| Short Description | The Variant apps are a series of generative audiovisual artworks for iPad and iPhone from Interval Studios. |
| Platform | iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch). Requires iOS 8.0 or later |
| Price | variant:flare – 1.99, variant:blue – 1.99, variant:cascade – 1.99, variant:SONiC – free |
| Release Date | (ongoing) first release: September 24, 2015 |
| Publisher | Interval Studios |
| Category | Music, Art, Entertainment, Generative Art, Generative Sound, Kids App |
| Website | http://variant.intervalstudios.com |
| variant@intervalstudios.com | |
| @joshue | |
| European Bookings | booking@thisispersona.com |
variant:flare is an experiment in minimalist interactivity, in which the user interacts through simple taps that move the musical composition gradually forward and alter its effects on the generatively evolving visuals.
variant:blue combines autonomously evolving, chance-based indeterminate music with lines drawn directly by the user to create emergent and unexpected visual complexity.
variant:SONiC, a free app commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra for the 2015 SONiC Festival, couples the digitally transformed sounds of the festival’s performers with tightly integrated visuals and a tactile, highly responsive approach to interactivity.
variant:cascade is a generative audiovisual artwork designed specifically for the 3D Touch sensor on the iPhone 6s, in which increased pressure on the phone’s screen intensifies and transforms the visual and musical experience.
variant:cascade https://itunes.apple.com/app/variant-cascade/id1044094657
variant:flare https://itunes.apple.com/app/variant-flare/id996685061
variant:blue https://itunes.apple.com/app/variant-blue/id996684408
variant:SONiC https://itunes.apple.com/app/variant-SONiC/id1027149718
variant:cascade https://www.youtube.com/embed/EpJoobSb_MQ
variant:flare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3WNhTXGcKY
variant:blue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqHTmRbdjLE
variant:SONiC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta9lrnyjpIw
variant:blue
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variant:flare
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variant:SONiC
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variant info poster
variant:blue poster
variant:flare poster
variant:SONiC poster
variant http://variant.intervalstudios.com
SONiC festival http://sonicfestival.org/
Eyebeam http://eyebeam.org/
Joshue OttJoshue Ott is a visualist and software designer who creates cinematic visual improvisations that are performed live and projected in large scale. Working from hand-drawn forms manipulated in real time with superDraw, a software instrument of his own design, Ott composes evolving images that reside somewhere between minimalism, psychedelia, and Cagean chance. He has performed with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; with Son Lux at MASS MoCA; with Gina Gibney Dance at the Baryshnikov Arts Center; and frequently at venues throughout NYC, including Le Poisson Rouge and Roulette. Installation works include a large-scale audience interactive performance at the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik, Iceland; a collaborative drawing system installed on the IAC Center's 120-foot-long video wall; and a collaborative drawing installation at the NASA Ames Research Center. Ott is also the visual mastermind behind the hit iOS apps Thicket, snowDrift, Falling Stars, and Pitch Painter.
Kenneth KirschnerKenneth Kirschner is a composer of experimental music working at the intersection of avant-garde classical composition and contemporary electronic music. His work is characterized by a close integration of acoustic and electronic sound sources; a strong focus on harmony, pattern, and long-form development; and experimentation with techniques such as chance procedures, indeterminacy, and microtonality within a digital context. An advocate of open source practices, Kirschner releases all of his music freely online through his website, kennethkirschner.com, which represents a complete archive of all his published work from the 1980s to present. Recent projects include “Compressions & Rarefactions,” a nearly 7-hour album of recent compositions released on 12k Records, and “Imperfect Forms: The Music of Kenneth Kirschner,” a multimedia e-book from Berlin-based publisher Tokafi that includes essays, interviews, and artistic contributions from over two dozen journalists, musicians, and visual artists from around the world.
“Indeterminacy 2.0” is a series of articles written by Kenneth Kirschner for NewMusicBox that includes an in-depth discussion of the development of the music for the Variant series: part1, part2, part3, part4.
Interval Studios Releases “Variant” Series of Generative Audiovisual Apps
Brooklyn, NY, September 24, 2015 – Interval Studios, creators of Thicket and other pioneering interactive art apps, today released the first apps in the new Variant series. The Variant apps are a series of generative audiovisual artworks featuring visuals by visualist and software designer Joshue Ott and music by experimental composer Kenneth Kirschner. Available on iOS for iPad and iPhone, each of the apps features a unique visual composition, a different indeterminate musical composition, and a distinct approach to user interaction. All of the Variants are generative artworks that bring together chance and interactivity to create an ever-changing, ever-evolving audiovisual experience. The Variants will be an ongoing series, with three apps now available – variant:flare, variant:blue, and variant:SONiC – and more coming soon.
variant:flare is an experiment in minimalist interactivity, in which the user interacts through simple taps that move the musical composition gradually forward and alter its effects on the generatively evolving visuals.
variant:blue combines autonomously evolving, chance-based indeterminate music with lines drawn directly by the user to create emergent and unexpected visual complexity.
variant:SONiC, a free app commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra for the 2015 SONiC Festival, couples the digitally transformed sounds of the festival’s performers with tightly integrated visuals and a tactile, highly responsive approach to interactivity.
The Variant series was developed as part of the artist in residence program at the arts & technology non-profit organization Eyebeam.
Interval Studios creates engrossing, beautiful, visceral interactive art with a focus on the interaction of image and sound. Interval’s app portfolio includes the popular Thicket, Thicket:Classic and snowDrift, as well as a co-development credit on the massively successful Falling Stars. Founded in 2006 by visualist Joshue Ott, Interval creates next-level visual and audio experiences for mobile devices, concert halls, and anything in between.
Joshue Ott is a visualist and software designer who creates cinematic visual improvisations that are performed live and projected in large scale. Working from hand-drawn forms manipulated in real time with superDraw, a software instrument of his own design, Ott composes evolving images that reside somewhere between minimalism, psychedelia, and Cagean chance. He has performed with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; with Son Lux at MASS MoCA; with Gina Gibney Dance at the Baryshnikov Arts Center; and frequently at venues throughout NYC, including Le Poisson Rouge and Roulette. Installation works include a large-scale audience interactive performance at the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik, Iceland; a collaborative drawing system installed on the IAC Center's 120-foot-long video wall; and a collaborative drawing installation at the NASA Ames Research Center. Ott is also the visual mastermind behind the hit iOS apps Thicket, snowDrift, Falling Stars, and Pitch Painter.
Kenneth Kirschner is a composer of experimental music working at the intersection of avant-garde classical composition and contemporary electronic music. His work is characterized by a close integration of acoustic and electronic sound sources; a strong focus on harmony, pattern, and long-form development; and experimentation with techniques such as chance procedures, indeterminacy, and microtonality within a digital context. An advocate of open source practices, Kirschner releases all of his music freely online through his website, kennethkirschner.com, which represents a complete archive of all his published work from the 1980s to present. Recent projects include “Compressions & Rarefactions,” a nearly 7-hour album of recent compositions released on 12k Records, and “Imperfect Forms: The Music of Kenneth Kirschner,” a multimedia e-book from Berlin-based publisher Tokafi that includes essays, interviews, and artistic contributions from over two dozen journalists, musicians, and visual artists from around the world.
Eyebeam is a non-profit artist colony and R&D lab that supports dynamic and risk-taking work at the intersection of art and technology. Eyebeam is dedicated to educating and exposing audiences to experimental and interdisciplinary work, providing an environment for dialogue, collaboration, and discovery. Founded in 1997, Eyebeam was conceived as a non-profit art and technology center dedicated to exposing broad and diverse audiences to new technologies and media arts, while simultaneously establishing and demonstrating new media as a significant genre of cultural production. Today, Eyebeam offers residencies and fellowships for artists and technologists working in a wide range of media. At any given time, there are up to 12 resident artists and fellows onsite at Eyebeam’s production spaces in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, developing new projects and creating work for open dissemination through online, primarily open-source, publication, as well as a robust calendar of public programming that includes free exhibitions, lectures and panels, participatory workshops, live performances and educational series.
The American Composers Orchestra, founded in 1977, is the only orchestra in the world dedicated to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers. ACO makes the creation of new opportunities for American composers and new American orchestral music its central purpose. Through concerts at Carnegie Hall and other venues, recordings, internet and radio broadcasts, educational programs, New Music Readings, and commissions, ACO identifies today’s brightest emerging composers, champions prominent established composers as well as those lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting geographic, stylistic, and temporal diversity. ACO also serves as an incubator of ideas, research, and talent, as a catalyst for growth and change among orchestras, and as an advocate for American composers and their music.
The Variant series has been developed through a residency at the arts & technology organization Eyebeam.