RE: Mercedes and visual looping

[improv@peak.org (Dave Trenkel)]

>>I was recently given a copy of Steinberg's X<>Pose to review for a mac
>>magazine. If you haven't heard of it, it's an animation program that
>>assigns MIDI notes to pict files and quicktime movies, and has a bunch of
>>effects and modifiers that are also controllable via MIDI notes and
>>controllers.
>
>is X<>Pose available for Mac only?
>
It looks like it, there's no mention of windows in the docs. I have to call
Steinberg with some questions soon, so I'll ask about a windows version.

>>So I'm thinking that there's a way to create a visual analog for
>>what we do musically, using something like X<>Pose
>
>The automatic production of visuals to musical events is very difficult,
>and I've yet to see a program which keeps me interested for more than a 
>few
>minutes.
>
Same here. I could easily do director animations that would play along with
our performance, but that's too static and anti-improvisational. What I'd
like is something that offers a mix of control and semi-intelligent
automation to create "surprises", those moments where the machine comes up
with something you wouldn't have consciously.
>
>One program that I've used for (loop) music light shows is my own fractal
>program HOP. (I'm very biased here of course.)
>
>HOP (a DOS based program) does realtime 'psychedelic' animations based on
>certain kinds of strange attractors. Some of what can be done with it
>resembles the slow minimalist light shows of Marian Zazeela which
>accompanied La Monte Young's Dream House concerts. It can also be tuned to
>do more vivid, fast stuff which would fit more into Techno/Ambient music.
>
I looked at you HOP pages, very impressive stuff. It's nice to see someone
finding new material in fractals, since certain things like the Mandelbrot
set became very overused a few years ago. Too bad I've only got macs, will
it run under SoftWindows (not likely if it's doing serious calculations...)

>HOP can *not* automatically react to Midi or other sound events though.
>When I used it to do live lightshows, I first put together a number of
>preconfigured animation parameters for the sequence of pieces that the 
>band
>would play - I tried to find some imagery which would fit the general mood
>of each of the pieces. Then while the band played, I sat beside the stage,
>running these animations, and I pressed keys on the PC keyboard, doing a
>certain amount of live modifications, changing parameters, colors, etc.,
>giving it a little more live-ness and unpredictability. People liked it a
>lot because HOP can do lots of different things none of which resemble 
>your
>familiar fractals, and it was easy to keep them interested.
>
Well, I'm not necessarily looking for something that responds directly to
MIDI, that's just how X<>Pose works. I'm just looking for something that
creates an interesting visual analog to the music we play. I rather like
the idea of having an artist controlling the visuals as we play, sort of
like another musician, but working on a different frequency spectrum...

________________________________________________________
Dave Trenkel, NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: improv@peak.org
self promotional web-site: http://www.peak.org/~improv/
"A squid eating dough in a polyethelene bag is fast
and bulbous, got me?"
                                     -Captain Beefheart
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