http://lukeloeffler.com Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:58:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en One recent idea I've been investigating is the transmission of data by ephemeral, imperfect, mechanical means. It began as the thought of using a knotted cord to transmit a sequence of notes around a room for a physical sonic sculpture, but has taken other directions as I have given more ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2010/ephemeral-recordings/ Over the last couple months I've had the chance to develop a series of "paintings" for the fiberoptic tapestry, a new display system developed by artists Ligorano/Reese. It is essentially a hand-woven canvas of optic fibers, each illuminated by an electronically-controlled LED. The result is incredibly beautiful and expressive, producing ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2010/fiberoptic-visualizations/ I was really intrigued by Peter Ablinger's Speaking Piano (officially titled Quadraturen, auf Deutsch)–a system that takes human speech and translates it to a sequence of notes to be played on a piano by a bunch of solenoids, or "mechanical fingers." Since I've been learning Puredata, I thought it would be ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2010/speaking-piano/ It's that time of year again. Christmas is coming, snow is falling outside my window, and the wind is whistling.  Maybe it's late, or my mind is playing tricks on me, but the wind seems a bit more coherent than usual... Musical, even. Creepy. windsong.mp3 This is how I'd like to imagine ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/wind-carol/ After a weekend workshop (thanks to Hans-Christoph Steiner and Eyebeam) on Pure Data, I've been tinkering with it quite a bit lately and geeking out on old signal processing stuff I haven't touched since college. Over the years I've played with a number of tools for audio processing: Matlab, jMusic, a Java ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/pure-data/ Lately I have been exploring the idea of invisible, intangible interactive systems and how they would be experienced. So much of everyday interaction deals with sight and touch. We rely on visual and tactile feedback to manipulate and understand physical systems. How difficult is it to understand and know ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/intangible-invisible-interactions/ Topographic Mirror is an interactive program that decomposes and reintegrates the elements of human vision.  We normally see by finding gradations of value in a scene.  The contrast between shadows, midtones, and highlights allows us to distinguish one region from another.  However, by moving a Nintendo Wii, the viewer is ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/topographic-mirror/ This is a screenshot of one of the resulting paintings from an experiment using trackmate to create a tangible drawing interface. By placing special coded labels on the bottom of miscellaneous objects I had lying around my desk, I was able to assign a different function to each object. For example, ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/tangible-drawing-interfaces/ I've been experimenting with methods to determine my heart rate in order to add bio-feedback to software. This Processing sketch uses the same principle as the devices in the doctor's office that clip on to your finger. When your heart beats, more blood is pumped through the capillaries in your ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/web-cam-heart-rate-monitor/ I've been interested lately in the concept of giving abstract things a voice and answering the question of what something would sound like if it made noise. This project aims to create sound from movement. In a TED talk by Golan Levin, he presented an interactive project that highlighted the negative (or ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/moving-sound/ An experimental, interactive audio synthesizer in which independent generators combine to create an ambient soundscape as they try to reach a state of equilibrium. Click to listen to a sample clip, play with the applet, or view the source. http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/colorspace-synthesizer/ I just wrapped up work on a visualization for the 2009 Last Supper Festival. The work visualized a series of conversations during a symposium on the topic Identifying Our Means.  After three short presentations, four groups were formed to discuss a number of topics, periodically rotating the group members from ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/visualizing-discussion/ I'm researching methods to render text along a path, like you can easily do in Illustrator. Unfortunately, it's not so simple in Processing (unless someone knows of a library that does this). You can find a demo and the source here. Click four times to set the curve points and handles. ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/text-on-a-curve/ In order to visualize multiple variables in a single time series, a stacked area (sometimes called a "stream") chart is often useful. I am currently doing research for an upcoming visualization that will trace the development of ideas through a conversation. Unable to find processing code to create an area ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/stacked_area_chart/ When you find old van Gogh images on your computer, what could be more logical than to shatter them into a thousand abstract pieces and rearrange? This image was the first experimenting with this process. Pretty ugly. I don't know what I was going for. It was late. The second in the ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/van-gogh-remixed/ Over the last few weeks I've been exploring language and words and how to deal with them algorithmically. Lately I've been thinking about ways to visualize various aspects of language, and one of the first that came to mind was the idea of representing the sound of words with color. I ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/the-color-of-rhyme/ Gesture is an animation generated by custom video processing software that seeks to unite the movements of dance and drawing by distilling the dancer's poses into a sequence fluid lines. As a spotlight follows the dancer across the new stage, indications of movement are left behind by soft erased lines. The ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/gesture/ I have become increasingly interested in tools to perform natural language processing. So much of how we approach and see problems is tied up in the words we find to describe them. I am currently exploring ways to use language to help define and understand problems as well as get ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/natural-language-processing/ http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/nest/ Everyone has one of those days at times—you reach the end and wonder where all your time went. Worse, you realize you haven't done anything productive at all. And worse still, some of us can look back not just to days, but months or longer periods. With increasing regularity I have ... http://lukeloeffler.com/2009/enemies-of-creating/