“Ethno Tekh” is born

I’ve recently teamed up with visual artist and programmer Brad Hammond (XY01) for our project Ethno Tekh. We’ve been slamming it hard and since we’ve teamed up in early August we’ve already had our first public interactive installation ‘public override Trichild()‘, which was a great success, as well as our first performance to an audience of over 3000 people at Microsoft’s TechEd 2012.

We’re focusing on real-time, interactive and generative digital artworks; as well as larger-than-life and futuristic bass music A/V performances, all performed completely live using motion capture and audio-reactive visuals.

Video of the TechEd performance coming soon, but for now, there’s these couple of photo. But head to the Ethno Tekh Facebook page to keep updated on the project. We’ve got some interesting stuff coming up.

Here’s a video from our debut interactive installation ‘public override Trichild()’:

Motion-capture Music Live Set Demo @ Ultralounge 2012

Although I’ve spent literally the entire last 14 months of my life on making and performing motion capture music, with around live 30 performances I only just realised there’s very little footage online.

I’m currently in the process of updating my whole live performance system, so I most likely won’t be performing for at least a few weeks, so here’s an except of a performance I did earlier on in the year with my Kinect/foot pedal setup.

Interview in The Age newspaper

I forgot to post this last month, but I was over in Seattle and forgot about it when I got home. A few weeks ago I was featured Australia-wide on printed newspapers and on their subsequent online services with both a written and video interview.

You can check out the interview here.

Leap Motion

If you haven’t heard of the latest motion capture device that’s been making waves in the community, let me break it to you. The Leap is an amazingly small device (literally smaller than a computer mouse) that can capture your hand’s input.

It’s been quoted to be 200 times more powerful “accurate” than the Kinect (whatever the term “powerful” “accurate” means is referring to), and from the videos on their website, it looks to pick up a very solid 3d image of whatever you put in front of it. Not to mention that it’s RRP at only $70.

Because it’s so small and works in such a small area, it’s much different than the Kinect, which is primarily aimed at tracking your whole body’s movements, which limits it’s uses somewhat.

I’ve managed to wrangle a dev release for this little motion capture beast. I’m receiving it in the next few weeks, so expect to seem some finger-music-making experiments from me shortly!

Demonstration at the Seattle Science Festival

It’s been a while since I’ve last posted as I’ve had a busy time with a lot of cool stuff coming up! As a massive highlight to my year, I’ve been given the honor of being invited to the US to demonstrate my Kinect system at the Seattle Science Festival. My performance is on this coming Saturday (9th) for the Hacker’s Luminary show.

I’ll be in Seattle for a week before heading home, so make sure you say hi if you’re in the area!

My next Synaecide performance @ Mister Mode fashion market (28th April 2012)

Yo dude peeps. I’m venturing into the world of fashion and gonna be slammin some beats and bass during my live performance at an upcoming event this Saturday (28/04/12) – Mister Mode Fashion Market. This is a great event to come and check out my work if you’re not into the club thing and even better if you’re the kind of person to wear clothes. I’m on at 8pm!

Controlling a 4-story pipe organ with the Kinect

In this video I briefly explain and demonstrate how I used the Kinect to control the massive Melbourne Town Hall Organ. It contains a short excerpt from our performance “Carpe Zythum” November 2011.

I’ve created my own software Kinectar, which allows the use of the Kinect to control MIDI devices, ie. playing notes through simple gestures and motion. The Melbourne Town Hall Organ got a referb in the late 90s adding the ability of MIDI messages to active the notes… this happened.

The company that provided the control system to allow the organ to be played via MIDI are Solid State Organ System.

Co-composition and Kinect performance and programming by Chris Vik
Co-composition, lyrics and vocals by Elise Richards

Video produced by Unkle Nicnac Films

Full performance out next week!