Purity and Contagion

Neural-Go-Round

project ruori's neural currency exhibit at notacon
Remember those weird things we built for PURE a couple years ago, and posted creepy photos of? Well it’s become a traveling freakshow of stochastic electronic goodness, appearing after its initial Boston display at electro-music 2007 in Philadelphia, and soon to be inflicted on the public again at Notacon in Cleveland, April 4th - 6th, 2008. Come check it out, and we might lovingly assault your ears with our mental vibrational energies if you’re lucky.

ruori pure qc

Back when project ruori was working on PURE, I wrote several custom patches for Quartz Composer to enable us to use it to develop the controller software. Input came in the form of fifteen photocells, connected to the MIDIbox64 I constructed as an undergraduate project a few years ago. MIDI input entered Quartz Composer, was processed by a huge patch (going ten levels deep in macro patches in some places), and was output to:

Whiter than a Hatfield Family Reunion

[Editor’s note: This post (including the above title) was written by mradcliffe immediately following a day spent with project ruori. It is unedited and uncensored, and is presented to the reader as a demonstration of the deleterious effects of association with said collective.]

It was brought to my attention a couple of weeks ago that I would be “performing” with project ruori at PURE. I wouldn’t say “brought to my attention.” More like “forced upon my sleepy eyes as I sat entrapped away from my own home.” I had only planned on seeing Phung before he left, but poor logistics and fate led me to PURE.

"An interesting musical opportunity...

…is in your near future.”
    – fortune cookie from tonight’s dinner.

Near indeed.

The fortune I discovered in my wallet yesterday – “We are here to create / not merely survive” – was inspiring. This one was just scary.

We have a little over a week before we’re performing in Boston

Metasacrifice for Art

To the ruoriJews reading this: Shanah Tovah, and I hope you had a meaningful fast. To everyone else: Happy Monday.

My Yom Kippur was very hectic – I compressed this year’s atonement into a few hours this morning. Then for the afternoon, I headed over to the softpixel/ruori megalab to convert snack foods into mental energy and mental energy into a set of chaotic probability-driven sonatas for three theremin-like light-sensing instruments we’re almost done building.

So I guess I sacrificed my sacrifice for my art.

Purity! Contagion! Acrylic Glass!

It’s been about three weeks since we heard that we will be going to Boston to do a performance and installation at PURE.

Our proposal included an acrylic glass plinko machine (a la The Price is Right) and three hanging fabric cocoons. There will be a performer in each cocoon and a fourth performer dropping ping pong balls into the plinko machine. As the balls come out the three holes in the bottom of the machine, they will trigger the performers to change an ongoing soundscape in some way. Eventually, the person dropping the ping pong balls will replace himself with an automated device, the automated device will run out of balls, and the performers in the cocoons will leave behind the soundscape controllers for the audience to play with.