I’ve just publicly released the first available output from the Synesthesizer — a side-project, executed in Flash, that translates pictures into music. The Synesthesizer is the first tangible product of Project Ludi, an internal skunkworks project here at Almer/Blank, the goal of which is to translate any type of media into any other type of media.
The Synesthesizer is a Flash 10 musical synthesizer that relies on synesthesia-inspired translation metaphors.
Adobe has posted R Blank's talk at MAX 2009, 'Practical ActionScript 3 for Flash CS3 and CS4' to Adobe TV. You may download the slides and accompanying code files from R's blog.
I spent most of my time at Adobe MAX 2009 at the FITC Unconference. This year placed in the middle of the exhibit hall, and with a stellar lineup of speakers including Ralph Hauwert, Robert Reinhardt, Phillip Kerman, Joshua Hirsch, Grant Skinner, and Joa Ebert (among many more) -- and featuring free Influxis beer -- turnout was excellent and the vibe was really cool.
I'm sure FITC will be posting some pix of the event soon, but I took a few myself and posted the album on Photobucket (what's this with monthly limits on Flickr?!?! I've posted two albums there in my life, but made the mistake of trying to post a third right after the 2nd -- lord knows that's the last time I'll be trying that one).
Oh, and my talk, Hearing Pictures with The Ludi Machine went really well. Because of IP-ownership issues, I can't post the work I showed (I don't own the sound files I used), but the code wasn't the important part anyway. The 25 minutes of talking before getting to the code was the really fun part. I started out with 2 people in the audience but ended up with a full house, including at least a dozen standing by the entrance. I don't want to post the slides yet. This was a first shot at something -- using a funky platform like the Unconference to try out something new -- and it worked out well, so I want to invest more time in making this a meaningful lecture, at which point I'll start making parts of it available online as well. I've included a totally-unfulfilling snapshot of a Ludi-powered sound-board in action, translating a snapshot from the Hubble telescope into 'music':
Kudos to Shawn Pucknell, Erin Kelly and FITC for running such a great event and Kudos to Adobe for giving him the platform to do it right in the belly of the beast.
LAFlashapaloozastock IV was last Saturday and it was a fantastic event. As with LFPS 1 in October 2005, this event was timed to precede MAX, in part to bring some of MAX to the members of the community who do not attend the conference.
The talks throughout the day were really well received. Autodesk opened up with some really neat stuff, including a Flash workflow, and extended clips from 2012. Chuck Freedman from Ribbit demonstrated some really fun interaction between Flash and the microphone. Matt Snow from Adobe showed some really cool work of Flash working on set-top boxes, integrating with HD video. Joshua Hirsch from Big Spaceship discussed maintaining a creative environment, and showed off a really neat twitter application that pings tweets and averages out emotions from emoticons. And we closed with 'the Joshua Davis show', which is always a blast and a source of inspiration to a ton of Flash designers and developers out there.
We closed with a party -- and quite a party it was. Certainly the wildest we've had in the four years we've been doing this. Featuring Influxis-powered kegs, MTV-infused martinis, and a great American-style BBQ dinner, we lubricated attendees for the main events of the night: a burlesque show, featuring a pole dancer, a funky magic show, and quite the limbo contest. Videos from these are posted below.
I wish I had time to post more on the event. But it was a great time with a great turn-out. Again, a special thanks to all sponsors, without whom it would be simply impossible to throw an event this large and cool for the community FOR FREE. Particular thanks to Adobe, Autodesk and Ribbit for stepping up as main sponsors, and Influxis (who sponsored the party) and MTV (who sponsored the martini bar). Of course, big shout out to Almer/Blank for hosting!
I've posted some of my photos of the event on Flickr, and we'll be posting more photos as we have time to compile them.
That said, my favorite photo of the night is this one, in which one LA Flasher reviews his new book from O'Reilly (which he won in that night's raffle), proudly ignoring the pole dance going on right in front of him. This is exactly how you can tell you're at an LA Flash event.
My favorite video of the night is this one, in which Joshua Davis contributes his graffiti to the LAFlashapaloozastock Art Wall.
Two more videos from the party are compilations of the pole dance and the limbo contest. Share and enjoy!
Pole Dancer
Limbo
Yesterday afternoon I had the privilege of addressing a crowd of over 100 at MAX. Apparently, the slides and source code that accompany the talk were not placed on the attendee extranet at MAX. So, per request of some of the attendees, I am posting the files here. (If you were one of the people who attended, thank you very much for turning out.)
As you can see, the subject was 'Practical ActionScript 3', which is a one-hour version of a day-long (8-hour) curriculum I have created, and teach through the Rich Media Institute.
I will be teaching the full-day version of this workshop on October 24th in Toronto and November 7th in Los Angeles. A 3-hour online version is also available through the RMI (that hasn't yet been updated for Flash Player 10, as the live workshop has).
I'd also like to take this opportunity to note that I will be teaching a full-day version of my new AS3 workshop, 'Working With and Extending Events in ActionScript 3 (on October 25th in Toronto and November 8th in Los Angeles). I know 'Events' isn't often treated as it's own subject, worthy of an entire day-long course, but in my experience this is an incredibly useful subject -- events are really the key to functional fluency in AS3 and once you understand them (which really isn't *that* difficult) you can basically do anything you want in Flash. It's designed to accompany Practical AS3 (which is why I'm teaching it the immediately following day in both Toronto and LA), and I would really strongly suggest you consider enrolling.
UPDATE
So turns out Adobe captured the whole talk and posted it on Adobe TV. Share and enjoy!
Kudos to Shawn Pucknell, Erin Kelly and 
