Comments on: TED2013: Bluebrain's location-aware albums

By: Andrew Wright

Andrew Wright — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:36:00 +0000

I also thought of Brian Eno when reading this. And I think Eno would really dig what Bluebrain is doing.

By: glittalogik

glittalogik — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:58:00 +0000

I’m getting goosebumps thinking about these guys making a soundtrack for Ingress. It’d be a match made in heaven/shaperspace!

By: MarlboroTestMonkey7

MarlboroTestMonkey7 — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 18:12:00 +0000

So, at the office I should be surrounded by the deafening cries of the boss bird?

By: aperturehead

aperturehead — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 04:44:00 +0000

If a song falls in the forest does it make a sound?

By: aperturehead

aperturehead — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 23:58:00 +0000

Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports” also comes to mind. Not an arcade game, but in tune with an airport environment.

By: Jake Rennie

Jake Rennie — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 23:29:00 +0000

This is really cool, however, I think it could go one step further. A collaborative, worldwide, location-based musical platform. The tracks representative of each area would be chosen by voters in the community, and, to prevent abuse, would require a certain number of votes before actually appearing in the field. Exploration of the world would yield not only new sights to be seen and people to meet, but new music. Imagine going to a remote place in the woods and finding that there is a song here that can be found nowhere else in the world.

By: paulj

paulj — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:44:00 +0000

There was an interesting little iPhone app that did something like this called RjDj. Unfortunately the developers pulled it from the store and replaced it with a new app that layered gamification on top of the original concept.

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:42:00 +0000

Lucasarts games had iMUSE, which changed the musical cues in the X-Wing series of games. Tense battle music would suddenly turn into a triumphant fanfare when you achieved your mission.

By: Nadreck

Nadreck — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:30:00 +0000

The old arcade game “Marble Madness” used to have (virtual) location aware music.

By: Nadreck

Nadreck — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:29:00 +0000

People used to have Music Miesters, like Handel, on staff for things like that. ”The Earl of Muck is coming over for lunch so cook up some welcoming music for him. Later I’ll be doing the estate’s books so I’ll need some unobtrusive background music.”

By: aperturehead

aperturehead — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 21:49:00 +0000

I like how during Bluebrain’s “National Mall Piece” the music gets all happy with a big Techno beat when the young woman glides up the stairs and she glimpses the large statue of Lincoln. It’s as if she’s undergone some sort of spiritual enlightenment caused by the combined synesthesic magic of the music and the statue

This sounds like a great idea, but what if down the road (no pun intended) one of the key play areas, statues or ponds is removed or enlarged or re-configured? It seems like any change in the target environment would ruin the overall intention of an album forever. Or is there a way to plug in another piece of music for a pond if the pond soon dries up or if a playground is bull-dozed to make way for a McDonalds? Holloday must know that environments change – sometimes overnight.

I’d actually like to commission an album like this for my family living room. There could be a piece of music for when we hang up our car keys in the hall, some music that soothes us as we pass our dining room table and a piece of music each for our three cats. A piece of music composed specifically in honor of our 52-inch big screen TV would be helpful, too : )