What is “Roots”?
“Roots” is an interactive installation for the Brick Table tangible and multi-touch interface, where multiple people can collaborate in making music in a dynamic & visually responsive environment. When a user presses their finger on the tables surface, a vine-like structure will branch out and generatively maneuver around the surface– actively triggering sounds and loops. Harnessing “multi-touch” technology, a single user, or multiple people can very quickly create dense and lush generatively evolving sound collages and compositions, simply by pressing their fingers anywhere on the tables surface.
To give its users more control over the musical outcome, Brick Table also uses object-recognizing technology to take special physical or “tangible” objects, and use them to interact with the the randomly generating musical paths. Rotate the object clockwise, and it becomes an “attractor.” The further clockwise you rotate the object, the more attraction force it has, and the paths will gravitate closer towards or around it, resulting in the triggering of sounds closest to the attractor. Similarly, if you rotate the object counter-clockwise, it becomes a “repeller.” The vines will only come in contact with the sounds around the object, by a distance determined by the rotation angle / repelling force of the object. By using “Attractor” and “Repeller” objects simultaneously, users can intervene with the naturally evolving vine growth, and create generative systems that govern and influence the way the vines grow, and ultimately, the musical outcome. In addition to the amount of control the users have over the generative elements of the branching and musical composition, if the users move their fingers, the vine will continue to follow the users movements, allowing the users to “draw” specific vine paths, dictating and translating the finger movements and location into direct visual and musical responses.
The user now has complete control whether or not they want to create a completely random composition rooting from where they first pressed on the screens surface, setting up a semi-random and generative system to with a varying degree of influence, govern the movement of the vines and musical composition, or to remove the element of chance completely, and control the vine-growth and sounds simply by touching and moving their fingers around the tables surface.
The software development for the “Roots” installation has been made possible in a collaboration between Brick Table’s creators and London based interactive designer / developer, Memo Akten.
Roots uses Processing for all of its visual elements as well as handleing the touch table data which is then sent to the ChucK programming environment via OSC, which handles the audio side of things.
[...] In short, Roots is a collaborative inviting audio-visual experience where users use their fingers to create branching vines that trigger sounds. Using multi-touch finger interaction and fiducials (tangible objects), the user(s) are able to make music either completely generatively, semi-random by setting up generative systems/rules for the environment, or completely trigger-based following finger movement. For more information see “What is Roots?” [...]
New Table + Roots & Minitek + Arduinome « Brick said this on August 6, 2008 at 9:50 pm |
[...] In short, Roots is a collaborative inviting audio-visual experience where users use their fingers to create branching vines that trigger sounds. Using multi-touch finger interaction and fiducials (tangible objects), the user(s) are able to make music either completely generatively, semi-random by setting up generative systems/rules for the environment, or completely trigger-based following finger movement. For more information see “What is Roots?” [...]
Brick » New Table + Roots & Minitek + Arduinome said this on October 21, 2008 at 3:29 am |
why is there no sound from roots in the videos? that would be nice to hear as well as see
interesting concept btw!
The videos above were promotional and pre-releases before the intended premier of Roots at Minitek Festival 2008 in New York. We kept the audio a surprise until the festival, however, do to logistical mixups in shipping (one of our packages getting stuck at UPS! ) we were unable to premier Roots at minitek… we do have a video on our vimeo page (vimeo.com/bricktable) titled Musical Applications for Multi-Touch interfaces which has a few short clips of Roots with audio!
Logging into this website should be a requirement for anyone knowledgeable on earth these days…
[...] types, finally went 1.0. Processing inspired numerous outpourings of creativity and beauty, from interactive art installations to sound sculptures. Improvements to Processing include OpenGL anti-aliasing, an extensible Tools [...]
it’s like “reactable” but more cool
well! thank you for your generous compliments… We would just like to say none of what we are doing would be possible if NOT for the reactable and that we love the reactable–the fact that it does what it does so well has allowed us to explore other avenues and approaches to musical touch/tangible interfaces
[...] types, finally went 1.0. Processing inspired numerous outpourings of creativity and beauty, from interactive art installations to sound sculptures. Improvements to Processing include OpenGL anti-aliasing, an extensible Tools [...]
News for Geek » Processing 1.0 said this on November 26, 2008 at 4:30 am |
[...] For more information on how Roots works, please see What is Roots? [...]
Create Digital Music » Spaces and Roots: Manipulating Sound with Processing + Touch, Tangible Interfaces said this on November 26, 2008 at 4:36 am |
[...] types, finally went 1.0. Processing inspired numerous outpourings of creativity and beauty, from interactive art installations to sound sculptures. Improvements to Processing include OpenGL anti-aliasing, an extensible Tools [...]
Querystring » Processing 1.0 said this on November 26, 2008 at 9:11 am |
[...] For more information on how Roots works, please see What is Roots? [...]
Muzyka » Blog Archive » Spaces and Roots: Manipulating Sound with Processing + Touch, Tangible Interfaces said this on November 27, 2008 at 7:55 am |
[...] Moritz Meyer-Buck – Roots [...]
creative coding » Referatstermine Klasse A said this on December 2, 2008 at 9:56 am |
that spaces app for your mt is fantastic. i’m impressed with how smooth it is on the audio synthesis. does it utilize any preexisting samples, or are they generated?
All of the Spaces audio / synthesis is done in real-time. We are using a variety of *modified* Reaktor ensembles and effects. In fact, all but one of the instruments we control in the Spaces video are non-sampled based. The one instrument that does use a sample is the percussive/clicky sound you hear in the video– however, the original sample is heavily mangled, granularized and morphed in other ways, in realtime by the performer. The computer runs pretty hot, however, we’ve been running all of this, AND our Processing GUI / data parser, and our tracking software all run off 1 15″ MacBook Pro (last generation) with no problems.
[...] http://bricktable.wordpress.com/about/what-is-roots/ [...]
この動画はすごい - 進・日進月歩 said this on December 6, 2008 at 4:01 pm |
[...] http://bricktable.wordpress.com/about/what-is-roots/ [...]
bringing innovation to finance and beyond :: Combining Processing with Multitouch Surface :: December :: 2008 said this on December 17, 2008 at 10:13 am |
Is the react-table an existing technology, or did you guys do all this from scratch? Is it true touch-sensitive surface or video parsing? Nice work. I look forward to a world-class series of table slams….
[...] Roots [...]
Возвращение к «корням» | Fresh: новости мира юзабилити said this on December 27, 2008 at 4:57 am |
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SoundRoom » Blog Archive » INITIAL CONCEPT RESEARCH LINKS said this on January 9, 2009 at 2:16 am |
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Framework Java pour le jeux | Blog d'un développeur multi-support said this on January 10, 2009 at 6:03 pm |
[...] via What is “Roots”? « Brick. [...]
Invalid Argument » What is “Roots”? « Brick said this on January 16, 2009 at 5:55 pm |
[...] http://bricktable.wordpress.com/about/what-is-roots/ [...]
mutterings » Collection of stray links said this on January 20, 2009 at 10:12 pm |
Exelente !!!!!!
this is freaking cool!!! just the image makes me happy.
Really sweet. i haven’t something this creative in a while!
thanks a lot for your support!
what does it take to be a genius of this level?
*spellbound*
[...] Roots (Touch Screen Music) [...]
SoundRoom » Blog Archive » Processing said this on May 5, 2009 at 6:18 pm |
[...] In short, Roots is a collaborative inviting audio-visual experience where users use their fingers to create branching vines that trigger sounds. Using multi-touch finger interaction and fiducials (tangible objects), the user(s) are able to make music either completely generatively, semi-random by setting up generative systems/rules for the environment, or completely trigger-based following finger movement. For more information see “What is Roots?” [...]
New Table + Roots & Minitek + Arduinome - FlipMu said this on May 27, 2009 at 9:09 am |