Memo Akten

I've been using @readwise.bsky.social for quite a few years now, to collect my highlights across books, articles etc. I just saw they introduced a "chat with your highlights" LLM, so I asked "what's up highlights? how's it going?" And gosh I love this so much 😂

Huge thanks to Christiane Paul for commissioning, + our dream team:
Choreography+Mocap: Alexander Whitley
Music+Soundscapes: Paige Emery
WebGPU Consultant and Developer: @holtsetio.bsky.social
Studio Assistant: Milana Aernova
made w #threejs #webgpu
whitney.org/exhibitions/...

Very happy to share that Whitney Museum of American Art has launched 'The Thinking Ocean' — the first work in our #Cosmosapience series, with @katiehofstadter.bsky.social

Experience it here: whitney.org/exhibitions/...

Very moved by this incredibly thoughtful nuance-filled review of SUPERRADIANCE @grayarea.org w @katiehofstadter.bsky.social
Especially as it’s by OG new media artist Scott @snibbe.com! Even his critique is the most beautiful I’ve ever received 😅. So grateful 🙏
www.roborantreview.com/reviews/supe...

Than you Şerife! 🙏🙏🙏

Memo Akten & Katie Hofstadter: The Thinking Ocean The Thinking Ocean by Memo Akten and Katie Hofstadter is part of the artists’ series Cosmosapience, and simulates a dynamic body of water, fluctuating between the physics of fluids and the logic of co...

Beautiful piece saw performed live last night by @memoakten.bsky.social and @katiehofstadter.bsky.social . I suggest using your largest screen at home and volume way up to drift between poetic inquiry into computing and the mathematical awe of our natural world whitney.org/exhibitions/...

Bay area friends! @katiehofstadter.bsky.social & I are very happy to share that SUPERRADIANCE is coming to you thx to @grayarea.org
Opening tomorrow, + on Friday a spoken word performance + premiere of a brand new piece 'The Thinking Ocean' (more on that soon :)
grayarea.org/exhibitions/...

Happy to be back at NeurIPS!
With @katiehofstadter.bsky.social
(My first NeurIPS was 10 yrs ago, with two posters and a ‘live demo’! Feels like centuries ago!)

Happy to drop a new touchdesigner tutorial & project.

POP particles wiggling around leaving trails; constrained inside animated Mesh; custom atttributes; normals; ray casting; proximity; controlling size & color with age using TOP & CHOP lookups; +more

www.patreon.com/posts/touchd...

I'm in the verse today talking about reverse engineering the kinect 15 years ago, alongside @theowatson.bsky.social, @memoakten.bsky.social , and @adafruit.com!

Thanks for covering this @geoffreybunting.bsky.social! Lots of fun memories.

London friends! @katiehofstadter.bsky.social & I (aka Superradiance Lab :) are very happy to be showing (excerpts from) SUPERRADIANCE at Outernet with Gazelli Art House during frieze weekend. Every hour on the hour till 11pm. Tomorrow (Monday) is the last day I believe!

Bringing in musical scales and more intricate control over notes, midi velocities etc in Part 5 of 'Webcam Piano' in Touchdesigner, now live at
www.patreon.com/posts/webcam...

Continuing this - what ended up being rather epic - series: Part 4 of 'Webcam Piano' in Touchdesigner is here!

POPs, MIDI, Python, GLSL, Ableton Live and more!
www.patreon.com/posts/webcam...

Finally, Webcam Piano in Touchdesigner Part 3 is up! Apologies for the delay. This ended up being quite an ambitious series! A few more videos to come :)
www.patreon.com/posts/webcam...

Who wants computers to make music that sounds human. That's so boring 😂

As 'Agentic AI' becomes the new buzzword, I fondly remember mid 2010s 'bot' wave. Especially loved bot-band @mpf.bsky.social's Petita Tatata + my Petita DumDum Techa. Every day Tatata generates, recites & posts beautiful abstract poetry & my bot improvises music over it. Every day a new surprise :)

Webcam Piano Part 2 is up! This one is a short introduction to MIDI (in particular with touchdesigner and ableton live)

Full video at
www.patreon.com/posts/webcam...

🙏🙏

As I turn half a century old, I'm v happy to share a new touchdesigner tutorial. Recreating one of my old works Webcam Piano. Motion detection with frame differencing, MIDI, POPs, Python, GLSL and more.
Also shout out to David Rokeby!👋
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVHf...

And since some problems are undecidable (ie uncomputable), physical systems exist which - despite following fully deterministic laws - are inherently unpredictable. Not due to chaos or noise, but due to limits of computation (and laws of the universe) itself.
This is a big deal. More soon :)
🌊🌊🌊

Navier-Stokes equations (that model fluid behavior) are Turing complete. Ie for any given Turing machine (computation) a stationary fluid flow can be constructed such that tracking the trajectory of a particle in the flow encodes the execution of the computation... (1/2)
(Vid except from WAVES 2014)

We sail through endless skies
Stars shine like eyes
The black night sighs
…
Light of the night
The Earth, a purple blaze
Of sapphire haze
In orbit always
…
And so, we pass on by
…
As we travel the universe

RIP #OzzyOsbourne
Planet Caravan, 1970

Video: Reincarnation, 2009

2/5

A selection of work in 5 minutes (upto 2024)
1/2

(Music by @machinefabriek.bsky.social , original composition for my 2014/2015 WAVES piece)

love it! I remember this from back in the day. Vimeo was such a lovely little place circa 2010!

Just remembered the beautiful crazy project 'A Strange Loop' we made with @presstube.bsky.social on @fxhash.bsky.social :)

www.fxhash.xyz/project/a-st...
(SOUND ON :)

SUPERRADIANCE performance Tech check ⁦‪@JacobsPillow‬⁩ for the opening of the new Doris Duke Theatre ❤️
@katiepeyton.bsky.social

It gets even more complicated when you realize Houdini POPs (Particle Operators, have dynamics) are very different to Touchdesigner POPs (Point Operators, no dynamics, though you can give them dynamics). Though it's very nice to have these fully GPU accelerated!

Part 2 of Text Particles with Touchdesigner POPs is up!
Covering field effectors, point cloud mixing / morphing, more attribute math combine etc.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4L8...

Friends, my first tutorial video is up! :)

Text particles in Touchdesigner using POPs. (The approach isn't unique to POPs & cld be done w TOPs, SOPs or even CHOPs - 3D textures+UVW mapping. But this provides an excuse to get into POPs :)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9ed...