Tokyo 2

After my two performances at Make: Tokyo Meeting 02, I had some time to retrace my steps in this metropolis. visiting the same places, taking the same pictures.

Now and then...

Now and then...

But I also made some new acquaintances: plastic food town / Kappabashi street...

the iceman...

window cleaners...

SuperCollider Socks

A fantastic present from tn8. Thank you so much.

Quarks.install("redSys");
//and then recompile
s.boot;
{RedFrik.ar(2008)}.play  //noise socks!

Yamaguchi

One peaceful place. Specially Sesshu's beautiful zen-garden of Joueiji Temple.

'a place of sonic beauty'

Also, Yamaguchi is a city of hot springs (onsen) and new media art (YCAM). A very good combination.

SC Multiple Apps

During a recent gig, I suddenly felt a need to crossfade between two songs/patches (strange as it seems). As I'd coded my music using RedMst and it, in turn, makes heavy use of class methods, starting up a new song would disrupt the current music playing (tempo, current index, etc). I also had some global effects running on bus 0 and 1 (ReplaceOut) that belonged to a particular song and I didn't want those for the new one.

So how to isolate patches? I got the idea of running two copies of the SuperCollider application at the same time. They'd be identical, use the same soundcard and share class library. Having two apps running would also be good for safety reasons. If one crashed I could keep on playing with the other. It turned out to be quite easy. The trick is to use the internal server and find a way to visually tell the two applications apart.

Dan Stowell helped me by implementing thisProcess.pid and I got some great tips from Cylob. He used a similar setup for his live performances. Here's my take on it... (you'll need a recent version of SuperCollider (>30 Oct '08)

1. put the code below into your startup.rtf file. It'll make the secondary app green and shift windows to the right - this only so one can tell them apart.
2. go to SuperCollider application folder and duplicate the program file (cmd+d). Rename the copy "SuperCollider (green)". Remember to duplicate again when you've updated your main SuperCollider app.
3. important: from now on use internal as the default server in your code. Localhost will crosstalk when running multiple apps.

So with a simple duplicate command and minimal change to SuperCollider itself (just for cosmetic difference), I can now crossfade my songs.

//put this in startup.rtf...

//--detect secondary application and colour it green
var p, l;
~green= false;
p= Pipe("ps -xw | grep 'SuperCollider (green)' | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'", "r");
l= p.getLine;
if(l.notNil and:{l.asInteger==thisProcess.pid}, {~green= true});
p.close;

if(~green.not, {  //for main app (red)
  GUI.skins.put(\redFrik, (
    background: Color.red.alpha_(0.8),
    foreground: Color.black,
    selection: Color.grey,
    unfocus: 0.9,
    fontSpecs: ["Monaco", 9],
    offset: Point(0, 0)
  ));
}, {  //for secondary app (green)
  GUI.skins.put(\redFrik, (
    background: Color.green.alpha_(0.8),
    foreground: Color.black,
    selection: Color.grey,
    unfocus: 0.9,
    fontSpecs: ["Monaco", 9],
    offset: Point(455, 0)
  ));
  Document.listener.background_(GUI.skins.redFrik.background.blend(Color.grey(0.9), 0.9));
  Document.initAction_{|doc| doc.background_(GUI.skins.redFrik.background.blend(Color.grey(0.9), 0.9))};
  Server.set.do{|x|
    x.window.bounds= x.window.bounds.moveBy(GUI.skins.redFrik.offset.x, 0);
    x.window.view.background_(GUI.skins.redFrik.background.blend(Color.grey(0.9), 0.9));
  };

});
Document.listener.bounds_(Rect(GUI.skins.redFrik.offset.x, GUI.window.screenBounds.height-580, 450, 580));

Shanghai

One crazy place. So big, so impossible to grasp. Traffic, air pollution, very many and very high buildings.

sweet potatoes.

Tai chi morning.

Maglev train station. 300km/h to the airport.

Tokyo

Tokyo is a tough city. Very high buildings, very many people and very tired office workers near the end of the week.

Tokyo subway just before closing hour... men in business uniform spread out all over. Too tired or too drunk to go home.

This would never happen in Europe... (out of order note (I think) on a clock in this small park)

Lunch, Tokyo Opera building, 54th floor...

Japan Fire Practice

Today fire emergency practice day at IAMAS. Finally, I got to see one of these fireboxes/cabinets in action.

video

A great reason to put on uniforms and bring out the megaphone. There's one uniform of every occasion it seems.

Despite this, I was a little bit disappointed - no special effects or smoke machines. Everybody kept calm and the dummy didn't bounce when they used the defibrillator on its chest.

The defibrillator looks like a speak&spell. It also talks to you and instructs you how to connect the cables - in Japanese only. I'd love to circuit bend one of these.

Toilet Toy

Silly toys are everywhere. Everything should be cute and should have a mascot/icon. Even serious institutions like banks and insurance companies can't help but use little characters where ever possible. My favourite is a local bank here in Ogaki that uses the Paddington bear as their logo - for no apparent reason and probably without copyright clearance.

Here's a video of a very funny present I got from ap&bi. Tack så mycket.