Works and Sites

NEWF8MW9
by Jim Andrews & margareta waterman (Canada, USA)
The audio jumps around a voiced/sung recording by margareta waterman and reveals her visual "glyphs" in the process. Configure the maximum duration of the samples and click on the waveform or "glyphs" to make it play/show that part. Conceptual+experience.
DIRECTOR

NEWFLOU
by Jason Freeman (USA)
Flou is not exactly a game; you fly a ship through space but you can't shoot things, score points, or win/lose. The focus is on the soundtrack: you navigate a 3D world and add loops and apply effects to an ever-evolving musical mix.
JAVA

NEWAUDIO SEARCH ENGINES
by various
These tools support searching the net for audio: audio-search.us , starfinder (library of congress) , findsounds.com .
CLIENT-SERVER MIX

NEWNEONLIGHT
by Macoto Yanagisawa (Japan)
Move the mouse to trigger the sound, and click to go to the next piece. East meets west! Also, if you go back to work, leave this piece open; moving your mouse triggers sounds, so you get a new work environment.
DIRECTOR

PIXEL BY PIXEL
by Frédéric Durieu, Jean-Jacques Birgé, and Kristine Malden (France)
The visuals are simple, excllent, and you exercise subtle but audible influence on the music as you move the mouse and occassionally click. The relation between the audio and the visual is subtle and intriguing. Also, as audio (de) composition, this is rich. More on Durieu and Birgé (2003 profiles).
DIRECTOR

PIANOGRAPHIQUE
by Jean-Luc Lamarque (France)
Keyboard and mouse controlled aural/visual interactivity. This project has been ongoing for several years; a new piece is added at least once a year. More on Lamarque (2003 profile).
DIRECTOR

PIANOLINA
by David Krause, Volker Bertelmann, Fons Hickmann, and Simon Gallus (Germany)
From the Grotrian piano company. Piano notes are represented by coloured squares that you drag and drop into a sound space affected by gravity. Similar to Balldroppings but different. "If the sequencer has become the paradigm for interpreting reality via its organization of flows of homogeneous information through a continuous scan, then the Pianolina, generator of random encounters between notes, is a good metaphor for entropy." (Valentina Culatti from neural.it)
FLASH

PÂTE À SON
by Frédéric Durieu and Jean-Jacques Birgé (France)
Click the "?" symbol at bottom right so that "Help bubbles" appear when you mouseEnter controls. Pixel by Pixel highlights and exposes the mechanisms that determine the audio composition. A different type of music than Pixel by Pixel. Also check out Time by Durieu and Birgé.
DIRECTOR

JASONFREEMAN.NET
by Jason Freeman (USA)
Several innovative pieces including Graph Theory.
VARIOUS

ALTZERO
by Squid Soup (Britain)
Squid Soup's altzero project consists of eight Shockwave works of "navigable spatial music" and a downloadable editor where you can make your own. In most pieces, you use the arrow keys and mouse to navigate 3D spaces; where you go determines the audio. The audio is original and highly atmospheric, goes well with the unusual visual environments.
DIRECTOR

THESQUAREROOTOF-1
by James Tindall (Britain)
thesquarerootof-1 is an online audio-visual interactive 'album'. Modifyme is also worth a look, and there's work on Tindall's atomless.com he's done for Fat Boy Slim etc.
DIRECTOR/FLASH

RE-MOVE
by Lia (Austria)
Many of the RE-MOVE pieces involve strong interactive audio, strong in its audio, visuals, and interactivity.
DIRECTOR

GRANULAR
by Chris Savage (UK)
Type something in and a sound is retrieved that relates to your query. Granular does something interesting with the retrieved sound. "Granular Synthesis creates new sounds from 'grains' of other sounds often as short as 10ms. The grains get reorganised (often offsetting the pitch) and the result is unpredictable, evolving sounds with vague characteristics of the original." Also check out his site Japanese Freeware.
DIRECTOR

VISMU
by Jim Andrews (Canada)
Assorted works.
DIRECTOR

PANDORA
by Tim Westergren, Tom Conrad, Nolan Gasser... (USA)
Fascinating approach to Internet radio. You create a channel by specifying a song or artist. Pandora then starts playing songs related to your seed. Each song is classified according to the 'music genome project'. Your 'thumbs up/thumbs down' on suggested songs apparently 'train' the app. A similar project is called last.fm. Unfortunately, as of 2007, their license disallows them from serving anyone outside the USA.
FLASH

NANOENSEMBLES
by Antoine Schmitt (France)
Also check out Venus and his projects page. More on Schmitt (2003 profile).
DIRECTOR

SERVOVALVE
by Servovalve (France)
The music is, as he says, "electronic, rhythmic, energic, atmospheric, horologic (clock connected), meta-lithurgic... subambient... neurodance" and the visuals, set in the black background, derive their energy not at all from ornament but from their motion with the music and their programming-controlled transformations and movement. More on Servovalve (2003 profile)
DIRECTOR

NETART.ORG.UY
by Brian Mackern (Uruguay)
Brian Mackern has created many "sound toys". Look for that term on his homepage and click those links. Also, there are many links to the work of others on Brian's site.
FLASH

GLASS ENGINE
by Phillip Glass and IBM (USA)
Navigate the music of Phillip Glass by work, year, length, joy, sorrow, intensity, density, and velocity.
JAVA

LA COLONIE
by Alexandre Gherban (France)
"Our preoccupation is to define a particular field of study based on the hypothesis that underlying the artistic universe are connections as highly ordered as those found in life, although much less obvious. First starting from a "common trunk"—artificial life—it is then a question of separating the "colony" from any simplistic simulation of life, of exploring all the possibilities of an aesthetic universe that coincides with no preexisting model. To envisage aesthetically specific situations in which the materials (the programming) create forms and situations artistically relevant within a consistent and constantly renewed digital framework. A "colony," therefore, which takes as its starting point elementary living situations (as posited by artificial life) to go toward an artistic zone specifically defined by the digital universe: in other words, toward observable transitory forms." See also the other works on Gherban's site.
DIRECTOR

WORKS FROM ARTZERO.NET
by Vera Sylvia Bighetti (Brazil)
Made to (Un)Order is a suite of 6 interactive audio pieces. A mixture of the tuneful and the electronic. Also check out Fulfill Fullness.
DIRECTOR

ACTIONIST RESPOKE
by Michael Janoschek and Rüdiger Schlömer, Mouse on Mars (Germany)
"Here is something between a Sequencer and Sound Tamagotchi. Put some learning effort into it, don't let visuals irritate you and most of all, don't be lazy. This is not about just sitting back and having music served on a tablet." The music is funky and so is the interface. MAX on acid.
FLASH

SPLICE
by S. Mulroney, W. Davis (USA)
Sequencer for mixing your own sounds or sounds uploaded by people in the Splice community. A similar project is called JamGlue.
FLASH

LOOPTRACKS
by Conor O'Boyle (Ireland)
What is striking here is the interactive interface. O'Boyle describes it as "an interactive music video". Part of the idea of many interactive audio works for the Web is to try to do something alternative to the music video. Though of course there are also other fish to fry in interactive audio, such as innovative music.
FLASH

FOLK SONG FOR THE FIVE POINTS
by David Gunn, Alastair Dant, Tom Davis, Victor Gama (USA)
"Folk Songs for the Five Points is a celebration of cultural diversity and change, using “folk songs” as a metaphor to explore immigration and the formation of identity in New York’s Lower East Side." Click and drag the circles. Most interactive audio pieces focus on exploring audio/music and interface. The exploration here is more of geography and culture. Also check out a later piece, Manchester: Peripheral, which treats Manchester in related ways. "Manchester: Peripheral" is the second in what is planned as a series of "SoundMaps" for cities across the world.
FLASH

SOUND GARDEN
by babel & binnorie (Cdn & USA)
Gently mouse over this piece for layers of animated flowers and layers of vocals by binnorie. also check out "strAngel" for another collaboration between babel & binnorie.
FLASH

PALL THAYER
Pall Thayer (Iceland)
Pall Thayer creates work with Pure Data and other net-based audio and programming tech.
VARIOUS

MOBIL_IZING
by Delirious Lazyness — Giselle Beiguelman, Marcus Bastos, Rafael Marchetti (Brazil)
mobil_izing is a webdjaying system based on an open multi-user database for online sampling. All content—images, sounds, texts, films and audio— portray traffic and flux situations. It is fed by its users and promotes a collective remix process in real time on the web and in exhibition spaces.
FLASH/PHP

SOUNDTOYS.NET
curated by Stanza (Britain)
An ongoing anthology of interactive sound works and a collection of writings on sound. See also a profile of Stanza.
VARIOUS

STICKY SOUND ELASTIC STRUCTURE
by Santiago Ortiz (Colombia)
Charming 3D geometrical sonic animism. Also see Ortiz's other interactive sonic works.
FLASH

SODACONDUCTOR
by David Muth (audio prog), Ed Burton & Soda (UK)
The popular SodaConstructor by Ed Burton & Soda, where you construct nodal critters, includes a beta with interactive sound by David Muth. A different version of the sonified piece is here.
JSYN (JAVA)

STUDIO TONNE
by Paul Farrington (England)
Paul Farrington has done interactive Flash work for Depeche Mode, Moby, Scanner, and various other bands and labels.
FLASH

ARCANGEL CONSTANTINI
by A. Constantini & Alvaro Ruiz (Mexico)
Also check out his bakteria.org.
FLASH

SOUND POEMS
by Jörg Piringer (Austria)
Interactive automata sound poems.
FLASH

PET_00
by S. Yuill and Laura Baxter (Scottland)
"PET_00 compositions are made from three types of basic elements: particles, attractors and triggers. Particles have audio samples linked to them. They move across the screen and when they cross a trigger area the sound is played. The movement of the particles can be influenced by the attractors." Mouseover the bottom of the window for a menu. The thing of interest here is the constructive/generative interface whereby you construct from "particles, attractors and triggers".
FLASH

DARWINSTRUMENTS
by Jeremy Thorp (Canada)
"Better sound through evolution." You listen to sounds, pick two you like, and then click the "Hybridize" button. The app then generates new sounds that are hybrids of the two you choose. Sex between sounds.
FLASH

EKPUROSIS
by Xavier Pehuet (France)
Ekpurosis is "universal regeneration"; many visual and auditory movements. Visuals done with Imaging Lingo.
DIRECTOR

P-SOUP
by Mark Napier, John Maxwell Hobbes, and Kees van den Doel (USA)
Waves of interactive pure tones and colour/shapes. This was made when Java could only handle 8-bit sound..
JAVA

CTRALTDEL.ORG
by Peter Luining (Netherlands)
Peter Luining's site of Shockwave interactives; uses short sounds, rectilinear graphics; many net art audio works.
VARIOUS

IXI SOFTWARE
by Thor Magnusson (Iceland) & friends
A group collaborating on the creation of downloadable Shockwave technology and music. You download their tools and use them to create music and visuals.
DIRECTOR

CLOCK DIN
by Gord High & friends (Canada)
Trigger loops (which keep playing) or shots (which play once). Decomposed songs by Gord High, Ken Toba, Beatrix12, Torisu Koshiro, Geordie Wilson, and more.
FLASH

REPERCUSSION
by Carla Diana (USA)
A collection of 3D virtual instruments. The interface is the interesting thing here. Visually well-designed Flash 3D.
FLASH

AUDIOGAME.NET
by Marc Em (France)
A suite of amusing audio toys.
FLASH

PICTUREDISKO
by Mario Klingemann (Germany)
Scratch images from flickr.com that get transformed from images into MIDI sounds. PC only.
FLASH/PROCESSING

COMPOUND PILOT
by Jonathan Zalben and M. Jones (USA)
Flash works. See also the downloadable MAX work for Mac.
FLASH

INNOT.ORG
by Julio Hardisson, Daniel Bravo, Laura Miyashiro, Felip Miralles (Spain)
3D audio machine. Join 3D shapes together to create visual/aural compositions.
DIRECTOR

MYTUNE=MYPOLLOCK
by CJ Yehs (USA/Taiwan)
Select a colour. Then use the keyboard (Q,W,E,R,T,Y,U,I) to create a tune and a Pollockish bitmap.
FLASH

BLONK ORGAN
by Jaap Blonk and friends (Netherlands)
Japp Blonk is a famous sound poet and writer. This work is from 1997, making it one of the first interactive sound poems on the Web.
DIRECTOR

VOCALEYES
by Maria Mencia (UK)
Drawing curves causes audio. You can switch colors and sounds.
DIRECTOR

DIRTY PUNK FUCKIN ANARCHY MACHINE
by Kévin Nave (France)
Keyboard controlled aural interactivity. Like the title says.
FLASH

BALLDROPPINGS
by Josh Nimoy (USA)
"Balls fall from the top of the screen and bounce off the lines you are drawing with the mouse. The balls make a percussive and melodic sound, whose pitch depends on how fast the ball is moving when it hits the line."
JSYN/PROCESSING (Java)

SOUNDMAPS
by Jan de Weille (France)
A downloadable executable for PC's.
"Soundmaps makes music out of your desktop actions. Soundmaps translates a part of the bitmap image on your desktop into sound. Drawing, typing, surfing, playing a movie etc. will constantly change the sound. Hence, you can make your own music while working."
C++

ANDRE MICHELLE
by André Michelle (Germany)
André's lab of his experiments with Flash work is very interesting. Sort of like JSyn work in its granularity and wave synthesis.
FLASH

NEON BIBLE
by Vincent Morisset & friends (Canada)
An original song with terrific visual interactivity—much better than a typical music video. Also check out Vincent's site vincentmorisset.com for other projects.
FLASH

ELECTRICA
by Gundula Markeffsky, Peter Huehlfriedel, Leonard Schaumann (Germany)
If you can get this working, this is terrific. Uses the Beatnik plugin. Supplies a link to an installable exe of the plugin, and requires Netscape 4. I installed the plugin and installed Netscape 4.72 but couldn't get it working on my Windows XP system. But I tell ya this is/was one of the most exciting interactive sound works for the Web. A crying shame it's so hard to get working now!
BEATNIK/MIDI
 

Writings & Video

INTERACTIVE AUDIO FOR THE WEB
by Jim Andrews (Canada)
I wrote this after putting these links together (2006). A look at interactive audio for the Web as an art form.

NIO AND THE ART OF INTERACTIVE AUDIO FOR THE WEB
by Jim Andrews (Canada)
A 2001 essay.

TECHNOTES ON NIO AND AUDIO PROGRAMMING WITH DIRECTOR
by Jim Andrews (Canada)
A 2002 essay on how the Nio programming was done in Director.

INTERACTIVE AUDIO ON THE WEB
by Jim Andrews (Canada)
A 2003 essay on the elements of interactive audio on the Web. Many of the links don't work anymore, but the ideas still work.

SOUNDTOYS.NET ESSAYS AND OTHER WRITINGS
many authors (International)
A large collection of writing on sound art and computer audio.

NETART.ORG.UY WRITING LINKS
many authors (International)
Scroll down in the linked doc and you'll find a section called ref.theory.links, which links to various writings on audio art and technology.

INTERNET RADIO
by Jim Andrews (Canada)
Links to and thoughts on Internet radio, which is a more interesting 'band' than the regular radio band.

YOUTUBE ON INTERACTIVE MUSIC
by various (International)
There are quite a few interesting videos at youtube.com concerning offline interactive music projects. In particular, have a look at Reactable.

1995 VIDEO ON INTERACTIVE MUSIC
S. O'Brien, D. Fox, S. Cheifet (USA)
A 1995 episode of the TV show The Computer Chronicles on interactive music. Interesting to see what it was like in 1995. Demonstrations include Vid Grid, Sound Toy, William Orbit Strange Cargo, So You Want to be a Rock & Roll Star, Rock & Roll On Your Own, Dylan:Highway 61 Interactive, Video Jam, and Vivace. Also featured is a visit to Todd Rundgren's sound studio.
 

Other news sources for new work

URZHIATA
by emoc (France)
Great collection of links to online interactive sonic works.

GRATIN.ORG
by Antoine Schmitt (France)
Links to works and resources concerning algorithmic art. Not all the links concern sonic art, but there are good ones here that do.

VISUALMUSIC.BLOGSPOT.COM
by Maura McDonnell (Ireland)
A blog on visual music. Lots of great links and videos--for instance, to a video by Varese & Le Corbusier called Poeme electronique from 1958.

NEURAL.IT
by Alessandro Ludovico (Italy)
Whenever new works of interactive audio on the net are made, they often show up here first. Scroll through neural.it looking for works labelled "e-music". Some of them are Web-based.

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Graphics by
Regina Célia Pinto