Orbit '98 IKB Sion '99 Fred '99 CyborgFrictions '99 BrainFair 2000
Orbit '98 IKB Sion '99 Fred '99 CyborgFrictions '99 BrainFair 2000
| I can see the audience becoming
not a passive receiver of the performance, but an active participant in
some way. If we can project a little farther, I think the divisions we
make between audience and artist might be quickly disappearing, so we [can]
expect audiences to be involved in creativity on a very high level.
Philip Glass
|
| brains as organs
The brain is regarded as the organ that creates
our emotions, thoughts and behavior. As with the whole body, the brain’s
smallest building units are cells. In case of the brain, these cells are
called nerve cells or neurons. Neurons, as other specialized cells in the
body, have unique functional properties. They generate electrical signals
that are triggered by sensors and received and processed by other neurons
or by muscle cells. By using this relatively simple basic process, the
cells in our brain allow us to master the challenges of our daily lives.
Although the basic functional principles of the brain are simple, trying
to understand how our brains actually enable us to feel, think and act
proved to be very difficult and is currently an important area of scientific
research.
are brains computers? The research field of Neuroinformatics takes a
close look at the way nerve cells and nervous systems relay and process
information. Here at the Institute of
Neuroinformatics (INI) we investigate the computational properties
of nervous systems from the biological as well as from the technical side.
On the one hand we do experiments on the functional properties of real
nerve cells and circuits, and on the other hand we try to use the principles
we find in these experiments to develop neuromorphic applications using
computer simulation and chip design.
artificial brains and Roboser One of the many examples of our research here at
the INI is Roboser, an interactive and autonomous music composition
and improvisation system. Roboser is comprised of two main components:
On the one hand there is IQR421, a computer program for simulating large-scale
neural networks. It processes data originating from various kinds of sensory
devices (e.g. cameras, microphones, and robots) and extracts the output
features from which a composition is produced. On the other there is Curvasom,
a composition engine that merges the neural output of IQR421 with a stylistic
framework and produces interactive music with variable complexity in real-time.
The result is a brain-like system that changes its internal states according
to sensory input and communicates these states to the audience through
music.
going public We did and will do public performances with Roboser to introduce this new technology to a broad audience and to test the system under live performance conditions. Below you find a list of events where Roboser has participated so far or will participate in the near future. Orbit '98 IKB Sion '99 Fred '99 CyborgFrictions '99 BrainFair 2000
roboser music to download Below you find links to sound files made from Roboser music. Just click to download. There are also longer versions in MP3 format. Downloading might take some time, so please be
patient.
Roboser crew prof. jônatas manzolli
dr. paul f. m. j. verschure
dr. mark blanchard
ulysses bernardet
klaus wassermann
|