Parsec featured in X Reality paper by Beth Coleman of MIT

June 22, 2009 in Reactive Music, Virtual Sound Installation | Tags: Generative, Reactive Music, VOIP

I just found that Beth Coleman’s of MIT Media Lab’s interesting article ‘Using Sensor Inputs to Affect Virtual and Real Environments’ is now online as a pdf here. It mentions a number of cross reality projects, including the Parsec VOIP controlled project I towards the end of 2007 with Eshi Otawara and Chase Marellan.

I heard via @RenZephyr that it was also discussed during the recent State of Play 09 panel about law, games and virtual worlds, which Beth was also part of.

Hi there ! My name is Robert Thomas, and I'm a composer interested in unusual ways music can become a soundtrack to your life. I run a small music company called Dizzy Banjo. I also go under the name Dizzy Banjo in numerous social networks and environments.

I've done a lot of work creating music for unusual places, including virtual spaces, video games and mobile devices.

My work has explored numerous ways of tracking user behaviour and making music reactive to it, including VOIP, gestures and keystrokes, physical movement and activity patterns of individuals and groups.

At the moment I am working on a number of projects, but spending a lot of time as a reactive music composer with :

RjDj is an amazing iPhone application which creates mind twisting hearing sensations by weaving your environment into reactive music. Voices, cars, your walking speed.. these and many other things can be used to shape your experience. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, try it!