Virtual VJ

Steve Gibson and Stefan Müller Arisona, since 2011

Virtual VJ takes the concept of Virtual DJ one step further and unites the role of the DJ and VJ into one interface: 3D space. The concept of Virtual VJ is to allow two or more users to control different aspects of the sound and video environment with their movements. One tracker is set to trigger sound and video and the other is set to manipulate the sound and video initiated by the first tracker. The focus of the media integration is on the development of observable connections between the audio and video mediums in order to assist the users with ease of interaction. Continue reading →

MetroBuzz: Interactive Visualization of Urban Transportation Data

Agent based simulation tools such as MATSim and MITSIM allow us to achieve efficient and accurate predictions of crowd behavior, thereby increasing our understanding of urban systems and assist in urban planning. However, output produced by such simulation platforms are difficult to communicate to stakeholders such as government agencies and the general public due to their technical nature. Continue reading →

Esri CityEngine – 3D City Modeling for Architecture, Film, and Games

Esri CityEngine, is a 3D modeling software application developed by Esri R&D Center Zurich (formerly Procedural Inc.) and is specialized in the generation of three dimensional urban environments. With the procedural modeling approach, CityEngine enables the efficient creation of detailed large-scale 3D city models with merely a few clicks of the mouse instead of the time exhaustive & work intensive method of object creation & manual placement. CityEngine works with architectural object placement & arrangement in the same manner that VUE manages terrain, ecosystems & atmosphere mapping & is equally as diverse in its ability of object manipulation & environmantal conformity/harmony as its VUE counterpart. The recent acquisition of CityEngine by Esri is aiming to push the innovations in 3D GIS and Geodesign technology (from Wikipedia). Continue reading →

Procedural City – Biometric Cities at Your Fingerprints

Permanent Exhibition Ars Electronica Center, 2009 – 2012

Procedural City is an interactive media installation which has incorporated the generative modeling features of CityEngine along with a biometric fingerprint scanner. It enables the user to create his/her own personal city according to their fingerprint. Continue reading →

The Exploding, Plastic and Inevitable Redux

Stefan Müller Arisona and Steve Gibson, since 2006

EPI Redux is re-imagining of the psychedelic classic The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, created by Andy Warhol with the Velvet Underground in the late 1960s. Rather than literally interpreting the original Warhol event, EPI Redux seeks to update psychedelia for the new millennium. Using an excess of technology the project immerses viewers in an overload of the senses and in a Gesamtkunstwerk where sound, vision, space and time coincide. Continue reading →

ETH Zurich’s Digital Art Weeks

I am co-founder and scientific director of ETH Zurich’s Digital Art Weeks. The Digital Art Weeks, an annually recurring festival, are concerned with the application of digital technology in the arts. Consisting of a symposium, workshops and performances, the program offers insight into current research and innovations in art and technology as well as illustrating resulting synergies in a series of performances, making artists aware of impulses in technology and scientists aware of the possibilities of the application of technology in the arts. In 2008 and 2010, a very successful version of Digital Art Weeks took place in Shanghai and Xi’an, China, and currently DAW’13 (early 2013) in Singapore is preparation… Continue reading →

Book: Transdisciplinary Digital Art

Edited by Randy Adams, Steve Gibson, Stefan Müller Arisona, 2008

This volume collects selected papers from the past two instances of Digital Art Weeks (Zurich, Switzerland) and Interactive Futures (Victoria, BC, Canada), two parallel festivals of digital media art. The work represented in Transdisciplinary Digital Art is a confirmation of the vitality and breadth of the digital arts. Collecting essays that broadly encompass the digital arts, Transdisciplinary Digital Art gives a clear overview of the on-going strength of scientific, philosophical, aesthetic and artistic research that makes digital art perhaps the defining medium of the 21st Century. Continue reading →

Computer-assisted Media Authoring Techniques

Stefan Müller Arisona, research fellowship at UCSB, 2007 – 2008

Project Summary

The volume of digital media content has enormously grown in the recent years: Emerging internet-based applications, such as YouTube or MySpace, are media-rich, emphasise on content sharing, and attract huge communities. As the volume of content further expands, we see an increasing need for not only being able to annotate and retrieve content, but also to produce and edit content in a computer-assisted manner and by employing (semi-) automated methods. However, existing work so far does not satisfy these needs — both in terms of usable software instruments as well the underlying theoretical frameworks. This viewpoint is also acknowledged by upcoming European Union IST projects: The Framework Programme 7 (FP7) calls for projects addressing Intelligent Content and Semantics and targets at advanced authoring environments for interactive and expressive content [ICT Programme Committee, 2007, Objective ICT-2007.4.2]. Continue reading →

Mobile Systems Architectures Lecture

The lecture “Mobile Systems Architectures 1 & 2”, taught at the Computer Systems Institute of ETH Zurich in 2006 and 2007, was realised in collaboration with Swisscom, and took an integral approach to mobile computing from a “systems view”. The course was targeted at master programme students with an interest in mobile applications and systems design. Its goal was to provide in-depth knowledge of all architectural aspects of today’s mobile systems and to prepare the students for taking a leading role in designing and implementing tomorrow’s mobile systems and application models. The course will directly benefited from the Institute’s internationally acknowledged research competence in systems construction. Swisscom contributed its competence and technicall skills as leading mobile network operator. Continue reading →