Matt Roberts

Invisible Instruments

Invisible Instruments
A digital microscope and custom video mapping software let participants project microscopic parts of themselves coupled with short poetic text onto large architectural objects. This collective public performance with three layers—edifice, miniature, and wandering signage—-shows what happens when a public space is overwritten by an ephemeral and intimate one.

A collaboration between new media artist Matt Roberts and poet Terri Witek

Invisible instruments at City Unseen

Recent exhibition of Invisible Instruments at City Unseen

Photos by http://www.emilyjourdan.com/

Unfolding

Excerpts from a 45 minute performance (4:40 min)

Unfolding is an improvised audio visual performance featuring Satoshi Takeishi and Matt Roberts. Takeishi performs with a prepared hammer dulcimer to create a mysterious and alluring soundscape, while Roberts accompanies Takeishi’s musical improvisations with real-time animation and video projection.

Full performance (40 min)

Satoshi Takeishi, drummer, percussionist, and arranger is a native of Mito, Japan. His art explores multi-cultural, electronics and improvisational music with musicians and composers from around the world. Takeishi has appeared on over 75 recordings including those by Latin giants Nestor Torres, Ray Barretto, Hector Martignon and Eliane Elias (in the film, “Calle 54”). He has also performed with Laszlo Gardony, Shoko Nagai, Dave Liebman, Badal Roy, Erik Friedlander, Cantor, Sasha Argov, Colombian saxophonist Antonio Arnedo, Paul Winter, Antony Braxton, Theo Bleckmann/Ben Monder, Joel Harrison and Rob Brown.

Matt Roberts is a new media artist specializing in locative media, physical computing, augmented reality, and real-time video performance. His work has been featured internationally and nationally, including shows in Taiwan, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, Italy, Mexico and nationally in New York, San Francisco, Miami, and Chicago. He was awarded the Transitio Award by the International Transitio_MX Festival in Mexico City, and his work has been reviewed in New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Miami Herald. Roberts received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is currently an Associate Professor of Digital Art at Stetson University, DeLand, Florida.

Documention of EMP 2014

Documentation of EMP performing at the Creative City Project 2014

Portable NES Controller

8-bit chiptune cart

EMP Documentation @ Creative City

EMP: Electronic Mobile Performance from Shadee Rios on Vimeo.

Video and photo documentation of our EMP performance at Creative City Project, Oct 25th 2013 in downtown Orlando. Performing Members were be Jacob Frisenda, Joe Palermo, and Matt Roberts. For this performance students Joe Palermo and Jacob Frisenda used contact microphones and custom software to transform shopping carts into musical instruments. To accompany the sounds created by the shopping cart Frisenda and Roberts created a synchronized audio/visual performance. To create the synchronized performance the Palermo, Frisenda and Roberts created their own software instruments and used commercial sound software as well. The shopping carts were also outfitted with portable power and audio/video equipment which enabled the group to move around the city to create impromptu performances in public spaces.

EMP @ Creative City Project

This Friday night (October 25, 2013) I will be performing with EMP: Electronic Mobile Performance at the Creative City Project in downtown Orlando.

EMP: Electronic Mobile Performance is a collaborative, multimedia project involving faculty and students from Stetson’s Digital Arts program. The group’s primary mission is to explore collaborative artistic production using new technologies, and to find new ways of presenting art outside of traditional venues. EMP is directed and founded by Matt Roberts.

Vinegar Tom Video Projection Mapping

A collaboration between my Adv Interactivity class and the Theatre Program’s production of Vinegar Tom. For this production my students created their own video projection mapping software to project their videos onto 5 different location on the stage.

EMP: Electronic Mobile Performance

EMP: Electronic Mobile Performance is a collaborative, multimedia project involving faculty and students from Stetson University’s Digital Arts program. The group’s primary mission is to explore collaborative artistic production using new technologies and to find new ways of presenting art outside of traditional venues. EMP is directed and founded by Matt Roberts, Associate Professor of Digital Arts at Stetson University. http://electronicmobileperformance.com

An earlier incarnation of EMP was a group created and directed by Matt Roberts know as MPG: Mobile Performance Group. MPG presented a number of site-specific performances at festivals and conferences throughout the country, including ICMC: International Computer Music Conference, Conflux, and ISEA: Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts. For more information about MPG please see the archived site.

MIRROR PAL CD RELEASE

Last summer I worked with students, Hogan Birney, Sean Kinberger and David Plakon on creating an interactive live audio/visual performance for Mirror Pal’s CD release party. The students asked me to help them develop a multimedia performance for the release party and I was more than happy to help. We developed a live multiple camera setup for the stage performance of the band which allowed them to mix live stage shots, prerecorded video clips and realtime video manipulation. To do this we modified affordable security cameras to be easily placed on stage and created a mixing station to easily switch between the cameras. We also created our own software to mix the live footage with prerecorded clips and add effects in realtime. Audience members could also submit text messages which were mixed with the live images and projected during the performance. We also created an interactive photo booth that audience members could sit inside and create short animation that were used during the performance of the band. The project was very ambitious for three students but they did an outstanding job. Here is some video they created to document the event.

New Interface for MPG @ the Intermedia Festival

MPG: Mobile Performance Group was invited to perform at the Intermedia Festival hosted by Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. I am working on an interface for the iphone/itouch, using the OSC based mrmr app. I developed an interface that allows the public to control the manipulation of live video and send text messages which becomes part of the live video projection. Users are be able to do things such as mix video, choose video clips, apply effects, and use the iphone’s accelerometer to rotate and position the text and image. The festival was a blast and I will post some documentation soon.

Collaborative Multimedia Performance Class

Below are a few videos from the final performance of a class I taught called Collaborative Multimedia Performance. In this class students learn how to collaborate with students from different majors, Music, Art, Computer Science. Students were taught a variety of techniques for live performance using electronics and software.

For this assignment students used contact mics to turn an object into an instrument. They created their own contact mics and attached them to the table and bottles to create a percussive instrument. The microphones were run through some guitar pedal effects and amplified. Students, David Plakon, Sean Kinberger and Zeb Long.

Student Ian Guthrie performs under the name Benny Loco and Uncle Abuelito. For this performance Ian teamed up with student Jana Fisher to create a visual accompaniment for his music. Jana learned how to create her own VJ software that allowed her to manipulate clips from the Twilight Zone to accompany his music. Jana built her VJ software using the Max/Jitter programing environment.

MPG: MOBILE PERFORMANCE GROUP

MPG: Mobile Performance Group is a collective of new media artists interested in finding new ways to present art outside of traditional venues. MPG disseminates their work by using mobile technologies, real-time video/audio, custom interactive devices, and other new technologies that allow artist to engage the public. The group has performed throughout the country and participated in several international new media festivals including Conflux, ICMC, NWEAMO and ISEA. MPG is part of classes taught, by faculty Matt Roberts (Founder and Creative Director of MPG) and Nathan Wolek (Music Director of MPG), at Stetson University’s Digital Arts Program. For more information please visit http://www.mobileperformancegroup.com

You can find more information about the group at

http://www.mobileperformancegroup.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobileperformancegroup/
http://www.youtube.com/user/mobileperformance

DropBox- Alpha Beta Disco: Goddard Remix

DropBox “flattens” Godard’s film “Alphaville” (1965) into a static multimedia database containing every scene, line of dialogue, sound effect and orchestral score cue. These materials are organized according to character, location and formal qualities. A 45-minute real-time performance/remix is realized solely using this database.

DropBox’s live performance represents an alternate, spontaneously improvised, non-narrative interface to Godard’s original work reproduced as a film.

DropBox relies on a primary improvisational tool “the remix” while performing with software of their design. DropBox blends elements from the “Alphaville” database with an abstract formal logic, rather than pursuing a narrative drive. DropBox cuts and pastes, overlaps and overlays, compresses and expands, filters, re-sequences and links multimedia data into new musical/visual formations.

DropBox

Matt Roberts is a memebr of DropBox which is a performance collaborative organized in 2001. Using video and audio software instruments in real-time, the duo micromanages original and found material via loops, non-linear equations and other processes.

DropBox – Duct Tape

Using only Duct Tape as material, DropBox pulls, rips and stretches the tape to create a real-time performance. Above is a document of a performance for the SubTropics Festival at PS742 in Miami Florida 2003.

DropBox

DropBox- The Soft Bits

Using only materials found in the “virtual” scenes from the Disney film “Tron” (1982), DropBox creates a multimedia database of 3D landscapes, animated characters and synthetic sounds. After organizing the database according to various formal characteristics, DropBox creates a new interface to the computer world of “Tron” via a real-time performance employing original software instruments. “The Soft Bits” stretches and expands the world of “Tron” into beams of colored light and staccato digital pulses–a meditation upon the primary language of our technology.
DropBox

EVENTS

Using custom video and audio software instruments in real-time. Matt Roberts and Nathan Wolek present a meditation on the Florida Landscape, which is realized as an improvised new media performance.

events03 events01

events02 events04

LA MEDIA NARANJA PROJECT – Electronic Güiro

Electronic Güiro
This project converts a metal güiro, which is normally used as a percussive instrument, into a video instrument. The güiro is modified with an arduino to create a link between the instrument and a computer. Every rib on the güiro becomes a switch, when a rib is struck a signal is sent to advance a video clip one frame. A musician can play the instrument as it is normally played, however in this case the performer produces video as well as audio.

La Media Naranja Project

La Media Naranja Project converts traditional music instruments, used in the Americas, into audio/visual instruments. The instruments can be played as they are normally used; however they also control real-time video manipulation and playback.