback system and audio in a multi channel speaker configuration. A preconceived sound and lighting design can be controlled in ways not possible with more traditional methods of operation.

Riiwind’s ability to work outside a lineal timeline and to travel anywhere, any direction and at any frequency within the audio and visual design without the need for a complex set of cues is one of its main assets and first point of departure from conventional theatre show control. It allows the performer, audience or participant to control the expressional and emotional effect of the sound and light within the design. A frame of reference, like a lighting state or a sound, can be held infinitely or comprise of many instances rapidly compressed  in time, heightening or harshening, abstracting or subtly adjusting the reality of the performance  environment. Alternatively, the system enables performance concepts which may be reliant on spontaneity and randomness in a non-didactic context.

Riiwind attempts to open many of the restrictions formerly applicable to elements involved in theatre production and design. The once separate disciplines of live performance and visual projection have become potential allies, capable of being not only designed to occur in harmony with sound and lighting within a designated space but of being integrated and interdependent on one another. The controller allows for greater ease and flexibility that can enhance the experience for both the performer and the spectator. Riiwind is still in its experimental stage.

iPod USB Camera interactive exhibition utilising gestural audio/video control

Dr Barry Hill, RMIT

This presentation discusses an installation that will be on site. The software in this installation tracks audience members gestures via a live camera feed in the gallery space and triggers audio-visual controller commands. Three ipods suspended from the ceiling have interactive touch interfaces. Attendees will be able to interact with the work

At Play – students and mobile game development

Paris Buttfields-Addison & Jon Manning, University of Tasmania and SecretLab

This demonstration will introduce participants to the fundamentals of game development using modern development tools. The work from this student company will be highlighted.

Authority 3.0: Toward a digital press for university-based musicians, and its role in validating ERA outputs

Paul Draper, Griffith Conservatorium of Music

This paper examines dilemmas for Australian music academics in terms of quantifying their research equivalence in the recent Federal government ERA preparations. To do so, short written statements and limited digital assets were offered in a trial evaluation framework somewhat disconnected from the original musical contexts and their meanings, yet this assessment model will increasingly impact upon career progression, esteem, and research funding in future ERA rounds. Consequently, this paper reviews the salient features of recent web 1.0 and web 2.0 activity to argue the case for a scholarly digital resource peer-review system as ‘authority 3.0’.

Vertical Integration through Blended Learning:  a whole-of-program case study

Matt Hitchcock, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University

From 2004 -2008 this research project integrated a pedagogically embedded online whole of programme community designed discussion board. This reflected knowledge sharing structures occurring in professional workplaces through the vertical integration of knowledge, skills awareness and professional attributes in students

iPrac - twittering to survive practicum

Dr Jason Zagami, Griffith University

This paper reports on student use of iPhones to maintain a strong social network during work integrated learning placements. Using the twitter micro blogging service and iPhone mobile devices, students were encouraged to share the 'trivia' of their placement experience and through this sharing of seemingly mundane experiences establish a supportive learning environment. The play associated with the use of mobile devices for social networking reduced inhibitions in student sharing of their work integrated learning experiences and promoted shared learning experiences that reduced individual perceptions of isolation and uncertainty.

Waving creatively: An examination of Google Wave to facilitate collaboration in creative processes

Andrew Dekker, Dr Stephen Viller, Aaron Tan, University of Queensland
Current technologies to support collaboration rely on either synchronous or asynchronous communication at any given time and a  combination of multiple tools is often used, which in turn can get in  the way of the creative activity itself. This paper explores the barriers and challenges in using digital collaborative tools in the creative process. We examine the role of Google Wave in creative collaboration and its potential to become an environment to support conceptual phases of design, and document the creative process.  Finally we explore the potential of Wave, and how it can be extended to integrate with current creative workflows and design tools through the development of CocoaWave: a Mac OS X Wave client.