Getting out and around

Multi-legged walking machines, eavesdropping by phone, and a computer music festival at Stanford.

I live on the San Francisco peninsula, not far from Stanford. It's been raining here for weeks and I've been feeling a little stir-crazy. That's probably why I've been thinking so much about getting outside and walking around. I've just finished writing about Theo Jansen's enormous machines cruising on multiple legs along Dutch beaches. I'm also about to tell you about a different kind of ambulatory project -- organized eavesdropping via cell phone along an urban walking route. Come back soon for details on the Pedestrian Project.

Coming right up in my back yard from April 27 through 29 is a three-day celebration, April 27 through 29, at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. CCRMA is run by Chris Chafe. His animated film Organum turns "traditional" music visualization upside down by using data from digital images to generate the sounds his characters make as they speak and locomote around their imaginary world. Stanford is also the home of composer Mark Applebaum, whose latest instrument, the Mouseketier, is (in his own words) "a musical Frankenstein consisting of threaded rods, nails, combs, doorstops, springs, squeaky wheels, ratchets, a toilet tank flotation bulb, and other unlikely objects". Applebaum also notably collaborates with a performer who has unusual brainwave skills. I'm looking forward to telling you all about what these guys and their friends come up with.