Friday, July 16, 2010

M2D4-11: Holy Grail Numero 1!


My formidable, FORMIDABLE Nicolas Rasamimanana. Nicolas came through. I have the Holy Grail No.1, 2, 3... or even a lot more possibilities interacting with computer with the bowing gesture. In one month exactly, I feel like it was truly worth everything I worked to get here, applying for this residency at IRCAM, applying for grants (and thankfully got, the Guggenheim Fellowship), spousal separation as husband is working in NYC, and most of all the parents-in-law's enormous support taking care of the kids while I'm in Paris. I maybe a bit emotional exaggerating in celebrating this success, but I do believe that interactive performance for violin using IRCAM's Gesture Follower, has turned its page. I was joking with Nicolas that I feel like I need to make a Special Commemoration celebrating the day: July 12, 2010! :)

The problem I described before, a simple but very difficult one: how do you tell the computer the performance is over, without clicking the computer to shut up, or fading out the sound, without a human operator? It is solved. Nicolas made it so that it even knows HOW I ended: forte, or piano. I made several examples of musical "endings", sending it to the team to take a look, and they were able to calculate my sound+movement combination and Nicolas was able to build quite a robust system. I said 'quite' since obviously, I need the robust system for performance, or 'A'. It is at the moment, around "A-" since I still need to calibrate some parameters in order to fit my various needs in detecting the bowing acceleration. We are making everything configurable so I could interact during the performance with the parameters as well.

My host Arshia Cont also gave me a wonderful studio where we can test things with sounds immediately, which is priceless in our work together. Here is Bruno who is working on other issues with me, Nicolas, and my violin with our computers together.

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