PIKSEL

The LepLoop It’s a small analog synth groovebox for live improvisation and sound experiment.

The idea was to have a compact live analog instrument.

Usually analog synth it’s big and can produce only one sound at the same time.

The LepLoop it’s small and can produce 3/4 sound at the same time, kick, noise hh/snare, bass/melody.

It’ s possible use the Leploop as stand-alone music box, or in synch with a drum machine or use it for control other analog synths.

The circuit it’s an original design, I’ ve develop with my genius partner Giovanni, the bass drum generator it’s unique design and the capacitor cv sequencer it’s something new in to the synth world.

Our goal was to develop an instrument we like to use live with a distinctive sound and character, something different from mass production, because music it’s made by the musician but also the instrument have a big part especially for minimal electronic music.

The analog sounding generation it’s really unique and sounds a lot better than any digital device.

We try to made an organic sounding instrument, using the LepLoop in a live concert give you the possibility to fill real analog sound without any D/A conversion.

As model of business I’ ve choose to go online, there is a huge interest in to analog instrument and it’s a really small stable market , typically musician are people with passion that love to know how thing works.

I’ ve use the blog, http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/ , for post info and new, this blog it’s the most followed in to the synth world so easily I can have a wold wide visibility.

I have also get contact with one shop in Berlin and one shop in Los Angeles both specialized in to new analog synth.

The feedback was great and now we are starting a small production of 100 unit hand made.

Chris Charter of Throbbing Gristle write this revue and made a track

The Piksels and Lines Orchestra is an experimental performance system for graphic design.
The image industry populates our visual culture, yet it exists in a world with an inner life that is invisible to most people. The orchestra shifts the focus from the end results to the actions and decisions that take place during the creative process.

By turning the tools of graphic design, the software applications, into instruments, the active labour and the operational gestures of designers are converted to sound. Actions like painting, cutting, setting text, adding layers, drawing shapes etc. are reflected by sonic events within a score.
At the same time, the system brings the audience visually into the everyday work environment of the designer by exposing the application interfaces as they are used. In order to make the necessary software modifications, the applications used in this project are all free and open source software.

The end goal is to produce a noise opera, combining elements of traditional narratives with computer music which illustrates and interrogates the technical and social systems that operate within the microcosm of graphic design.

The Piksel and Lines Orchestra is the response to an open call for an artist and one developer to work together to explore the performative and collaboritve aspects of free open source graphical software. The commissioned work is carried out by media artist Brendan Howell and software developer Jon Nordby, initiated by a residency supported by Piksel and USF AIR.

A technical demonstration of the system will be presented at the Piksel [X] festival on the 24th November 2012.
The final performance will be given at the LGRU Future Tools conference in Madrid April 2013.

The project is hosted by Piksel as part of the EU-funded LGRU-project, and is supported by USF AIR, Bergen City Council and The Norwegian Art Council.

http://www.piksel.no/pulse/plo

Arduinos and project such as Fritzing have significantly lowered the bar for everyone to participate in the design and manufacturing of electronics. More people than ever try out CAD tools such as Eagle to realize their ideas.

But why do the boards designed by artists and hackers have to be constrained to the same logic of perfectly straight and 45 degree angled lines, which has governed our electric lives (as in: commodity products) as well as visual imagination (as in: circuit boards in movies) over the last decades?

Why do circuit boards designed in Sweden look the same as those in China?

Artists such as Gijs Gieskes have long explored this by creating their own, hand-drawn circuits. Unfortunately, due to the practicalities of using standard CAD tools – e.g. for large-scale production (Gerber files etc), this has been often put aside.

Since the only way to criticize a software program (Eagle) is to write a better one: I am currently developing a web-based editor for circuit boards that is all focussed on hand-drawing the traces (using the mouse or a tablet), yet gives you some of the most-useful functionality found in regular software (such as overlaying the dimensions of the most-used chip packages, having multiple layers etc).

The editor will also be able to export the toolpaths (G-code) to mill those boards on a CNC device, as well as PDFs that can be used for etching. This way, the (semi-) mass production is still feasible while retaining the manual and graphical qualities in the design.

The (web-) software will be made available for free.

The Weise7 in/compatible Laboratorium Archive is a record of the Weise7 Studio show for Labor Berlin 8, a series of workshops run at Weise7 and its own creation.

Unlike other books, this book acts as an Internet independent wireless server, running from a tiny, custom designed computer inside the book.

To start the server just open the book and connect to it wirelessly using your laptop, tablet or phone. Browse the contents in a park, library or while half way up a mountain, sharing the content with those in your vicinity. Inside can be found high resolution images of our exhibition, video, source code and texts about each of the works. To turn off the server, simply close the book..

The Weise7 in/compatible Laboratorium Archive was launched on March 9th at Labor Berlin at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, and was 5 months in development.

(http://weise7.org/book/)

This is a collaborative effort between the 6 members of the Weise7 studio in Berlin: Bengt Sjölén, Danja Vasiliev, Julian Oliver, Gordan Savicic, Brendan Howell, Servando Barreiro