Category Archives: Students

Events, News, Students

Narrative Games convention returns to Goldsmiths this November

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AdventureX, the UK’s only convention dedicated to narrative-driven gaming, takes place at Goldsmiths for two days this November.

Now in its sixth year, AdventureX is a free event bringing together developers & gamers with a passion for interactive storytelling.

The team have already met their Kickstarter target, but you still have a few days left to pick up some nice goodies in exchange for your cash pledge. Support AdventureX on Kickstarter

When: Saturday 19 – Sunday 20 November 2016
Where: Professor Stuart Hall Building, Goldsmiths
Tickets: Free. Apply here to join as an exhibitor, speaker and/or panellist

Co-produced by Goldsmiths PhD student Tom Cole, the two-day convention is a celebration of creativity, indie development and geek culture.

 

Staff profiles and activity, Students, Videos, Women in Computing

Grow your own art! How generative artists combine rules with chaos

'L-Pattern' by Angie Fang http://bongbongsquare.com/2014/05/569
‘L-Pattern’ by MFA Computational Arts graduate Angie Fang

What is generative art, and how is it different from traditional art? Ahead of a teacher training day this October, Theo Papatheodorou, course leader of Goldsmiths’ MA/MFA in Computational Arts, explains.

There are many ways of drawing. The traditional way involves taking a pen or pencil and trying to represent an object or a scene. You are in control of the process, so outcome is somewhat predictable.

The generative way of drawing involves relinquishing some of that control. Instead of making images, you make a set of rules (often nowadays executed by a computer program) which generate artworks autonomously.

But generative art is not purely determistic. Randomness adds unpredictability to the final result; at various points the program reaches a fork in the road, and the path taken is chosen by sheer chance. So despite being produced by cold processes, generative art often appears organic, and contains a level of complexity that would be impossible for an artist to produce on their own. The artist is like a gardener; she sows the seeds and tends the shoots – and then waits for something extraordinary to develop.

“Generative artists are chaos artists. They have bred the unpredictable, welcomed it, harnessed it and can fashion it into pleasing forms.” Matt Pearson

Generative art is an important element of our BSc Digital Arts Computing, BSc Creative Computing and MA/MFA Computational Arts degrees at Goldsmiths.

Recent graduate Angie Fang was inspired by time-lapse photography to create digitally-generated flower blooms. Random audio input determines the size and location of each petal, creating a unique blossom every time. It’s this mix of the real and the virtual, the organic and mechanical that makes Angie Fang’s work so interesting.

Another student, Lior Ben Gai created a system which ‘grew’ artificial bacterial colonies. He based his work on cellular automata, in which complexity emerges from a simple set of rules. At our recent degree show, visitors manipulate the growth of Lior’s digital colonies by shining a lamp onto a photosensitive petri dish.

Generative processes don’t only result in digital images. The choreographer Merce Cunningham famously threw dice during his performances to decide what the next steps should be. John Cage used the I Ching to decide the sounds, durations and tempo of Music of Changes (1951). Beijing National Stadium, too, was designed generatively. Generative art provides endless possibilities for creativity.

We’re running a special training day on Wednesday 26 October 2016, where we invite art teachers to learn some basic generative drawing techniques, understand how generative art fits within the wider context of art history, and develop ideas for delivering this content in the classroom. Book your place

Dr Theo Papatheodorou is the course leader of Goldsmiths’ Bsc Digital Arts Computing and MA/MFA Computational Arts. He is the founder of visualcortex.cc, a creative technology studio developing installations and interactive projections for live performances. Email him at t.papatheodorou@gold.ac.uk

Inspiration, Students, Videos

Computational Arts student builds A.I. orchestra to play Riley’s ‘In C’

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More than 50 years after composer Terry Riley created the ever-changing ‘In C’ for an indefinite number of performers, an MFA Computational Arts student from Goldsmiths has designed an artificially intelligent orchestra which will allow musicians to play the piece solo.

Composed in 1964, Riley’s experimental and influential masterpiece consists of 53 short melodic fragments lasting from half a beat to 32 beats, with each phrase repeated an arbitrary number of times.

It has been performed with 11 musicians or up to 124, with each performer having control over which phrase they play and when. The piece also has no set running time – it could last 15 minutes or for hours.

With ‘In C++’ Gregory White has created a series of independent virtual performers who make their own decisions about which notes to play, when to progress to the next bar, whether to play hard or soft, and so on, through a form of artificial intelligence.

Each performer is aware of the others, correcting themselves if they start to lag behind or rush ahead in order to ensure what they play compliments the rest of the ensemble.

The program Gregory has written produces MIDI (digital) notes which are then sent to hardware instruments (physical digital instruments), software instruments, or any other MIDI controlled device – potentially including lights. He’s so far trialled it with chimes, a more droney version with heavy reverb, and a percussion-only virtual orchestra.

The artist explains: “I decided to choose the piece ‘In C’ for my MFA Computational Arts project for a number of reasons, but primarily because when performing Riley’s work, I realised that my thought process was rather algorithmic.

“I had 53 cells of information, each I would repeatedly execute until I decided that I had passed a certain threshold – at which point I would progress to the next cell. When all cells had been played, I would repeat the last until I decided to stop performing, or ‘terminate the program’.

“I thought it would be interesting to take the ensemble element out of the piece, and see how it could change, or what new ideas could be explored, when the decisions about which pitches to play were taken care of.

“What is the human performer’s role? They could perform with an instrument alongside the machine; they could act as a conductor, influencing volume, pattern changes, the texture of the piece, the timbre of each performer, effects processing, and so on. And how is one person’s interpretation of the piece different to an ensemble’s?”

“Plus, I just really, really, wanted to do this project so I could make the C++ pun.”

InC1246

About the artist
Gregory White’s fine art practice includes photography, filmmaking, sound design, creative coding, and human-computer interaction, as he believes that each informs the other.

He attended the University of East Anglia, and received a Bachelor’s degree in Music Technology with a specialisation in Sonic Arts. Currently Greg (@gregwht) is working as a freelance video editor, photographer, and general sound guy, while studying MA Computational Arts part-time at Goldsmiths.

Gregory White’s ‘In C++’ will be on display at METASIS, the Goldsmiths, University of London MA and MFA Computational Arts show from 8-11 September.

 

This article, written by Sarah Cox, was first published in Goldsmiths News

 

News, Students, Videos, Women in Computing

Goldsmiths research student builds Daphne Oram’s unfinished ‘Mini-Oramics’

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A Goldsmiths Computing researcher has built a music synthesiser and sequencer designed – but never realised – by electronic music pioneer Daphne Oram more than 40 years ago.

PhD student Tom Richards has spent the last three years poring over an unfinished project by Daphne Oram (1925 – 2003), one of the central figures in the development of British experimental electronic music.

Daphne Oram
Daphne Oram

Oram was the co-founder and first director of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and is credited with the invention of a new form of ‘drawn sound’ synthesis – Oramics, which was recently the subject of the ‘Oramics to Electronica’ exhibition at the Science Museum.

The original Oramics machine was designed in the early to mid 1960s and was built with funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

It was different to many early forms of electronic synthesisers: the composer/musician drew onto a set of 35mm film strips which ran past a series of photo-electric cells, generating electrical signals to control amplitude, timbre, frequency and duration.

The original Oramics Machine was the size of a large office photocopier, so was too cumbersome for the average musician. In the early 1970s Oram began work on Mini-Oramics (perhaps inspired by Moog’s development of the Minimoog), but as far as we know she never completed a prototype.

“There were a lot of reasons why she didn’t launch Mini-Oramics,” explains Tom. “She was working on her own, she wasn’t affiliated to a large organisation or university.

“She had ups and downs in her life, and at the time she was working on Mini-Oramics, she also worried that her approach to musical research was out of fashion when compared to chance-based and computerised techniques. She was unable to secure the further funding she needed and she eventually moved on to other research.

“In an alternate universe, Mini-Oramics might have become an actual product, bought and used by musicians all over the world.”

Dr Mick Grierson, director of Goldsmiths’ Daphne Oram Archive, and Tim Boon head of research at the Science Museum, invited Tom Richards to do a practice led PhD on the subject of Oramics. Tom decided to re-imagine and then build Mini-Oramics.

“The rules were simple. I had to imagine I was building the machine in 1973, interpreting Daphne Oram’s plans and using only the technologies that existed at that time.”

Tom is now working with six contemporary composers, giving each of them a few days to play with the Mini-Oramics machine.

One of the composers, London-based sound artist Ain Bailey has recently been working with the MiniOramics synthesiser. “It’s a fantastic instrument. I’m not a formally-trained musician, so it’s been great to work with an instrument where I can create the sounds graphically,” she said.

Other composers working with MiniOramics include James Bulley (see video above), John Lely Jo Thomas, Head of Goldsmiths Electronic Studios Ian Stonehouse and Rebecca Fiebrink.

Tom adds: “This is an opportunity to experience what it would have been like to use Mini-Oramics, had Oram managed to complete it. It’s a way to test how important her ideas were, and to consider how influential she could have been.”

Inspiration, News, Students, Women in Computing

Computational Arts graduate wins £5,000 Aspen Online Art Award 2016

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Goldsmiths alumna Matilda Skelton Mace has been announced as the winner of the Aspen Online Art Award 2016.

Matilda Skelton Mace graduated from Goldsmiths’ MA/MFA Computational Arts programme in 2015. She is a London-based artist and designer, working with the building blocks of reality- space, light, and geometric form. She is interested in the ‘in between’, exploring ideas of implied, imagined and virtual space, the dissonance that can arise between real and virtual and the way we perceive it.

Last year she was shortlisted for the HIX Award and has exhibited installations at galleries, nightclubs and festivals. This year her work is centred on providing visuals for music events by promoters including Gottwood festival, Inverted Audio and Blueprint Records.

'Party at our place'. Projection mapping and sculpture, 2015.
‘Party at our place’. Matilda Skelton Mace, 2015. Projection mapping and sculpture.

As winner of the Aspen Online Art Award, Matilda has been commissioned to create a virtual world based on the unique digital ‘fingerprints’ of visitors to their website.

Drawing on the phenomenon of ‘Sky Islands’ – mountains with unique flora and fauna caused by climatic isolation from the surrounding lowland – users’ metadata are used to create particular landforms with their own plants and weather systems. Visitors with matching characteristics (for example using the same hardware or operating system) generate landforms in a similar location to eventually build up a mountain range corresponding to correlations in metadata. Their weather and plant life reflects the geographical location of the user. Visitors can explore this expanding world and a visual representation of metadata profiling emerges, with its implications for anonymity rights and freedom of expression.

Launched in 2014 by Aspen Insurance Holdings in association with the Contemporary Art Society, the Aspen Online Art Award is the first of its kind in the UK.

The judges, who included Attilia Fattori Franchini, Curator, and the Aspen Art Committee, selected Skelton Mace from a shortlist of seven artists to win a commissioning prize of £5,000 and the opportunity to create a new online-based work for Aspen’s renowned art collection.

Attilia Fattori Franchini said: “This award is a fantastic opportunity for an emerging artist and the strength of Matilda’s proposal shows that she is one to watch. It will also sit particularly well within Aspen’s collection as her ideas around data privacy and cyber risk are particularly pertinent to our contemporary culture.”

Lanny Walker, Art Consultant at the Contemporary Art Society, said: “Matilda’s artwork explores many themes relevant to current debates within contemporary art and beyond, where identity, data privacy and our virtual footprint are continuous concerns. In this she follows in the footsteps of artists including Hito Steyerl, Oliver Laric and Heath Bunting, who touch upon these issues in their own practices.”

This year’s shortlist was dominated by Goldsmiths’ 2015 Computational Arts graduates, with Lior Ben Gai and Angie Fang also nominated.

Events, News, Students, Videos

Thu 2 June: GENERATION undergraduate Computing show

GENERATION-ANIMATED

Get ready for GENERATION 2016 – the exhibition and performance event showcasing the very best work produced by undergraduates across our degree programmes in 2015-16.

Expect virtual reality games, experimental architecture, Deep Dream technology, audiovisual performances and a musical table – all developed this year by students from our Creative Computing, Games Programming, Music Computing and Digital Arts Computing undergraduate degrees.

All are welcome to come experience the work, talk to exhibitors & performers and enjoy a good old party. Over 18s only after 5pm, when the bar opens.

Where: The Stretch, Goldsmiths Student Union, Goldsmiths, London SE14 6NW
When: 12noon – 8pm Thursday 2 June 2016
Online: GENERATION 2016 website

All are welcome. No booking needed.

UPDATE: Here’s what judge Justin Spooner said about the show

“The level of inventiveness and craft skills was fantastic throughout the show, and it gladdens my heart to think of many of those students taking their idiosyncratic approach to digital creativity out to meet the world.” Read his full review here

Careers, Events, Students

Wed 18 May: Careers in Computing

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This May, Goldsmiths Computing students are invited to our Computing Careers fair to meet potential employers and kick-start your career.

When: 1.00 – 4.00pm Wednesday 18th May 2016
Where: RHB 274, Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths

As the academic year comes to a close, here is an opportunity for our students to meet employers from across the computing sector, including IT consulting, tech and software development. There will also be a chance to discover opportunities with design studios and other creative roles.

Confirmed exhibitors include Hewlett Packard, Euromoney, Sogeti UK, GradIT, QA Gateway and Vassit.

The event will include:

  1. an exhibition where you can meet employers on a one-to-one basis
  2. a programme of talks to give you an insight into developing relevant skills.

2.00-2.30pm – Shay Olupona, Hewlett Packard
Goldsmiths alumnus Shay Olupona will be discussing his experiences of the Hewlett Packard graduate scheme and his current role within one of HPs most high profile projects. He will give an insight into the industry from his perspective as a recent graduate and offer some advice for students looking to secure their first role, as well as tips for the HP application process.

2.30-3.00pm – Helen Kempster, Goldsmiths Careers Service
Helen will lead this session to help you think about how to put together a successful CV or application for the IT and computing sector. We will look at some examples, and you will get tips on how to make your applications stand out from the crowd.

This event is open to all Computing students, and is a collaboration between the Careers Service and the Department of Computing. If you have any questions about the event, please contact Helen Kempster.