Services: 

Sound Interaction Design, Programming & Installation

Client: 

Max Richter, rAndom International & Wayne McGregor

Media: 

Reactive light and sound installation & performance

Description: 

Future Self (2012)

"Future Self" is a performance & installation which studies human movement, mirroring interaction in dance, light and sound, while exploring the self, present and future.

Functionality: 

When the dancers move close to the light sculpture, the position of their bodies are captured to form a three-dimensional mirror-image within the sculpture.
Both light and sound is responding to the movement of the dancers in front of the light cube.
Our task was to transfer the composition of Max Richter and its elements into the room. There were three different sound zones. Each of these zones was equipped with 5 speakers playing back respective elements of the music into the different sound zones. Using infrared cameras, computers and software, the movements of the dancers were captured and assigned to individual elements of the music. The resulting sound was heavily influenced by the dancers.

What is reactive music? 

Reactive music is very similar to generative music. It is music created by a computer system that responds to it’s surrounding environment and manipulates the sound accordingly. For example the application could take samples through a microphone and make use of an input from an accelerometer (motion tracking) in order to produce a song or soundscape.

Special features: 

"Future Self“ made possible by MADE

Details: 

Year: 2012 
Duration: 00h 9m 58s (performance) & 99h 9m 99s (installation -> reactive system) 
Technique: computers, speakers, audio-interface, infrared cameras, software, amplifier, construction

Max Richter, rAndom International & Wayne McGregor "FUTURE SELF"

Services: 

Field Recording & Sound Design for the groundbreaking sample-based synthesizer Iris

Client: 

iZotope, Inc.

Description: 

Unearth a world of sounds you've never heard before. Driven by iZotope's award-winning visual selection technology, iZotope Iris™ is a groundbreaking sample-based synthesizer that harnesses the power of both your eyes and your ears. Fuel your creativity with Iris's new spin on sound design: a "visual instrument" that's perfect for musical inspiration and sonic experimentation. Text by iZotope, Inc.

Details: 

Medium: DVD-Box & Software Download

iZotope Inc. " IRIS"

Services: 

Sound Design

Client: 

Petrina Hicks

Description: 

Hippy and the snake (2011)

Filmed on high speed Phantom video camera at 800 frames per second in HD, a teenage girl appears in extreme slow motion and high resolution in an artificial garden created in a studio, with a fake blue sky background as the setting. The plants and flowers are dripping with a clear sticky substance, and the girl is interacting with various creatures in this garden. A symbiotic relationship between with the girl, creatures and nature is suggested, yet the artificial, manipulated, controlled and hyper real look of this environment is incompatible with this notion of symbiosis.

Details: 

Year: 2011 
Duration: 00h 10m 56s (loop) 
Media: 2 A/V hard drives 
Technique: 2 A/V harddrives, 2 TVs, 4 JBL Control One speakers, 2 channel professional amplifier, construction

Petrina Hicks "Hippy and the Snake"

Services: 
Idea, Concept & Realisation

Client: 
Agentur BEST FRIEND + Bayer HealthCare

Description: 
The whole mission for us was to transfer the virtual internet presence of lovegent.de into the real world. Therefor an interactive performance installation was created, performed in public in Berlin’s ALEXA shopping center. The area of performance was a mobile stage-in-a-box construction especially designed for this purpose. Via an interactive voice-controlled system, visitors and passers-by could have an immediate impact on a contemporary dance performance that was taking place inside the stage-in-a-box construction. Additionally the visitor’s voices were integrated into a sound composition and made audible for themselves in an aesthetical and harmonised way. One could experience the sound through a loudspeaker seating furniture fitted with conventional speakers aswell as with transducers (i.e. a structure-borne sound converter).
The dance performance installation was designed to explore the connection between sound, images and movement. In daily life our own language or sound production is a very familiar companion, who often goes unnoticed. The human voice is a very complex system with an ability to produce a wide range of sounds. Most people are not familiar with this scope of expression, as the production of sound happens very naturally and unconsciously. The performance’s audience was enabled to directly interact with the events on stage through the means of playful sound production.
Our brain is constantly creating links between the separate sensory impressions. The synchronizity between visual and acoustic impressions, sound and movement represents some of the mentioned links. History of art and culture often has used these links in a very fruitful way and integrated them into many genres and media. Dance, for example, represents one of those links. Not only is the implementation of acoustic impressions into body movements relevant to the dancers, but also the observer experiences one of these links on an audio-visual level. Having an immediate impact on the performance via one‘s own voice is an attractive expansion of this process within the performance installation. Passers-by’s voices were picked up by a microphone in front of the stage-in-a-box construction and analyzed by a computer software. Then they were used to control the performance aswell as a tonal composition (Reactive / Generative Music). The tonal result was immediately being played back in real time. Consequently the amount of viewers in front of the stage and the sound spectrum produced by them influenced the performance installation in an immediate and comprehensible manner.

Team/Network: 
Idea, Concept and Direction: aconica - creative lab for sound + art 
Music, Interaction Design: Max Schneider & Martin Backes 
Assistant of Production: Frauke Schmidt 
Dance/Choreography: Liza Sander, Martin Backes, Maik Riebort, Jessica Kammerer, Elsa Loy 
Costume/Stage Design: Liza Sander 

Details: 
Size: 4,00 m x 4,00 m x 2,70 m (L x W x H) 
Technique: wooden/foil-construction, pole, seating furniture with loudspeakers & transducers, microphon-stele, fabric, amplifier, computer, light, audio-interface, microphones, cable, electric curtain system 
Duration: generative/reactive system 

What is generative music? 
Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system. 

What is reactive music? 
Reactive music is very similar to generative music. It is music created by an computer system that responds to it’s surrounding environment and manipulates the sound accordingly. For example the application could take samples through a microphone and make use of an input from an accelerometer (motion tracking) in order to produce a song or soundscape.

Special features: 
Project cooperation with Agentur BEST FRIEND

Video: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR97MRwg9zQ&feature=player_detailpage

Agentur BEST FRIEND + Bayer HealthCare "Sound Cabaret"

Client: 
amp GmbH & MINI (BMW Group)

Description: 
For the brand MINI (BMW Group) we were commissioned to develop and design a generative sound collage/sound installation as part of an internal management event called "MINI 2021". Sound, light, architecture, video and music were intertwined in order create a unique multimedia spectacle during the whole event. Thematically and soundwise we had to orientate ourselves between the poles of "nature" and "technology/future". For this we used on the one hand sounds of nature such as forest-atmospheres, bird & nature sounds, etc. and on the other hand technological sounds like sci-fi sounds, functional noises, signals, synth sounds, etc. The sound collage should give the whole area a quiet atmosphere and therefore should invite the visitors to relax.

What is generative music? 
Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system. See also here: Wikipedia
Details

Medium: 
Multichannel-Audio-Installation 

Special features: 
Project cooperation with amp GmbH

Support & assistance: 
hands on Sound GmbH

For more Info: 
www.mini.de

Audio (live recording): http://soundcloud.com/aconica/generative-sound-installation

MINI (BMW Group) "Generative Sound Installation MINI 2021"

Client: 
Reynold Reynolds

About: 
We were responsible for the whole sound and music on this project which is a three-channel video installation.

Six Easy Pieces, Germany, 2010, 3 channels of HD video transferred from 16 mm and photo stills

Six Easy Pieces is the last part of the Secrets Trilogy; a three-part cycle exploring the imperceptible conditions that frame life and is preceded by Secret Life, 2008 (won the 2008 EMAF Festival Award at the European Media Art Festival Osnabrueck, Germany) and Secret Machine, 2009 (3rd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art 2009, Russia)

The work is based on the book “Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of physics explained by its most brilliant teacher”. 
 by Richard P. Feynman

More infos here: 
http://www.reynold-reynolds.com/pages/reynolds-artworks.htm

"Six Easy Pieces" by Reynold Reynolds 

Client: 
Artist group e-Xplo in project cooperation with the Academy of Arts Berlin.

Description: 
The piece is called „Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad ever lasts for very very long“ and is also a part of the publication „die stadt von morgen - Beiträge zu einer Archäologie des Hansaviertels Berlin”.

Special features: 
Audio piece, installation and map Hansaviertel 1880–2007

For more Info: 
www.adk.de - www.diestadtvonmorgen.de - www.e-xplo.org

e-Xplo & Academy of Arts Berlin „Nothing very very good and nothing very very bad...“

Client: 
Ambinator

Description: 
AMBINATOR is a new kind of ambient sound generator. Use it for meditation, relaxation, or for just masking out unwanted sounds around you.

AMBINATOR produces continually evolving soundscapes. Use the built-in timer to play soothing sounds during meditation sessions or to get into the flow of a productive day.

Each of AMBINATOR's Spaces generates a uniquely evolving sonic experience in real time. The heart of AMBINATOR is the Traveler, a soft white sphere on the main screen. Place it manually in any position in the Space to modify the sound. Or let it go on its own sonic journey, creating a uniquely morphing mix of sound.

You'll find many uses for AMBINATOR, including relaxation, attention focus, power napping, deep meditation, mind travel, or for simply getting into the productive flow of concentrated, distraction-free creativity.

Details: 
AMBINATOR is an iPhone application and available from the App Store starting on January 20th, 2010

For more Info: 
www.ambinator.com

iPhone App "Ambinator "

Client: 
Patens GmbH

Description: 
City Slikkers is a Pervasive Game (alternatively Location Based Game) which takes place in the real-existing city. It is designed to connect a large number of players through-out the world and change the way the surroundings are seen. The central idea behind the concept is to give people the opportunity to symbolically interfere with the everyday urban environment and come into contact with previously unknown people.

City Slikkers is among the Top50 applications of the Google Android Developer Challenge 2008.
Details

City Slikkers uses the latest state of the technology (GPS, Always-On Connectivity, Touchscreen, 3D-Map-Engine…)
City Slikkers is currently being developed for Google Android und iPhone operating systems

Special features: 
Project cooperation with Olaf Schäfer & & Virtual Logic Systems Private Limited, Bangalore/India

For more Info: 
www.patens.de - www.cityslikkers.com

Patens GmbH " City Slikkers"

Client: 
Native Instruments GmbH

Description: 
ABSYNTH 5 is an exceptional synthesizer with unique sonic potential. Its speciality is a limitless spectrum of unusual, evolving sounds created using the powerful, hybrid synthesis architecture and sophisticated modulation and effect system - resulting in sounds far removed from the everyday. What's more ABSYNTH 5 is not just a synthesizer, but a powerful effect plug-in for treating audio tracks using the unique ABSYNTH 5 effects bank.

Details: 
Medium: DVD-Box & Software Download

For more Info: 
www.native-instruments.de

Native Instruments  "Absynth 5"

Client: 
Native Instruments GmbH

Description: 
MASCHINE combines the flexibility of computer-based music production with the ease of a groove box into one powerful creative tool. Utilizing onboard samples or your own audio files, MASCHINE’s symbiosis of hardware and software not only ensures a fast and fun workflow, but lets you easily turn your ideas into professional productions.
Details

Medium: 
DVD-Box & Hardware Unit

For more Info: 
www.native-instruments.de

Native Instruments "Maschine"

Client: 
I-D Media AG

Description: 
Conception of a sound identity for a business company

For more Info: 
www.i-dmedia.com

"Corporate Sound" for I-D Media

Client: 
Transcript Publishing House, University of the Arts - Sound Studies, Georg Spehr

Media: 
Book (Print)

Year: 
2009

Title: 
"Functional Sounds"

For More Information: 
www.transcript-verlag.de

"Functional Sounds"  Book Article

Client: 
Bjørn Melhus

Media: 
3 or 9 Channel Audio/Video Installation

Year: 
 2008

For more Information: 
www.melhus.de

"Deadly Storms" by Bjørn Melhus

Client: 
Bjørn Melhus

Media: 
Video

Year: 
 2007

For more Information: 
www.melhus.de

"The Meadow" by Bjørn Melhus

Client: 
Candice Breitz

Media: 
16 Channel Audio/Video Installation

Year: 
 2005

For more Information: 
www.candicebreitz.net

"King (A Portrait of Michael Jackson)" by Candice Breitz

Client: 
Candice Breitz

Media: 
30 Channel Audio/Video Installation

Year: 
 2005

For more Information: 
www.candicebreitz.net

"Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley)" by Candice Breitz

Client: 
Candice Breitz

Media: 
6 Channel Audio/Video Installation

Year: 
2005

For More Information: 
www.candicebreitz.net