chailight productions

irfanspace

em:p — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:11:49 +0000

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IrfanSpace: Golconda

em:p — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 15:53:48 +0000

IrfanSpace: Golconda explores themes of multiplicity and unity, decay and renewal in the context of Islamic philosophy, history and architecture. Based on a poem by contemporary Urdu poet Jameela Nishat, this piece incorporates Nishat’s reflection on the fading glory of the city of Hyderabad. Founded as the capital of the Deccan region of India in 1591 by the Qutub Shahi kings, Hyderabad is now being reborn as a hub of India’s burgeoning IT economy.

The poem, read by the author, is woven into the sound space following unfolding lines of arabesque geometry. Field recordings from Hyderabad, including ambient spaces from the ruins of Golconda fort referred to in the poem, and the sounds of the liminal community developing along the highway leading to the city’s new international airport, anchor the text between the receding past and the approaching future.

Underpinning the piece is the chanted Arabic word “Hu” meaning simply “is” or “existence”. The arabesque patterns which describe the movement of the individual sound objects were a frequent feature of Islamic architecture in Hyderabad, and serve as a form of meditation on the void, playing with positive and negative space, and leading the listener through the complex iterations mirrored in the maze-like bazaar of the Old City before emerging into the inner courtyards of mosques, temples and palaces – the Irfanic spaces of contemplation.

This piece is designed for 4 channel playback. A stereo version is available for streaming below. Please contact us if you are interested in the multi-channel version.

GreenFaith Soundscape

em:p — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 06:32:35 +0000

GreenFaith commissioned a soundscape for their forum at BMW Edge in Federation Square as part of the Melbourne Sustainable Living Festival in 2009. The soundscape played quietly as people arrived and then once they had settled, the main body of the soundscape was designed to confront the audience with the challenge of dealing with human impact on environment, but also provide a sense of hope. With the Black Saturday fires in Victoria still a painfully recent memory, the forum was a powerful event.

‘The powerful story of human damage to, and healing of, nature transported
the audience out of the BMW Edge on waves of memorably emotive sound,
artfully cratfed by the Chailight team’.

Invisible Territory

em:p — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 02:29:53 +0000

In this project, Ralph Muhlberger and I explored issues of developing a sonification of the game of Go, and then adapting the sonification for use in an interactive performance piece featuring Shakuhachi, the Japanese end-blown flute, as a primary instrument for interaction and as a sound-source for the sonification. Our approach to sonification seeks to establish a mapping from data to sound which preserves the symbolism and the aesthetics of the game, as well as present the data embodied in a specific game record in a form that is as transparently comprehensible as possible. The performance incorporated live improvisation by a human performer interacting with a sonified game of Go. A research paper and a performance were presented at Australasian Computer Music Conference in 2005.

You can hear a recording of the performance below, and read the full paper here: Invisible Territory: Sonifying the Game of Go.

dreamquilt

em:p — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:55:04 +0000

dreamquilt brings an electro-acoustic fusion that drifts through a dreamscape where snatches of middle eastern folk tunes and western pop emerge from the swirling electronic textures, dreamquilt takes you on journey to the valley of sound.

dreamquilt are:

Callan Pink – guitar, didge and vocals
Madeleine Boyd – violin, vocals
Christine Alderton – keyboards & vocals
Mark Pedersen – electronics and production

sound

em:p — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 06:00:36 +0000

chailight productions offers a range of specialised sound design services including:

sound design for radio, theatre and dance
sound design for websites, computer games and new media
interactive installations for galleries and museums
location recording
sound post-production, including surround sound
bespoke software and hardware development

image

em:p — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 12:00:23 +0000

chailight image design provides high quality digital images for licensed use, as well as limited edition fine art prints and photo books, and finished artwork for physical and digital music releases. we also offer complete video production services for documentary work through to music video clips and artistic installations. See more...

music

em:p — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 10:49:12 +0000

The chailight sound is global, glitched and dubbed out. the vibe is mostly ambient and chilled, but it can get funky. In the current line-up, Hathira Sama takes the electro-acoustic improv path into the Subcontinent, while em:p explores texture and structure in more contemplative experimental pieces, and the empty quarter blend folk guitar and vocals, electric bass, electronics and Indian percussion with the ancient wisdom of Hafiz, Ghalib, Rumi...and a touch of king tubby. Hear more...

SimpleNI Processing version of OSCeleton

em:p — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:03:28 +0000

A quick post to share a little bit of code I tweaked on the weekend. I’ve been experimenting with a Kinect sensor for gestural input into Max/MSP, and especially need skeleton tracking. I got OSCeleton working, but found it a little unstable, and I didn’t really like having to run X11 just to get a visual feedback display. Ferhat Sen’s OpenNI2OSC Processing patch was the next step, and by combining it with the SimpleNI Processing wrapper library, I managed to get a full skeleton tracking to OSC system in Processing, that seems pretty stable and eliminates the need for X11.

The output is fully compatible with the standard OSC output of OSCeleton (at least it worked identically with an existing Max/MSP patch I had running with OSCeleton). However, it only supports tracking 1 user at the moment, and it doesn’t support kitchen studio or quartz composer OSC modes.

Download the Processing file here: SimpleOpenNI_UserOSC Processing.pde

No doubt there’ll be updates and if this doesn’t find a home somewhere else, I guess I’ll put it up on github, but here it is for now. Props to all who’ve forged this path – looking forward to where it leads us!

Hathira Sama play Senegal!

em:p — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 12:37:19 +0000

After a fantastic trip to the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music in June, Hathira Sama have been invited to play at the Sufi Festival of Unity in Senegal in January! Full details of the gig are here. We’ll be playing our main concert on Goree Island, a 20 minute ferry ride from Dakar, at 7:00pm on Wed 5 January, with the soulful Amandou and Miriam playing at 9:00pm the same night.

Also on the festival line up are Kora master Toumani Diabate, Senegal’s favourite, Ismael Lo, and our friend Ali Keeler’s group Al Kauthara from Granada. We’re feeling very honoured to have been invited by Sidi Ibrahim Tijani, and to be in such distinguished company. We’ll be playing another gig earlier in the week at the Festival venue in Dakar. We’re looking forward the journey – stay tuned for more news.