illucia: playable networks & videogame instruments by chris novello - last run of units!

illucia: playable networks & videogame instruments by chris novello from paperkettle on Vimeo.

illucia.com is recently finished, and collects all sorts of material.
- illucia dtr patchbay controller (open source hardware)
- several new games and programs (free & open source)
- a game library for Processing that supports patch points (free & open source)

A few hand built units are available in the store at the moment. I'm pretty sure that is the last run.

http://www.illucia.com
http://www.twitter.com/paperkettle

"illucia is a patchbay controller by chris novello. It lets you use physical cables to connect things like videogames, music software, text editors, synthesizers, and more. It has a free suite of interconnectable games and software, plus it speaks OSC so it works with many existing programs. illucia is open source hardware & software (and built with Arduino and Processing), so you're free to reimagine/remix/replicate it in any way.

music: "Intro" from Vacation Wasteland EP by Slime Girls
http://slimegirls.bandcamp.com/music"


illucia: using a videogame to remix music from paperkettle on Vimeo.

"illucia dtr is a patchbay controller for connecting computer programs.

Life Sequencer is a game in the illucia suite - it uses falling blocks to build step sequencer patterns (it is also remixable by Conway's Game of Life). Also, it doesn't actually make any sound - it just makes data using OSC. You can then take that data and send it to any computer programs... like Ableton Live or Max.

Behind the scenes (not shown in the video), Ableton and Max have some audio samplers running.

As I play Life Sequencer, it builds step sequencer patterns. I then patch the data from the step sequencer into the music samplers (so that the sample playhead moves around based on the block patterns in the game). I use cables to select and layer samples, and then I speed up the playback and audio pitch with illucia's knobs. Eventually I patch in some sample rate reduction (and a special glitchy mode on Life Sequencer) right as I trigger the Conway's Game of Life pattern remixer. The Conway algorithm eats through most of the existing blocks, and then I start placing more blocks to build a new pattern.

The illucia patchbay then becomes a physical controller for exploring these strange connections & reconsidering the inner lives of computer programs."


illucia & aalto: patching a videogame into a synth from paperkettle on Vimeo.

"This is a loose experiment using illucia with aalto by madrona labs. First I use illucia to control aalto, then I patch data from PCO (a ball&paddle game) into aalto, thus making a videogame control a synthesizer.

Gory details:

The first half of the video: illucia controls parameters on aalto (the patchbay triggers different aalto presets). aalto is a really nice synth, and it especially opens up when married with a physical controller.

In the second half, I bring in PCO (a game in illucia's software suite with paddles that block moving balls).
Before the clip, I had pre-patched the Y position of colliding balls into parameters on aalto. As the second half starts, I patch illucia to activate ball generation oscillators for PCO. Then, as those balls collide with paddles, their Y positions get sent into aalto, effectively using a videogame to control a synthesizer. I let it sit for a while just to see what strange behavior and sounds emerge when patching these two usually-unrelated programs."