Dear Sony ATV Publishing, UMPG Publishing, and other concerned parties,

I ask you to please withdraw your copyright violation notice on my video, “PSY – GANGNAM STYLE (?????) M/V (YouTube SmashUp)” as I believe my use of any copyrighted material is protected under Fair Use or Fair Dealing. This video was created by an automated process as part of an art project developed during my PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London: http://archive.pkmital.com/projects/visual-smash-up/ and http://archive.pkmital.com/projects/youtube-smash-up/

The process which creates the audio and video is entirely automated meaning the accused video is created by an algorithm. This algorithm begins by first creating a large database of tiny fragments of audio and video (less than 1 second of audio per fragment) using 9 videos from YouTube’s top 10 list. From this database, the tiny fragments of video and audio are stored as unrelated pieces of information and described only by a short series of 10-15 numbers. These numbers represent low-level features describing the texture and shape of the fragment of audio or video. These tiny fragments are then matched to the tiny fragments of audio and video detected within the target for resynthesis, in this case the number one YouTube video … Continue reading...

The post An open letter to Sony ATV and UMPG first appeared on http://archive.pkmital.com.

I’ve been interested in exploring ways of navigating media archives. Typically, you may use iTunes and go from artist to artist, or have managed to tediously classify your collection into genres. Some may still even browse their music through a file browser, perhaps making sure the folders and filenames of their collection are descriptive of the artist, album, year, etc… Though what about how the content actually sounds?

Wouldn’t it be nice to hear all music which shares similar sounds, or similar phrases of sounds? Research in the last 10-15 years have developed methods precisely to solve this problem and fall under the umbrella term content-based information retrieval (CBIR) algorithms, or uncovering the relationships of an archive through the information within the content. For images, Google’s Search by Image is a great example which only recently became public. For audio, audioDB and ShaZam are good examples of discovering music through the way it sounds, or the content-based relationships of the audio itself. Though, each of these interfaces present a list of matches to a image or audio query, making exploring the content-based relationships of a specific set of material difficult.

The video above demonstrates interaction with a novel 3D browser … Continue reading...

The post 3D Musical Browser first appeared on http://archive.pkmital.com.

Stories are flowing trees

Key words:  3D, interactive projects, data, histories, urban, creative coding, technology, sculpture, projection mapping

Project Brief:

Urban realities are more like fictions, constructed through folklore, media and policy. Compressing these constructions across time would offer some possibilities for the emergence of complexity and new discourse. Using video projections adapted for 3D surfaces, urban histories will become data and information – supple, malleable, and material.

The project will begin with a one week workshop by Parag Mital on “Creative Coding” using the openFrameworks platform for C/C++ coding”.

About the Artists:

Prayas Abhinav

Presently he teaches at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology and is a researcher at the Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA). He has taught in the past at Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and Center for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT).
He has been supported by fellowships by Openspace India (2009), TED (2009), … Continue reading...

The post Course @ CEMA Srishti School of Design, Bangalore, IN first appeared on http://archive.pkmital.com.

“ECHOES II aims to develop an adventurous technology- enhanced learning environment in which both typically developing children and children with Aspergers Syndrome at Key Stage 1 (ages 5-7) can explore and improve social interaction and collaboration skills. The environment will also serve as a tool for researchers, teachers, parents, and practitioners to investigate problems that children may encounter in specific social contexts and the ways in which those problems may be addressed.

The proposed technology-enhanced learning environment will combine existing technologies in new ways. With the active participation of user groups, we will combine interactive multitouch screens, gesture and gaze tracking, and intelligent agent-based context-sensitive interfaces to create a novel interactive multi-modal environment that can be adapted to the needs of specific individuals, and that can provide new ways of investigating and supporting the development of social skills in children.”

Needless to say, I didn’t get the position. However, I did get to play with creating an interactive interview using Flash in my stubborn attempt to never use Powerpoint (which I have failed in). Anyway, somehow I believed it would fit in the whole idea of using … Continue reading...

The post Flash based interview first appeared on http://archive.pkmital.com.