Blaus introduces us in the abstract realm of three dimensional geometry in time.

It can be a cube or a blossoming flower, a grid or a jellyfish; a mutant entity of reflecting lights which submerge the audience into a symbolical universe, driven by hidden forces of the architecture.

Blaus is an immersive space where light and sound relate intimately to impact on the visitor.

Movement of light, sound and laser beams generates a kinetic atmosphere that transforms the architecture into the main character of a geometric play.

See the Video abstract:

And the full performance:

Blaus is a site-specific installation. The whole visual and sound creation is proposed by the architecture of the site where it’s held.

Blaus adapts itself and mutates on every location as a simple result of it’s perceptual origins: space, light and sound.

Through the use of self-made technologies, both hardware and software, Blaus re-draws the space by creating dynamical  light figures which emerge from the architectural characteristics.

The mix of motorized laser beams, and mirrors on key points of the room allows for multiple dynamic combinations of three dimensional forms.

Also, the formal dramatism introduced by RGB light design, helps to reinforce the concepts behind each mutation.

At the same time, architecture itself is used as a musical source, since the study of the room acoustics and it’s resonance frequency allows for using the space as a giant musical instrument.

Anchoring on this resonance frequency and its harmonics, a sound composition is generated that matches and reinforces the  architecture in the same way that laser does, allowing the space to speak.

Light and sound are always related in time, frequency and perceptive domains, as several self-made software algorithms link light, sound and movement in an intricate manner.

A poetical will, summed to the convergent research of musical and visual relationships of geometry, make it possible to breathe life into the architecture.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

We spent a whole week working on-site, playing with lasers, motors, mirrors and sound, and ended up with a setup that mixed 6 motorized and 2 static laser diodes, around 20 mirrors of different sizes (from 1cm to 3 meter long), 2 RGB-DMX fixtures, and a sound PA with a big subwoofer.

One of the most interesting facts about working with architecture is the ability to understand, map and re-interpret the space. In the cistern, we liked to accentuate some geometrical aspects of the architecture by using mirrors and lasers, but we also worked with acoustic mapping.

We managed to find the resonance frequency of the space, that happened to be 43hz. Playing a sine wave through a subwoofer inside this space, the whole architecture acted as a giant speaker, amplifier, or resonance box, thus augmenting the amplitude of the sound waves. Acoustical experience on the audience was highly physical, as we worked on a soundtrack that took advantage of this resonant frequency, and all composition was made using 43hz and its harmonic series as a compositive source. In addition to that, the long reverberation of the space (approx. 12 seconds) was used creatively as a sound element.

In order to compose and play the 12 lasers beams, servo motors, lights and musics composition we used Duration software from James George (NYC). James developped some time ago ofxTimeline, an addon for OpenFrameworks libraries which works in the direction of developping a timeline tool which features editing, recording and playing back of data timelines which can output into MIDI, OSC, Serial, DMX signals.

We collaborated on testing Duration in early september 2012, adding some custom code for our personal project. The relation with ofxTimeline and Playmodes started on our first laser project : BlueBeams.

Here you can see a screenshot of our version of Duration, which drived the lasers intensity and rotation values.

There are many tracks to create or compose output data signals, on this screenshot we see the color track witch drived several Par LED lights via LanBox hardware to DMX.

And finally, tech details in this making off:

+info: pdf document

a project by:

Powered by:

www.duration.cc

In this installation we mixed together “The Particle” a kinetic light sculpture by Alex Posada, and “Blue Beams“, a set of 8 motorized blue laser diodes.

Photograph by Jordi Piqué.

We arranged the lasers forming an octogon around the particle, leaving enough space in between to allow 130 people sit in comfortable sunbeds, and enjoy the cymatic show. Every laser beam has an speaker associated, summing a total of 8 channel audio.

We created a multichannel synthesizer driven by an 8-phase LFO, that generates synchronized sound and laser control through the OSC protocol.

Every laser has a sound oscillator associated which is played through its corresponding speaker. Some parameters of this oscillator, such as pitch, amplitude or filter, are associated with the brightness of the laser light and it’s movement in 1 axis. So when we compose music with this syntesizer, we are really composing also light and movement…

We built a software simulator, to be able to work  with the instrument at home…

The Particle’s RGB light, movement and sound patterns can be easily triggered through OSC as well.

We used Duration to drive all this elements. Duration allows us to write automation curves of OSC and DMX data easily, and even record OSC data from our sound synthesizers. Here you can see a diagram of the control setup:

You can see a making off of the process, together with the Blaus installation:

a project by:

In col·laboration with :

Hangar.org

Powered by:

www.duration.cc

Wargames it’s a video installation and documentary project by visual artists Alba Sotorra. Wargames is a reflexion about war in our modern times by inspecting a personal subject, a young mercenary who has been working for the spanish army in Afghanistan.

We took care of setting up the mapping installation in Cal Massó art center in Reus city, Catalonia. She asked us to project video excerpts from his documentary film on the columns of the art center, a way of decoring the inner space with visuals which talk about the concept itself of the exhibition. We used our own WarpMap software to warp and match 12 video projectors to the columns of the venue. The result was an inmersive space where you where surrounded by images from Wargames.

Alba’s description of her project :

“Our culture and way of life couldn’t exist without it.  Its victims are necessary for our Art, and military technology is what feeds our scientific advancement. The front has moved a few thousand kilometers further away. Or maybe, the new foxholes are being dug in laws, work, or consumer society.Some people insist that it’s inside of us from the time we’re born, in our tastes, sexual competition, and our own uselessness.

Whether we are really the victims, with our addictions, apathy or well being, or if the ones who are hurt the most are those masses of people we see on TV, is hard to say. Figuring out whether it’s the democratic institutions, corporations, the greed of our competition based system or the human race itself that’s at fault is something far beyond our grasp. What we can be sure of, however, is that we need war. We need the natural resources it provides us, the freedom we gain with it, the weapons, the threats, the epic movies and those hordes of pacifists with their educational slogans.”

More info : http://albasotorra.com/wargames/expo/?lang=en

La UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) es va posar en contacte amb nosaltres per encarregar-nos l’autoria dels materials docents d’una nova assignatura, anomenada “Disseny de la Interacció”, que havia de cobrir aspectes elementals del disseny de sistemes interactius mijançant teclat, ratolí, anàlisi d’àudio, visió per computadora i arduino, a més de questions referents a protocols de comunicació i tractament de dades.

Aquests materials s’estan utilitzant actualment per part dels alumnes i consultors de la UOC, dins el Grau en Multimèdia, i recentment han estat publicats en obert, sota llicència Creative Commons, accessibles a tothom. D’aquesta nova assignatura s’en ha generat un blog de l’assignatura on es penjen continguts relacionats.

Grau Multimedia :: Disseny d’Interacció

1-Introducció (PDF)

2-Teclats (PDF)

3-Dispositius apuntadors (PDF)

4-Dispositius Electrònics (PDF)

5-Anàlisi d’àudio (PDF)

6-Visió artificial (PDF)

7-Comunicació i tractament de dades (PDF)

BlueBeams is a 12 laser lights and quadrophonic sound performance. Performed in Castillo San Jose, from Arrecife city in Lanzarote island, in January 2012. Presented on the VI Bienal de Arte, the project is a DIY open hardware and software project under development and this is the first result of a set of incoming experiments with such an audiovisual instrument.

We collaborated with James George who developped ofxTimeline with OpenFrameworks libraries. With this OF addon we could write the composition that will drive the motors, the lasers and the music during the show. This project was part of an ongoing research on how to organize and compose complex digital multimedia composition writtings.

This is the 10 minutes of show timeline with a track for every element on the performance.

One of the lasers heads.

Assembling the laser heads on Gabriel’s studio.

Concept, electronics and audiovisual design
Playmodes

Laser consulting
Axel Guillaumet

Structure Design and Construction
Bartosz Zygmunt
Gabriel Scapusio

Control software development
James George

thanks to :

Irma Vilà | ZZZINC
Alex Posada | MID Interactive Design
Telenoika.NET

with the support of :

VI Biennal de Arte Lanzarote
MIAC Lanzarote
CoNCA Consell Nacional de Cultura i de les Arts

Toy Factory was an interactive mapping project, which took place during 2011 christmas holydays in Plaza Mayor of Madrid, Spain.

The main idea was to create an audiovisual show in which the spectators could appear as characters of the animation. Universomente created a photo capture system that allowed faces of public to be inserted in the dwarf design. A set of characters and accesories (hats, dresses, ears, beards) have been designed, in order to allow multiple combinations. Faces of the public assisting to the show were captured, and integrated within the whole character design.

We created a bone system for the character, which allows us to move parts of the body easily. We paid special attention to the flexibility of the system, so we also could deform the body as rubber material. The main idea behind the show script was to transform the building in a toy factory operated by the dwarfs, in a christmas mood. A special christmas carol has also been composed for the main part of the show, in where all dwarfs were singing and dancing.

Miki Arregui designed several scenarios of the factory, coinciding exactly with the building architectural characteristics. Albert Callejo designed a set of mapping special effects, which completely transformed and deformed the building.

Creative Concept / Music / Character design / 3D / Animation / Edition / VideoEngine Development
Playmodes

Concept / Interactive system / Technical Project Managing
Universomente

3D Factory scenarios design and animation
Miki Arregui

Modelling / Architectural 3D FX
Albert Callejo + Playmodes

Technical supplier
Panorama

Production agency
adMOMA.es

Video report
Roco3D.com

MID (Media Interactive Design) comissioned us to create a projection mapping to illustrate relationships between several documents that accredited the firs exhibitiiion of Picasso artwork, made in Spain in 1936, just befor the Civil War. The project, comissioned by the Barcelona’s Picasso Museum, involved a huge research in the field of complexity visualization, as there was lots of relationships that had to be made visible using a simple graphic language.

Here you have some of the results of this research process, as digital images:

And from here on, some photos showing this graphics projected with a dual-projector setup. Note that all documents are sticked in the wall, and video is projection-mapped on them:

In addition to that, the Picasso Museum also comissioned Playmodes to create the overall exhibition graphic design, ranging from posters and flyers to web communication:

Organized and produced by Museu Picasso de Barcelona  |  Director Pepe Serra  |  Administrator Núria Fradera  |  Curator and researcher Sílvia Domènech  |  Coordinator Mariona Tió  |  Ontology Sílvia Domènech (concept), David Dalmazzo (graphic programming), Lluís Gómez, Hangar (data base programming)  |  Documentation Margarida Cortadella, Clara Fort, Mikel Urizar, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao  |  Quality control of digital image Raquel Revuelta  |  Preventive conservation Reyes Jiménez and, Anna Vélez  |  Public Programs Anna Guarro, Maria Alcover and Marta Iglesias

Design and production of the installation MID (Media Interactive Design)  |  Technical coordination: Gabriel Scapusio  |  Electronic programming and control software: Alex Posada  |  Furniture design: Bartosz Zygmunt  |  Graphic design and audiovisual mapping: Santiago Vilanova  | Construction of furniture: Daniele Vinci  |  Electronic design: Miguel Ángel de Heras

[ All images in this post are property of MID and Museu Picasso and they are protected by international copyright and intelectual and industrial property laws. It's not allowed to use any of them without the agreement of its ownership. ]

[cat] * [PDF]

Un espectacle audiovisual de gran format dirigit a públic familiar i confeccionat per petits i grans. Així és Mapping Fet a Ma: una mescla de taller, activitat d’animació sociocultural i espectacle audiovisual de gran format on el públic, acompanyat d’un equip de professionals, es converteix en creador!

Nosaltres preparem una plantilla de l’edifici on es projectarà l’espectacle. Aleshores visitem escoles, casals i llars de gent gran que col·laboren pintant ells mateixos amb retoladors, dacs i aquarel·les l’edifici. Més tard, aquestes imatges s’animen, es coordinen amb una banda sonora i es projecten durant l’espectacle.

També generem tallers de creació de mapping amb técniques manuals. Partint de dibuix, maquetes de cartró, objectes, animacions stop-motion … es dinamitza un taller on els participants generen manualment els materials i continguts que desprès són editats i muntats digitalment en un espectacle de mapping. Vegeu la documentació del Taller Mapping Fet a Mà del festival FADE 2012.

[english]

A large format audiovisual show for a familiar audience, a great show made by the young and the old. That is “Hand-made mapping” a mix of workshop, socio-cultural animation and audiovisual show where the audience becomes creator of a mapping show, all of it accompanied by a team of professionals.

We prepare a layout of the building where the show is gonna be projected. Then we visit schools and cultural centers where kids collaborate painting and drawing themselves with colors, pencils, markers or aquarella’s the layout of the building. Later on the drawings are scanned and animated with a soundtrack and are projected during the show.

We are also offering creative workshops with hand-made thecniques. Starting from drawings, paper models, objects, stop-motion animations … etc, the workshop dinamizes the students to generate manually the materials and contents which later will be edited digitally in a hand-made mapping show. Please check the documentation of the Hand-made Mapping Workshop in FADE Festival 2012.

Aquestes imatges n’expliquen el procès / This images shows the process :

Un fotograma de l’espectacle al Festival DigAran de Vielha, 2012 / A frame from the show we had on DigAran Festival in Vielha, 2012 :

Mapping Fet a Mà is a co-production of :

Playmodes

LabFàbrica

L’Orquestra dels Luthiers Drapaires

Mapping Fet a Mà :: Festival FADE :: La Cellera de Ter, Girona :: 2011

Mapping Fet a Mà :: Festival DigAran :: Vielha :: 2012

Taller de Técniques Mapping Fet a Mà :: Festival FADE :: La Cellera de Ter :: 2012

Dibuixos d’exemple del mapping de La Bisbal // Sample drawings from La Bisbal show.

The interactive Scenography Lab proposes the creation of theatre scenes by mixing new media with classical stage design.

The workshop is oriented to video-makers, musicians, scenographers, engineers or spectacle technicians who are willing to spend some days contributing with their creativity and experience. Some of the resources are based on audio, video, design, robotics, lightning and interactive technologies as well as scene design and the wit of participants.

The main goal is to realize some sketches on a little scale which mix together all these disciplines.

The workshop is divided into 2 weeks of work. One, in a Celrà’s LabFàbrica classroom, and the other one in the Teatre Ateneu of Celrà.

We were comissioned by the cabaret-café “El Molino”, from Barcelona, to develop a software system to drive the visual contents for the Molino’s Media-facade. We programmed a simple videoplayer, adapted to the format and resolution of the screen, taht can be remotely operated using the OSC protocol, as we found it could be usefull to have the ability of realtime triggering. The result of this process was LEDMap, an application made using OpenFrameworks, that is actually running every day in the Molino computers.

In addition to that, we also were comissioned to create a bunch of video contents for the LED screen.

Here you have some images showing these work:

The OSC remote operativity of the software we made, gave us the opportunity to synchronize contents with the projection mapping event we where comissioned to do with the Telenoika Mapping Crew

From years 2009 to 2012 we participated as part of Telenoika Mapping Crew, working together in a group of 6 people. There we worked as video (2D and 3D) creatives, sound designers and musicians,  and software developers.

Here you can see two of the multiple projects we were participating:

Architectural audiovisual Mapping made by the Telenoika Cultural Association into the Villa Tittoni Traversi, on the second edition of Kernel Festival in Desio, Italy. 9 min.

Miki Arregui | Sergi Casero | Eloi Maduell | Santi Vilanova

Thanks to:  Assoc.Cultural Telenoika | Kernel Festival | Areaodeon

Telenoika Audiovisual Mapping @ Macau Arts Festival – (China)

Encounters is an audiovisual show which retells stories of times past while simultaneously drawing attention to the current remnants of an iconic facade such as the St Pauls Temple in Macau.

Omar Álvarez (2D) | Miquel Arregui (3D, 2D) | Gabriel Casanova (3D) | Sergi Casero (Audio) | Miguel Gozalbo (Audio) | Eloi Maduell (3D, Software Development) | Santi Vilanova (2D, Audio) | SolidSounds (Production)

An important development made for this bunch of projects was the creation of a software that allowed us to corner pin and mesh warp a video.

This software was released as WarpMap, and you can download it for free here: Warpmap

Barcelona, Toulossse, Madremanya, Berlin, Figueres, Igualada | 2008-2010

Real-time sampling play, an experimental performance in which time connects the relationships between interactive audiovisuals, the spoken word and gestural performance. Delay, repetition, polyphony and other concepts used in sound are applied to digital polypoetry.

This project was conceived and developed at the interactive arts lab organised in the lead-up to the IDN festival in Barcelona in 2007. The core programming was presented during the festival as an interactive installation called ‘Playmodes’. reflexus began to take shape during 2008, as a result of Eloi’s collaboration with Santi Vilanova. The initial concept and script were then applied to the live context with Jordi Teixidor, producing a first stage of ‘Playmodes’ that is adapted to gesture and the spoken word.

Reflexus DOC (català)

Reflexus PDF (english)

Reflexus DOC (castellano)

Technical Description of the tool we use in Reflexus.

Video and concept
Eloi Maduell

Text and Action
Jordi Teixidor

Music and sound
Santi Vilanova

reflexus is a co-production from

Playmodes

Nu2s.org

Telenoika.net

with the support of Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya

]]> http://playmodes.com/web/reflexus/feed/ 0 http://playmodes.com/web/playmodes/ http://playmodes.com/web/playmodes/#comments Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:43:09 +0000 admin http://playmodes.com/web/?p=551  

Interactive video dance installation | International | 2006-2010

Playmodes is an interactive installation that plays with the concepts of: image, time, body and movement. Inspired in the “magic mirrors” at attractions park and the VJ culture, the installation captures the public’s attention with the magic of a funfair.

This installation is based on the concept of “video buffer”: on one hand, the installation shows us our image in real time composed with our image in the immediate past. The user/player composes video choreographies with his body and his reflexion temporaly manipulated. All of this in different interactive modes which add up to create an experimental instrument for digital video dance.

From an in movement chrono-photographic effect, loops in real time, vj type FreeFrame and video delay effects, the object is that the user should experiment with his or her own image with the interactive manipulation capacity of the latest VJing tendencies. The user’s interaction, by means of the artificial vision interface, allows us to control and manipulate the installation with a led pointer in four colors. The installation is placed with groovy music to incite people to dance.

This is a project that came into being in the Laboratory of Interactive Dance that took place as a result of the celebration of the IDN (Imatge Dansa i Nous Mitjans [Image Dance and New Media]) festival in early 2007 in Barcelona. pLayModes is a project in process, a project with an open source code that has been developed in the open-Frameworks environment. This project has been developed thanks to NU2’s and l’Associació Cultural Telenoika.

Download <Playmodes interactive installation PDF  - 1>

Download <Playmodes interactive installation PDF – 2>

Last exhibitions

We work with custom software tools that allow us to design precise soundfx and contemporary electronic music, and we use this creations for our projects, or as comissioned sound design and music composing works.

You can access our Soundcloud for extended information:

http://soundcloud.com/playmodes

We made the soundtrack for a Projection Mapping project made by Lectrovision.com about life and work by spanish master El Greco:

This was an experiment, processing random quantized clicks with random quantized dynamic delays. Sort of granular creature…. this can be playing for hours, never repeating itself….

Some old tune, augmented with the superb sax playing of Adria Bauzo from Electrotoylets. Made for an audiovisual dance show for the VAD festival in Girona:

The audiovisual results of an experimental synthesizer based on waveshaping techniques and waveform visualization:

Minimalistic clicks and cuts.
Messing around with the Quadratic Iterator by Ignasi Álvarez(http://www.nonlinearinstruments.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=2&func=fileinfo&id=17). Finally found some ways to “domesticate” the chaotic foam and make some semi-random percussion-like sounds.
All other sound generators and time manipulation effects are self-made algorithms. No samples were used.

We also like dubstep:

Minimalistic clicks and cuts:

And all kinds of Electronic Music: