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

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- 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

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.

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.

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A NEW MOVIE

conner

This application uses mouse movements to create a new edit of Bruce Conner’s “A Movie”(1958). “A New Movie” maps each x/y position of the users screen and assigns each position of the screen to an edit point of “A Movie”. The application watches and records the users mouse movement over a chosen period of time. When enough data has been collected the application will re-edit the original version of ”A Movie”. The user can then view the re-edited version, which keeps the original soundtrack in place but rearranges the visual track according to the users daily mouse movements.
For more information on Bruce Conner and “A Movie”

SOFTWARE

Download Application (Macintosh)

SCREEN SHOTS

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CONNER TIMES TEN

First in a series of applications made in homage to Bruce Conner, “Conner Times Ten” is an application that creates new images using Bruce Conner’s film “Ten Second Film” as its source. Conner’s “Ten Second Film”, which was made for the 1965 New York Film Festival but never shown during the festival because it was believed to be too “risky”, was made from ten film strips each 24 frames long. Using only multiples of 10 and 24 the application “Conner Times Ten” randomly chooses a frame from Conner’s “Ten Second Film” and new images are made from this frame. These new images are never the same or repeated in the same sequence.

Software

Download the application (Macintosh Classic)

Software Screen Shots

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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.