Interactve – Page 2

Raspberry Pi on stage

raspi_blue_white — A diagram of the Raspberry Pi board

I am extremely excited about Raspberry Pi, a low-power ARM-based Linux box on-a-board. This little board has a Broadcom ARM processor, HDMI port capable of digital audio and 1080p video playback (!), analog audio output, composite video output, a pair of USB ports (on one USB bus), an Ethernet port (!), a general purpose I/O bus, an SD card reader for system software, and it is all powered by a measly micro-USB port from the nearest cell phone charger (or batteries!).

Did I mention it’s only $35? I’ve already ordered mine, and it should arrive in a few weeks. In total, it cost $45 CAD to ship to my door with currency conversion, which is pretty awesome. For that price, I couldn’t even buy an Apple TV, or a Roku SoundBridge, or an AirPort Express all of which this device could easily sit in for. I have acquired many different media gadgets over the years, all of which are basically single-purpose, quickly go out of date, and would be super awesome if they could be hacked to do more things.

While I will probably pick up a few more (as soon as production starts to meet demand) for various media and automation tasks around the house, my main point of interest is how this device can be used on the stage. A computer this sized blows away what we could do a few years ago with Arduino, allowing us to put the power of a desktop computer inside pieces of set, on performers, and even in the hands of the audience.

300px-Raspberry_Pi_Photo — The Raspberry Pi board itself.

It also becomes the most universal “problem solver” box ever. Plug in a USB MIDI adapter and you’ve got yourself an OSC to MIDI converter. Add on some physical sensors and its now an infrared MIDI controller. Add on an Entec DMX Device and you’re controlling your lighting rig on a board the size of your palm.

But what about video? The Linux and Open Source community have been busy writing beautiful video software like VLC for a long time, so who is to say these devices aren’t our next media servers? A quick word of caution, I’m mostly talking about “indie” theatre, or productions whos budgets typically fit within the cost of a single license to higher-end video playback systems such as Watch Out. However I think there’s tremendous potential in an array Raspberry Pis networked for live video playback at a fraction of the cost of current solutions.

I’ll be sure to post more when I get my personal Raspberry Pi. What would you use it for?

HUB Mall LED Lighting Competition

Back in March I helped out and participated in the HUB Mall Lighting Design competition, organized by Mel Geary.

The goal of the competition was to encourage experimentation with the new ETC Ion lighting console purchased for the FAB Media Room, while also allowing students to explore moving light fixtures, lighting pre-viz using ESP Vision, experiment with possibilities of the HUB Mall LED lighting rig, and of course to spur a bit of department competition!

My design was a series of chase effects programmed as step cues on the ETC Ion, all fired through QLab using Midi Show Control, timed to the music video, I Love Cats by schmoyoho. I also built the entire show exclusively using the off-line editor.

The winning design by first year BFA Theatre Designers Camille Maltais and Cheyenne Sykes earned them a free 1-year license of ESP Vision.

Overall it was a great experience, and plenty of HUB Mall residents poked their heads out to check out the shows. Typically the LEDs installed are operated at less than half their potential output, so the full-intensity fixtures were quite dramatic. We did have a few issues with some fixtures not responding correctly over DMX, probably due to the length of the runs and speed of data changes used. The wireless DMX transmitters/receivers we used to link our control station and the projection/I-Cue station setup mid-mall worked well though.

Check out the video Mel produced, or some of the photos I shot during the event, below.

HUB Mall LED Lighting Competition, a set on Flickr.

Light: Interactive Worship Experience

Light: Interactive Worship Experience, a set on Flickr.

During my time at Gull Lake Centre, I put together an interactive worship experience during Senior Teens 2012. Put together in just a day using equipment on hand, the installation focussed on the theme of “light” in scripture, both in word and in environment.

Three LED PARs lit the room in different colors, and responded to the voices of people sitting in the room, as well as movement on the three video cameras. Verses could be read aloud, which colored the screens. Three video cameras captured movement in a unique way and relayed them to the three projectors.

Wave Launch

Wave Launch, a set on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
The Wave Art & Media Installation was launched on Thursday June 23, 2011 as part of the McLuhan Centenary and the Media Ecology Convention 2011 in Edmonton Alberta.

Wave was unveiled in the atrium of Enterprise Square (old Bay building in Downtown Edmonton, owned by U of A). Several convention attendees and students of the MACT program, along with friends and colleagues attended the launch and tried their hand at being a “waveling.”

Wavelings can connect via their smartphones, tablets, or traditional computers to a special web app, which allows them to explore webcams from all over the world, based on the McLuhan concept, “the global village.”

They can also view their image as a silhouette amongst a series of “renga” poetry written for Wave. This interaction explores McLuhan’s “the medium is the message.”

The Wave will be in Enterprise Square until November 2011, and will be continually updated and developed with software and hardware updates though out its stay. Stay tuned to the @wave_art twitter page for the latest news.

Thanks to Jeremy Keay for shooting the photos.