Last year, I wrote about video-based motion analysis of kayaking. Those videos were recorded with a GoPro Hero 8 and I tested some of the video visualization methods of the Musical Gestures Toolbox for Python. This summer I am testing out some 360 cameras for my upcoming AMBIENT project. I thought I should take one of these, a GoPro Max, out for some kayaking in the Oslo fjord. Here are some impressions of the trip (and recording). ...
Today, I recorded Sound Action 194 - Rolling Dice as part of my year-long sound action project. The idea has been to do as little processing as possible to the recordings. That is because I want to capture sounds and actions as naturally as possible. The recorded files will also serve as source material for both scientific and artistic explorations later. For that reason, I only trim the recordings non-destructively using FFmpeg. ...
In my ever-growing collection of FFmpeg-related blog posts, I will today show how to add subtitles to videos. These tricks are based on the need to create a captioned version of a video I made to introduce the Workshop on NIME Archiving for the 2022 edition of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME). This is the video I discuss in this blog post: Note that YouTube supports turning on and off the subtitles (CC button). ...
What is the difference between “sound design” and “sonic design”? This is one of the many questions I have pondered while preparing the International Seminar on Sonic Design the last half year. My idea with using the term “sonic design” for the seminar was inspired by Professor Rolf Inge Godøy, my former supervisor, mentor, colleague and friend, to whom the seminar was dedicated. With his background in music performance and composition, he always talked about how musicians and composers “shape” sound through their practice. They “design” sound with their bodies. ...
Last week, Ulf Holbrook defended his dissertation at RITMO. I was in charge of streaming the disputation, and here are some reflections on the technical setup and streaming. Zoom Webinars vs YouTube Streaming I have previously written about running a hybrid disputation using a Zoom webinar. We have used variations of that setup also for other events. For example, last year, we ran RPPW as a hybrid conference. There are some benefits of using Zoom, particularly when having many presenters. Zoom rooms are the best for small groups where everyone should be able to participate. For larger groups, and particularly (semi-)public events, Zoom Webinars are the only viable solution. I had only experienced Zoom bombing once (when someone else organised a public event with more than 100 people present), which was an unpleasant experience. That is why we have run all our public events using Zoom Webinars, where we have more fine-grained control of who is allowed to talk and share their video and screen. ...
One month has passed of the year and my sound action project. I didn’t know how it would develop when I started and have found it both challenging and inspiring. It has also engaged people around me more than I had expected. Each day I upload one new video recording to YouTube and post a link on Twitter. If you want to look at the whole collection, it is probably better to check out this playlist: ...
I often want to create motion videos, that is, videos that only show what changed between frames. Such videos are nice to look at, and so-called “frame differencing” is also the start point for many computer vision algorithms. We have made several tools for creating motion videos (and more) at the University of Oslo: the standalone VideoAnalysis app (Win/Mac) and the different versions of the Musical Gestures Toolbox. These are all great tools, but sometimes it would be nice also to create motion videos in the terminal using FFmpeg. ...
Over the last few years, I have worked on a book project with the working title Sound Actions. The manuscript has been through peer reviewing and several rounds of editing and will be published by The MIT Press sometime in 2022. Action-Sound Couplings and Mappings The book is based on the action-sound theory I developed as part of my dissertation. My main point is that we experience the world through action-sound couplings and mappings. An action-sound coupling is based on the interaction between physical objects. The sonic result is based on the mechanical and acoustical properties of the objects involved. ...
I had a period in the early 2000s when I made a few pieces in the genre of electroacoustic music (“tape music”). One of these was a 4-channel piece called Peer Peer, made for an exhibition opening at Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter in 2003. The piece was based on a montage of short snippets sampled from Edvard Grieg’s music to the play Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen. Someone asked about the piece the other day, so I decided to find the files. ...
Like many others, I bought a kayak during the pandemic, and I have had many nice trips in the Oslo fiord over the last year. Working at RITMO, I think a lot about rhythm these days, and the rhythmic nature of kayaking made me curious to investigate the pattern a little more. Capturing kayaking motion My spontaneous investigations into kayak motion began with simply recording a short video of myself kayaking. This was done by placing an action camera (a GoPro Hero 8, to be precise) on my life vest. The result looks like this: ...