Wiremap 783

Thought the Wiremap 256 was cool? Try a Wiremap 783! Earlier today I got an email from Elliot Woods, the undergrad at Manchester University who had a couple months back expressed interest in building a mammoth Wiremap. He runs an annual not-for-profit music festival called Pangaea, where they built and shared their work:

Yeah... It's kinda big.

They got the system up and were rendering 3d before the event - but as soon as the subwoofers came on, the projectors jiggled out of alignment, obscuring the 3d image.  Instead, they just threw Milkdrop onto it (musta looked kinda like iTunes on my Wiremap 256... but much bigger, or course).

Seeing photos of a Wiremap this big really inspires me to build more work for it.  Live motion capture could be projected into the Wiremap - so that you could watch a digital image of your body in 3d space.  Or maybe you could play tennis.  Or maybe even 3d machinima?

Projecting Cyberspace onto the Stage

I'm currently involved in a project that is working on theatricalizing the concept of Avatar and / or Cyberspace. My head has been swimming around this problem for quite some time, and after some good ol' R&D, here's some of what I came up with: [youtube]IfJOshdUhDE[/youtube]

[youtube]HL7LfX5HhiM[/youtube] These ideas are to be seen mostly as a proof of concept, and I think they'll be more compelling when they actually make it on stage.

That said, I think there's a lot of potential for choreography between the human body and digital forms. Yesterday I realized how cool it would be to crossover from machinima into theater. I wonder what that would be called.

Oh, in the vid, I mention my email. Here it is again: hwang [dot] al [at] gmail.

Manchester

So, since the Digg hit, my wiki entry for the Wiremap got destroyed by spam. I don't know enough php or sql or whatever it is I need to know to recover my document, so I'm considering rebuilding it in a static page. I've been in contact Elliot Woods over in Manchester who is interested in building a very large wiremap for a not for profit music festival, called Pangaea. Last year at Pangaea, they made the world's largest 3d dot matrix display, and this year they're looking to (in my estimation) up the ante.

Email contents include blender, maxmsp, lots of nylon rope, steel frames, and the use of three theater quality projectors.

w00t.

A Workshop Performance of Portraiture

So my friend Morgan Murphey and I have been working on a movement piece that is based off a few pieces she completed while she was in school. We've found some interesting stuff, and we're ready to share it w/ everyone. The piece runs approximately a half hour. After the performance there will be a brief break followed by time for the creators and the audience to ask questions/give feedback. We'd love to hear as much feedback as possible so if you have the time - it would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the info:

January 18th, 19th, 20th at 8pm and January 20th at 2pm

Tickets $5

Linhart Theater 440 Lafayette Street, 3rd Floor

Conceived by Morgan Murphey Created by Albert Hwang & Morgan Murphey

Designed & Assisted by Andrew Scoville, Reshmi Hazra, Corey Michener

Stage Managed by Victoria Flores Assistant Stage Managed by Sanaz Ghajarrahimi

Produced by Justin Ball

To make a reservation / let us know you're coming, please email the producer, Justin Ball at justin[ at ]phtschool[ dot ]org letting us know what performance you would like to attend and how many of you there are. We will only email you back if there is a problem with your reservation.

Traffic bump

Hi all - So it looks like quite a bit of traffic is being directed to my blog from my Wiremap 256 vid. So, to accomodate all those visitors who are interested in just the Wiremap content, I decided to write this post.

First off, I have a Wiki entry on the Wiremap, where you can practically find anything and everything about the Wiremap. Also, you can browse only the Wiremap content on this blog.

Here are some general notes I have to all the types of messages I'm getting: ** If you want to be involved in the software development of the Wiremap:

So, I went to school to study theater, not CS.  While I would hope that the code is elegant, I can't speak for it's efficiency.  Although it would be cool to bump up the framerate on this thing, I'm really interested in seeing how much it can redefine digital 3d.  In any case, if you want to mess with the code, whether it be framerate optimization or a clever new idea, the existing code is available at the Wiki.  If you email it my way, I'll be sure to post a YouTube vid. ** If you want to build your own Wiremap:

I've always sort of wanted to get a DIY kit out there, but never got around to it. Well, I'll start developing a DIY kit over the next couple of months. Probably through the Wiki, so that other people can share and contribute to the project.

** If you want the Wiremap 256:

Okay, I haven't been getting any emails like this... yet... but I am interested in getting this project up in a public space in or very close to NYC. So, if you or anybody you know has a public space that could use this, send me a note.

Also, I have an interesting request. I'm looking for people or people who know people who have worked with water fountains. If you thought the Wiremap was cool, check out the design for the mirage. Of course, if I want to take this seriously, I'll need to do quite a bit of R&D.

Questions? Hit me up at: hwang (dot) al (at) gmail (dot) com

Rock on. Once again thanks for all the traffic, and come back soon!

Hat Tricks

Here's a nice little combo of hat tricks: [youtube]PdDmtDzP37E[/youtube]

Not really much to say about it because wysiwyg (can you use 'wysiwyg' like that?).  I've seen not too many, but a few hat tricks in clubs and whatnot - and as much youtube dancing, juggling, and contact juggling there is, there's really not much in line of killer hat tricks.

In other movement news, I'm going to be performing a dance piece come the end of January.  I've been in rehearsals with Morgan Murphey for a while now.  We're aiming for thirty minutes of material.  More news will be posted when we figure it out.