kwpe/, 2009-2012
Funded by University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA) Emerging Fields grant
UCSC Research Associate: G. Craig Hobbs
Researchers: Ian Pye, Joshua Sonstroem
Keyword Processing Environment (kwpe/) is a keyword tagging tool, SDK, sensor interface, and playback engine providing indexical and time-based tagging and performance of audio, video, XML, and sensor data. kwpe is optimized for instantaneuos (zero latency) access of metadata-rich content via tags.
Tagged objects can be used as interface elements, network nodes, or local objects. The objects are assignable and performable using graphical, touch, networked, and locally assigned hardware. The kwpe/ SDK provides extensible and scalable control of tagged metadata media for realtime performance and installation environments, while providing a fast, fluid, and free way to encode and securely share your metadata.
As an open-source tagging tool, the function of kwpe/ is to encourage embodied play and experimentation in new media contexts. We seek to liberate metadata from top-down control hierarchies inherent to web-based protocols. kwpe/ tagged files have been used in live cinema, installation, and net-based collaborative performances.
The project was funded through a University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA) Emerging Fields grant.
kwpe/ research
Bird Browser
iPhone App
2010
Developed for UCSC Professor Emeritus Todd Newberry, the kwpe/ Bird Browser prototype app allows for keyword search and manipulation of the speed and pitch of birdsong as a means to explore interspecies communication. The app communicates wirelessly to trigger projections and birdsongs, which can then be tweaked using the iPhone. The app was developed for a presentation by Professor Newberry in 2010.
kwpe/ Tag Cloud Video Server
Flash/ Air, Max/MSP
2009
The kwpe/ Tag Cloud Video Server is a cross-platform Adobe Flash/ Air Application. The tag cloud targets any given IP address, allowing tag cloud keywords to trigger audio and video files on local or remote video servers. This playback engine provides a prototyping tool for exploring realtime relationships between keyword and content in the development of kwpe/ playback engines.
kwpe/ Tagger v1.0 & v2.3
Objective C
2008-2010
The kwpe/ Tagger is the flagship tagging tool for the Keyword Processing Environment.
The original kwpe/ tagger v1.0, is a Cocoa Application which provides for indexical and temporal tagging of QuickTime audio and video files. The current development version is kwpe/ Tagger v2.3, a cross-platform, tagging tool written in ActionScript 3 as an Adobe Flash/ Air application.
The kwpe/ Tagger software provides for drag-and-drop import of audio and video files, indexical and temporal tagging using a scrubbable playhead, and the linking of kwpe/ metadata to tagged files. Tagged files can be easily enabled by developers and programmers using the kwpe/ SDK .
Tagger v1.0
Tagger v2.3
kwpe/ Max/MSP object: Respiration Monitor
Max/MSP Object written in C
2009
The kwpe/ Max/MSP object: Respiration Monitor is a stress reduction tool connecting Max/MSP to a respiration sensor. Attempting to liberate the breath from the clutches of Char Davies canonical new media works in the mid 1990's, the application brings human breath to the everyday realm of live audio and video performance.
The user straps the respiration monitor belt to their chest, calibrates the input, and then off they go into a land of breath as modulator. Current applications of the software includes, 1) breathing floats and integers in and out, 2) breathing through a visual meditation, 3), breathing though the news cycle.
The kwpe/ respiration monitor object for Max/MSP ~
The respiration sensor
The Breath Modulator 2-channel video mixer
