Archive of Work

This Blog has not been added to since the compleation of my Masters course. It serves as a record of my notes for the first and secound semesters of the course. A new and updated site with my latest work and research interests will be ready by July 2008.

Keir Williams

Been a looooooong time

It's been half a year or so since I've been on this Blog but I know I've finished my MA I actually feel like using it more. I'm going to chuck on a load of photos and maybe some films which I might explain later. Maybe....

Body and Line

I've been experimenting with projection and recording the result. I want to use some thing like this projected onto screen prints. I then want another set of forms projected over the top of this projection that visually reacts to the viewers position in the space

technorati tags:line, body, art, projection, forms, art, CODA, keir, williams, vru

Jam Jah rides again

We got sent this by Jerome from Baroque Dub who took it in Newzeland. Look out for the new Jam Jah Soundsystem Vol. 3 CD which will be featuring these amazing images. Nicely.

technorati tags:jam, jah, sound, system, reggae, dance, car

Some Brain Pictures

Here are some photos from the installation Brain Dub. They where taken by the ever amazing Mike Priddy I love the texture created by the displaced grid and the pixles of the projection.

Belfast

Myself and Jonathan have had a joint paper excepted for the Two Thousand + SEVEN electronic arts festival at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queens University Belfast. This is part of the Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music.

This is the paper we submited. We have half and hour and hopefull this will continiue on from the Network Mashup paper we gave at the Ikon in 2006.

Abstract
For performance artists, the development of stable, networked performance environments has relied heavily on the importation of models of the ‘social’ inter-personal communication type.  Given that such communication responds to merely an aspect of the needs of artists, in practice this proves to be an imperfect and incomplete tool. In response to the challenge of producing a more rounded environment, the authors, through their work at the Visualisation Research Unit (VRU) at BIAD, have developed Collaborative Online Digital Arts (CODA) as a platform for drawing together networked resources from different disciplines.
The benefits, drawbacks, needs and future possibilities of existing networked performance will be discussed, as well as the omissions and shortcomings of CODA and other real time applications. However, the principle of creating a virtual performance environment has been abandoned for enhancing the traditional physical performance environment.
CODA was developed specifically to facilitate inter-disciplinary communication in multi-disciplinary performances. Central to CODA is the concept of the node. A node can be a computer with a specialist function, a sensor network, a human-computer interface device or even a person. All nodes broadcast media-in-specific data to a virtual data pool from which every node has access. This allows performers to interact with the environment without the necessity of having in-depth knowledge of how the data is being generated. For example, this allows the output from a video analysis node to be easily mapped onto a sound synthesis parameter on another node.
CODA could be thought of as a single ‘super instrument’ with which all performers can interact simultaneously. The technological infrastructure of the instrument is hidden, but the interface is not. Performers do not need to learn how it works, instead only what interactions it understands and what the results of those interactions may be. This methodology improves performer spontaneity considerably and lends itself particularly well to improvisation incorporating different disciplines where ad hoc exploration and experimentation are important.
This suggests that the network is itself the instrument, and leads to a further interesting phenomena.  The data produced can be automatically archived and endlessly reformulated after real time presentation.  
The paper will be presented with a short demonstration of CODA.

technorati tags:CODA, Network, Mashup, Keir, Jonathan, Williams

Present Tense

Myself and Jonathan have just finished our entry for the WRO 07 electronic arts festival in Poland this year. Below is the synopsis we've made and some images of the piece. 

Present Tense: Synopsis

Present Tense installation by Jonathan Green and Keir Williams

Present Tense is an interactive sound and video installation exploring individualism in the immersive and almost anonymous information age.

This visitor-reactive multimedia installation presents its materials in real-time in the form of RSS feeds, audio from an analogue radio and live video feeds of the visitors as they enter the installation. Video generated from these materials is back-projected onto fabric, hung in a circular pattern from the ceiling. This creates a small multimedia ‘chamber’ in which a simple dial is situated on a plinth. Turning the dial allows visitors to scrub back in time (the live content is archived in real-time), viewing previous visitors and recalling text from RSS feeds whilst retuning the radio.

Keir Williams interacting with Present Tense

This deluge of information and the ability to navigate through time contributes to the claustrophobic and personal effect of the chamber, which in turn highlights the minute, yet all-powerful role of the individual in relation to the universal dimension and anonymity in the multiplicity of today’s media. The tension generated by the immediate and localised experience of the recent and global past within the present forms an integral part of installation.

Present Tense projection

Present Tense: Further Information

Additional information is available as PDF files for download

• Present Tense Synopsis
• Technical Specification
• Layout Schematic
• Biographies

There are also more images are available on Flickr and there is a short movie on YouTube.

Close-up of the controller (jog wheel) for Present Tense

Layout schematic of Present Tense

technorati tags:vru, presenttense, poland, keir, art, CODA

Brain Dub

Those wonderfull people at Filmcafe.co.uk have given me some space on there sever to allow me to put up non flash encoded youtube films. Hoorey! HD tastic. [Although this is just a little version of my new Brain installation.]

I've now attached the Wii to work with Modul8. I'll post a video of it working tommorow when I'm not knackered.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Today I bought a Wii remote to see what me and Jonathan Green could come up with. We managed to get it to work as a midi controller, change colour and control a set of moterised faders. So far I've only found audio hacks for the Wii. So hoorey!