Author: Adam Parkinson

We are excited to announce that we are working with AGILE, a European Union Horizon 2020 Research Project developing and building a modular software-and-hardware gateway for the Internet of Things (IoT).

We will be combining the RAPID-API with the modular hardware of the AGILE project. Their smart hardware provides a multitude of ways to interface with the real world through sensors, and the Rapid-API will give people ways to harness and use that real-world data.

You’ll be able to see some of the results of this collaboration at Adaptation, a media arts event organised by AGILE. Artists are invited to submit proposals to Adaptation for works which represent data through audiovisual experiences, and selected artists will work with technologists to realise their ideas. We will be working with AGILE to have the RAPID-API available to help this realisation. Find out more about Adaptation and how to get involved here.

Find out more about AGILE here.

BITalino, the board developed by Rapid Mix partners PLUX which gives quick and easy access to biosignals, featured in an installation by the Atmospheric Delight team at Smartgeometry 2016 in Sweden, a workshop and conference exploring novel technologies. Read about it in more detail in Architect Magazine:

http://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/smartgeometry-2016-a-path-to-interpersonal-and-interplanetary-connections_o

There’s also a video showing for a deeper look:

Smartgeometry 2016: Atmospheric Delight from Marc Webb on Vimeo.

It’s great to see key Rapid Mix technologies being used for prototyping within the creative industries!

Michael Zbyszyński from the RAPID-MIX team did a talk at CCRMA (the Centre for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics) at Stanford University, long-term pioneers in music computing (and prior home of contemporary electronic music superstar Holly Herndon as well as our own Atau Tanaka)

The audience  included Thomas Rossing, John Chowning and Matt Wright. It was a chance to show some of RAPID-MIX technologies to some legendary figures in electronic music.

The Wekinator, a highly usable piece of software that helps you incorporate gestural interaction into artistic projects, got a nice mention on the Ableton blog. The post was about the recent Loop summit which was exploring the cutting edge of music tech, and it rightly identifies the potential for developing new musical instruments with the Wekinator. The post also mentions RAPID MIX partners IRCAM and their CoSiMa project. Read more here: https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/new-frontiers-of-music-tech/

The Wekinator is a core RAPID MIX technology, developed by team member Rebecca Fiebrink. Behind the user friendly interface is a wealth of highly sophisticated machine learning technology that will be at the heart of many future RAPID MIX projects.

If you’ve not used Wekinator for your gestural music or art, you should have a play with it. Make sure you’ve got the latest version of Wekinator here, and keep us informed about what you’re doing with it. We’d love to hear about any projects using the Wekinator with Ableton. You can also still sign up for the online course “Machine Learning for Musicians and Artists”, taught by Rebecca, here.

We had the pleasure of attending the Barcelona Music Hackday this year. We made this short video about our visit:

Here we have collected videos of the prototypes we’ve been developing over the first year of RAPID MIX. View them as a playlist on YouTube: