Category Archives: Students

Students, Throwback Thursday, Videos

Throwback Thursday: Sensory Response Systems

Back in 2009, Ryan Jordan (MFA in Computational Studio Arts) created Sensory Response Systems, an exploration into audio-visual performance using an array of sensors and controllers responsive to physical movements.

The project also explored the reshaping and replication of the body through the use of fabrics, textiles and technologies in order for the performer to fully embody and ‘become’ the instrument.

The overall aim was to bring a more direct and immediate relationship and control over the sound and images being generated, and to allow for full body expression and intimacy between performer and instrument (computer).

Ryan Jordan runs the noise research laboratory and live performance platform NOISE=NOISE

“Embedded in wires and circuits, Ryan Jordan beams throbbing, ritualistic
recreations of rave musik from some dystopic future place where all recording
technology is long since gone and only folk memories of ‘dance music’ exist.”
– Dr Adam Parkinson, EAVI

Inspiration, News, Publications, Students, Women in Computing

Baroesque Barometric Skirt


PhD candidate Rain Ashford at Goldsmiths has developed a ‘smart skirt’ which changes colour in response to environmental temperature, pressure and altitude.

The skirt also changes depending on the wearers own body temperature.

In June 2013 the skirt was presented at Smart Textiles Salon in Ghent, Belgium and has this month been featured in the New Scientist.

Students, Throwback Thursday, Videos

Throwback Thursday: Scan_Memories

ini‌

We’re going all the way back to 2009 for this week’s Throwback Thursday look at past projects developed at Goldsmiths Computing. 

The Scan_Memories project investigated how new technology can create or participate in the process of reconstructing memories in comparison with the existing way of remembering the deceased and being remembered by the bereaved.

Developed at Goldsmiths by Miguel Andres-Clavera and Inyong Cho, the project used radio-frequency ID, mobile and multimedia technologies to give people a gate to keep an emotional relation with the deceased person.

Clavera and Cho said: “The project opens a heterogeneous and direct access to the memories materialized in physical spaces and in objects connected with the dead, presenting the dialectic between constructed formations based on presence and absence, and memory reconstruction through patterns technology mediated.”

Watch the 20 minute documentary

 

Inspiration, MA/MFA Computational Art, Students

FUTURE GRAPHICS, MA/MFA Computational Arts students at the V&A

future_graphics

A free programme of short films showcasing cutting-edge motion graphics, CGI environments and digital art on film featuring students from the MA/MFA Computational Arts programme at Goldsmiths.

Curated by Design on Film, Factory Fifteen and Penny Hilton, the films play on a loop throughout the V&A’s opening hours.

Part of the London Design Festival at the V&A 2014.

Sat 13 September 2014 – Tue 16 September 2014
10.30 – 17.30
V&A, British Galleries, Room 56c, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL


Students, Throwback Thursday, Videos

Throwback Thursday: iMC Rap Maker

Back in 2009, BSc Creative Computing Student Eric Brotto released his final year project as on the iPhone app store. The app uses real time audio analysis and manipulation technology on a mobile phone to create a rap soundtrack from a users voice.

From the app store site: “Now you can be a rapper! iMC Rap Maker you talking and then transforms it into a rap song. Syncing your voice to the beat and even adding DJ scratches to your vocal means you get a Hip Hop hit produced by you. You can then share your creation with your friends via Facebook and SoundCloud. Download your iMC today!”

Eric Brotto is now mentor-in-residence at Startup Reykjavik Accelerator Programme, co-founder of Creative Bytes Worldwide, and content creator for DECODED.

Students, Throwback Thursday, Women in Computing

Throwback Thursday: South: A Psychometric Text Adventure

‌eleanor_bannerThis week we revisit PhD student Eleanor Dare’s 2009 doctoral thesis. South: A Psychometric Text Adventure, is an artist’s book and a set of software programs designed to explore and establish new relationships between readers and narrative.

“This work may be described as emanating from traditions of interactive narrative that are not considered part of the main-stream of literature, such as self-help books, star sign and dream interpretations, and populist psychometrics. These forms could also be described as tailor-made or interest matching texts, in which the sense of the text having an intimate understanding and insight into its readers is essential.

“The South egg is an interim object, halfway between a book and a computer. The South software generates subject-specific material that can be loaded into it. The egg can then be taken to a specific location (the South Bank) and its instructions followed. The formation of dynamic relationships between readers and texts has been one of the central goals of my practice; as such, a large amount of my theoretical research has focused upon ideas relating to subjectivity and by extension to issues of epistemology and agency.

“While these theories have been central to my philosophical understanding of the field, I have also had to invent strategies that are effective in real-world situations and in relation to the real world materials and conditions of my practice. As a result South is built around a series of autonomous agents who perform analytical and interpretive tasks.

“My commitment to a reflexive practice emphasises the exploration of the proxy and in many ways subjective role these agents play on my behalf. Consequently the agents are both structural tools and unorthodox protagonists within this work. The limitations inherent in these agents, and the asymmetries of understanding between them and human readers, are framed as creative resources. This is not to define my materials as limiting or determining of my outcomes (or indeed to reduce the outcome of my practice to a particular set of skills in relation to those materials) but to describe a form of knowledge generation that is not easily separable from the contingency and materiality of my practice.”

Dr Eleanor Dare is now Author MSc Web Technologies at the University of Derby.
Eleanor’s blog

Events, Inspiration, MA/MFA Computational Art, Students, Women in Computing

TEST SIGNAL computational arts degree show

Ever wanted a robot to make you a cup of tea? Or thought you could create music just by walking? Well these dreams are becoming a reality, as up and coming artists experiment with technology in a new show at Hotel Elephant from Thursday 11 to Saturday 13 September.

Blurring the boundaries between the virtual world and the physical world, these 17 young artists, from across the world, all met while studying Computational Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. They will be showcasing their works as part of their show, TEST SIGNAL.

Bringing together live performance, installation, audiovisual work, biosensors and robotics, this exhibition will give audiences the chance to see the most avant-garde experimentation in computational artwork.

Work that will be seen as part of TEST SIGNAL includes:

  • a robotic arm that you can control to try and make a cup of tea
  • a tunnel that analyses how you walk, and turns it into music
  • an interactive puppet theatre, that allows audiences to come onto the stage and interact with characters in the performance

Speaking about the work, Professor of Computer Art, William Latham, said: “Computational art is becoming more and more popular. Just look at the queues of people flocking to the Barbican to see the Digital Revolution exhibition. But this is only the beginning. What you will see at TEST SIGNAL is exciting new work by the newest postgraduate Goldsmiths talent showing the amazing potential of this emerging digital art form from the most innovative course in the UK.”

TEST SIGNAL is the final degree show of students who have studied on the MA in Computational Arts at Goldsmiths. This Masters develops students and helps them to apply skills in computational technology through arts practice.

rt2QlY7