Keystone Bouchard's "Wikisonic" to get Real at the Tech Virtual Museum

"Turns out, I guess, that it actually is possible in Real Life. Go figure!" said Keystone Bouchard (aka Jon Brouchoud). Gasp! He was referring to his Wikisonic project, an instrument for collaborative musical composition that he created in-world with the technical assistance of Annie Obscure, and the scripting assistance of Dirty McLean, and that I blogged about back in early November.



Keystone is the founder of Architecture Islands, an incubator for architects and designers in virtual worlds, and also leads the Architecture in Second Life community group. He is co-founder of Studio Wikitecture, a Web 2.0 based architectural collaboration methodology, and founder of Crescendo Design, a studio specialized in developing sustainable design concepts. His ‘Nutrihouse’ design was chosen for construction in the Cradle-to-Cradle Home competition from over 625 entries worldwide. And I could go on for quite a while longer here, but let me hurry on to tell you the news...


In early February, Keystone got it into his head to submit Wikisonic to the Tech Virtual Museum Workshop in San Jose, California. "The main idea of the project was to invite collaboration, virtual and otherwise, toward the design of museum exhibits for The Tech museum. By submitting the concept, I had essentially open sourced the Wikisonic idea," explained Keystone, and like so many of the concepts that he conceives, it is now licensed under a Creative Commons license, and can be reused as long as Keystone is given credit.

In the Real Life version of Wikisonic, for which Keystone won a cash prize of $5,000 US, visitors will see a series of notes arranged on a wall similar to the notes on a musical staff. Each note will have a switch, with activates and de-activates both a light and an audible tone (each note in a scale in the key of C) contained within each note/switch. A trigger perpetually circulates through the score. As it passes by, it will play only the notes that have been activated by visitors.

The Second Life version, which Theory Shaw and I had the privilege to try out in this video with Keystone, can be seen here. When you active or de-activate a note, the installation changes - in real time - and a collective "song" emerges.



You can play with Wikisonic in Second Life, by teleporting directly from here to Keystone's Gallery of Reflexive Architecture. The Real Life exhibit in San Jose will open in June, and Keystone will be there.

A few morsels of art - four installations and the body electric

Here are four quick stops worth making to see what's new in the way of interactive art on the grid. Interestingly, all working from the basic sphere...

Wikisonic
Keystone Bouchard, founder of the RL Architects in SL group and a force behind some of the most interesting and thoughtful activities surrounding architecture in-world, recently completed a musical instrument of sorts with the scripting assistance of Dirty McLean. Stand in the middle and touch the balls in each column you wish to activate to induce a musical note. Touch several in a same column and you will hear several notes from it. Keystone invited Theory Shaw and me to play with it while he made this demo vid.



Keystone has since added another full circle of columns to enhance the sound. Thank you, Amalthea Blanc, for turning us onto this guy.
Teleport directly from here to Wikisonic, at his Gallery of Reflexive Architecture.



"Force Sun to Midnight"
Daruma Picnic wowed us with his A Cappella installation not too long ago. Now he is more playful, and he tells us, "Keystone (Bouchard) encouraged me to play with his scripts and develop new prim movement work. These scripts put a "capital I" on the word Interactive." Walk through the elements to activate sound and movement. It usually takes a couple of minutes for the sound to play in real time. Click on smaller floating elements to change color. The music is inspired by a Ravi Shankar Peace Mantra. His music files were generated with Garage Band and further edited with Audacity.

NPIRLers, the landmark I gave you in-world was borked. Please use this SLURL: Force Sun to Midnight Once there, look for the a TP ball and off you go.



The Aurora Room
Juria Yoshikawa recently set up his own sim, the Garden of Memespelunk, featuring several pieces we had hoped - but never expected - to see again, as well as a few new items, including this very immersive Aurora Room that chatters and makes noises.

Teleport from here to the: Aurora Room



The Lotus
Mark my words... DB Bailey - another RL architect - is going to amaze us all. This jewel box of a build encloses a meditation room (touch the inner bloom). DB has only been around since February, and he is really coming into his own. Douglas Story spotted him first and we are grateful.

See it here: DB Bailey's Lotus Once teleported, cross the ramp.



Miki Gymnast's Body Electric (that's my name for it anyway)

I was wearing Miki Gymnast's sensational 1,400 scripted prim outfit when I dropped in to check out DB's Lotus. Here are just a couple of the color sets it turned into. Sadly, Miki won't be putting these on the market. They are so highly customized that she doesn't have time to work with each customer. I hardly ever gawk at my avatar, but on this occasion, I (practically) only had eyes for me. :P