Rodney Berry – Selected Resumé

Rod Berry Visual Resumé and Resumé

Contact and Personal Information

Full Name: Rodney Albert Berry

Phone: 045-708-6373 (mobile)

Email: rodberry@gmail.com

Biography Summary

Rodney is currently both lecturer in Music Technology at the UTAS Conservatorium of Music and a geek in residence at Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart.

Before returning to Australia in 2010, he was engaged in technological research for 12 years at National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and ATR Media Information Science Laboratories and ATR Media Integration and Communications Research Laboratories, Kyoto. This resulted in more than 50 peer-reviewed research publications. Prior to that, he was active as an artist and composer in Melbourne and Sydney and taught music composition at University of Western Sydney and Multimedia Sound Design at KMV Business College, Sydney

His work has ranged from sculptural musical instruments and sound installations to computer-based interactive artworks. An interest in artificial life; technology and biology; virtual reality and augmented reality, places him with one foot in both artistic and scientific communities.

He has presented and exhibited at international events such as the International Symposium on Electronic Art (Singapore, Sydney and Nagoya), SoundCulture (Sydney 1991, Tokyo 1993), Virtual Worlds (Paris 1998), and several times at Siggraph (New Orleans 2000, San Antonio 2002, San Diego 2003 and Los Angeles 2008, Singapore Siggraph Asia 2008).

Rodney is currently working to integrate his research in augmented reality into new music and interactive art work. He is also developing tools to enable artists to work more easily augmented reality technology as well as physical computing.

 

Education

PhD student at UTS Creativity and Cognitiion Studios. Expected completion date: March 1^st 2015

MFA COFA UNSW – School of Media Arts 1999

Employment

2011 – 2013           Lecturer/Tutor in Music Technology at Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music
Responsibilities: Developing and Teaching modules for Music Technology Programme

Fundamentals of Sonic Art

Computer Music Programming

Electroacoustics.

I have also supervised several students in their individual and group projects and supervised an electroacoustic ensemble class.

The modules involve the following:

• programming synthesisers in the Logic environment on the Mac
• basic audio production and composition using the Logic environment
• basic to advanced audio synthesis using PureData on Mac and PC
• history, ideas and themes of sonic art
• using arduino boards to interface music software with the physical world (using PDuino to eliminate the need for actual coding so all interactivity is developed within PureData)
• designing and constructing real physical musical instruments and sound-creating forms for performance and installation
• exploring and composing with microtonal scales using both electronic and home-made acoustic instruments
• basics of ‘circuit-bending’ of existing electronic toys and appliances for making music
• controlling circuit-bent sound-makers from the computer via Arduino boards
• generating music and soundworks from online data-sets and live environmental sensor networks
• managing multimedia projects (including recording projects and websites)

Although the above are tilted toward modules in a music institution, much could be easily re-purposed for visual and performing arts, especially for cross-media projects. My teaching of various software and hardware techniques is always in the context of creative practice rather than as vocational training as a recording engineer etc.

2012 – 2013

Contract TouchDesigner Programmer for Mod Productions, Sydney
Responsibilities: developing and implementing gestural interfaces using the Microsoft Kinect and TouchDesigner for large-screen gesture-based interactive installations.

2012

Consultancy (grant app. writer) Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
Responsibilities: Researching, compiling and writing a grant application for NBN-realated funding for networked interactive orchestral performances via high-speed broadband networks

2010 – ongoing

Geek in Residence – Salamanca Arts Centre
Responsibilities: Assisting and training SAC staff in their use of technologies at work; Developing novel interfaces to interpret the SAC’s activities in the community. Consulting on technological matters, writing grant applications etc. recently secured funding for a major archiving project at the centre.

2007 – 2010

Research Fellow – National University of Singapore Communications and New Media Programme and Interactive Digital Media Institute
Resposibilities: Human-Computer Interface research, publication, consulting, technology demonstrations, supervising Honours and Masters students

2006 – 2007

Research Associate – Nanyang Technological University Interaction and Entertainment Research Centre
Resposibilities: Human-Computer Interface research, publication, consulting, technology demonstrations, supervising Honours students

1999 – 2006

Research Scientist – ATR Media Information Science Labs Kyoto, Japan
Resposibilities: Human-Computer Interface research, publication, Technology demonstrations, supervising overseas graduate interns.

1997 – 1999

Lecturer in Music Composition – University of Western Sydney, School of Contemporary Arts NSW, Australia
Responsibilities: Developing and teaching curriculum for 3^rd year composition students

Relevant Skills, Knowledge and Experience

My creative practice and research explores representational systems, mostly around the following interrelated themes:

1. Augmented reality – this is a technology I have been involved in since I was at ATR in Japan in 1999. Although I am interested new developments in mobile AR, my own practice focuses on tabletop and gallery application of the technologies
2. Tangible representations in interactive interfaces – the core of my PhD research. Mostly concerned with interfaces for creative music practice, I am investigating the wider implications of tangible representations and their role in bringing kindergarten thought processes into adult worlds.
3. Using both data sets and live data from environmental sensors to produce electronic music and also animated graphic scores for live musicians. Related to this is my current collaboration with composer, Palle Dahlstedt to build systems that use his particular synaesthesia to iteratively map and remap relationships between sound and images in live telematic performances.
4. Employing techniques from the Grounded Theory Method family of qualitative research methodologies to develop theoretical frameworks arising through creative practice – but also seeking parallels between grounded theory with its ongoing dialogue with data and much artistic practice that emerges through a similar dialogue with the artist’s materials and tools. I suspect that this could develop into an effective way to teach creative practice in a studio context.

 

Main Teachable Competencies:

 

Supervision of Masters and Honours students

Interaction design, theory and practice

Interactive 3D, 2D graphics and audio with TouchDesigner (Windows) 10 years experience

Interactive audio, physical computing, creative robotics via PDuino, 3D, 2D graphics and with PureData (mac, windows, linux)

Making sculptural musical instruments and sound-making physical forms

Sound Art (practice, theory and history)

Locative Sound Media

Academic Writing and Oral Presentation skills

Mobile and Gallery-Oriented augmented Reality

Sound Recording, composition and sound design

Essential programming concepts

Arduino Programming

Fundamentals of Programming in Processing, Python, Scratch, Blockly, Javascript, Quartz Composer

Interactive 3D and sound using Unity game engine (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android)

 

Exhibitions and Performances

2013

Incantation – with Sally Rees, Sound to Light event, Dark MONA FOMA

2012

Clavier à Lumières – at MONA, Hobart with Syn[a]: group

Vox on the Rox – with Nigel Helyer and live musicians at UTAS Conservatorium of Music recital hall.

2006

Hiro Mark – at Advances in Computers and Entertainment, Hollywood

2004

In the Domain of the King – Augmented reality installation work in group show, Spikes at University of Technology, Sydney Gallery, curated by Jacqueline Bosscher.

2003

Music Table – SIGGRAPH 2003, Emerging Technologies Exhibition, San Diego

2000

Feeping Creatures – 13th SIBGRAPI, Gramado Brazil
Augmented Groove – SIGGRAPH 2000, Emerging Technologies Exhibition New Orleans

1999

Feeping Creatures – European Conference on Artificial Life, Laussane Switzerland

1998

Feeping Creatures – Art Aesthetics and Artificial Life Exhibition at the Sixth Conference on Artificial Life, UCLA, Los Angeles USA (was also Associate Curator of the show).
Feeping Creatures – First International Conference on Virtual Worlds, Paris France

1997

Feeping Creatures – Australian Perspecta, Screaming Green exhibition – The Performance Space gallery, Sydney

1995

Art Hotline group show – piece titled Harp
Installation of (I heard) Your Footsteps  – Queensland Art Gallery
(I felt) Your Breath installed solar-powered soundwork in a public place – both works were part of the Brisbane Biennial International Music Festival
Installation of (I heard) Your Footsteps outdoors on sea-cliffs near Sydney

1994

Installation of (I heard) Your Footsteps for the EARWITNESS event at Australian Center for Contemporary Art Melbourne.

1992

Chaotic Music Machine Art Hotline Launch, Bond Store, Sydney

1991

Geographies of The Ear, Solo show, The Performance Space, Sydney

1988

Percy’s Laundry Organ One Hundred Years, Thousands of Instruments, Westpac Gallery, Melbourne

1987

Percy’s Laundry Organ Eight Artists as Sculptors, Group Show, A.C.C.A., Melbourne (Part of the Third Australian Sculpture Triennial)

1985

Tubes Sculpture ’85, Group Show, World Trade Center, Melbourne

Grants and Commissions

2013          Am I Blue? – Project Development Grant through Salamanca Arts Centre and Ozco Hype programme (Tele-collaboration with Palle Dahlstedt, Sweden)

Commission from Dark MONA FOMA, Sound to Light event for Incantation collaborative performance work with artist, Sally Rees

2010          Geek in Residence Australia Council-funded residency at Salamanca Arts Centre

2004          Japan Kakenhi fund: “Research on emotion extraction from human gestures and its applcations”

1999          Australia Council New Media grant to assist ATR residency in Japan

1996          Music from Computer Simulated Ecologies – New Media Arts Board

1995          Music from Computer Simulated Ecologies – Performing Arts Board
Instruments commissioned for Jonathan Mills and Nannette Hassel’s , ‘Through Ethereal Eyes’

1994          Project Grant for Brisbane Biennial sound installations – Performing Arts Board.

1993          Overseas Touring – SoundCulture ’93 in Tokyo – Performing Arts Board

1990          Artist Development Grant, Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council.

1986          Commission, Random Breths Collectiv for ‘Songs of the City of Desire and Fear’

Selected Publications

 

Book Chapters

 

Berry, R.A. (2011) “The Music Table Revisited – problems of changing levels of detail and abstraction in a tangible representation”  in K. L. O’Halloran (ed.), Multimodal Representation and Knowledge: Routledge Studies in Multimodality Book Series.  Routledge: New York (2011)

Berry, R.A. (1999) “FeepingCreatures”    in Virtual Worlds: Synthetic Universes, Digital Life, and Complexity Heudin, Jean-Claude (New England Complex Systems Institute Series on Complexity – Perseus)

 

Journals Papers and Articles

 

Berry, R., Makino, M., Hikawa, N., Inoue, N., Pisan, Y. & Edmonds, E.A. Programming in the World, Digital Creativity:  Special Issue on Programming and Creativity, 2006 vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 36-48

Berry, R., Makino, M., Hikawa, N., Inoue, N., Suzuki, M., Tunes on the Table ACM Multimedia Systems Journal (2006)

Makino, M. Oshima, C., Berry, R., Hikawa, N., Nishimoto, K., Suzuki, M., Hagita, N.
A Tangible Composition  System for Prompting Children to Create Music by Reflectively Manipulating Notes, Journal of Japanese Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics, Vol.17 No.2, pp.28-38, 2005. (in Japanese)

Berry R.A., Dahlstedt, P., Artificial Life: Why Should Musicians Bother?

Contemporary Music Review Jan 2004

Berry, R.A.,The World of the Augmented Composer in Sounds Australian, Journal of the Australian Music Center. August 2003

Berry, R.A 1992 Book review of “Metaphor, a Musical Dimension” ed. Jamie Kessler (Australian Journal of Literature and Aesthetics 1992 issue)

Conference Papers, Posters and Demonstrations

Margolis, T, Cornish, T., Berry, R, DeFanti, Immersive realities: Articulating the shift from VR to mobile AR through artistic practice T Proc. SPIE 8289, The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality 2012, 82890F (February 9, 2012)

Jones, D., Bown, O., McCormack, J., Pachet, F., Young, M., Berry, R., Asaf, I. & Porter, B. 2009, ‘Stimulating creative flow through computational feedback’, paper presented to the Computational Creativity: An Interdisciplinary Approach.

Berry, R A, “Tangible representations and modes of creative engagement”.  Dagstuhl seminar: Computational Creativity: (Invited paper)  (12 ‑ 17 Jul 2009, Dagstuhl Castle, Wadern, Germany)  (The Computational Creativity meeting will be followed up by a MIT press book with chapters by each invitee).

BERRY*, R A, M Oikawa, J P Wijesena, J Unterberg, W Liu, A D Cheok and H Kato, “Augmented Reality Authoring for Non-Programmers”.  Singapore: ACM SIGGRAPH Asia, 2008.

Berry, R A, J P Wijesena, J Unterberg, A Palin Sainte Agathe, W Liu and A D Cheok, “Augmented Reality for Non‑Programmers”.  ACM SIGGRAPH 2008 (2008).  Los Angeles

Berry, R A, “Hyper-Augmented Reality: Looking at AR through some old postmodern goggles”.  ISEA 2008: International Symposium on Electronic Art 2008 (2008): 1-3.  Singapore: Inter-Society of the Electronic Arts.  (International Symposium on Electronic Art 2008, 25 Jul –  3 Aug 2008,)

Berry, R A, “Can I have my cake and eat it too? ‑ problems of physical representations in tangible interfaces”.  Fourth International Conference on Multimodality (4‑ICOM) (2008).  Singapore

Berry, R A, “Using a 3d Modelling Program as a Musical Controller”.  International Computer Music Conference, ed. Suvisoft Oy Ltd., comp. Stefania Serafin (2007): 308-311.  (International Computer Music Conference, 24 – 29 Aug 2007, Architecture School, Holmen Island, Copenhagen, Denmark)

Berry, R A and L.P. Demers, “The Earth from Space as a Musical Score”.  Asian Space Conference 2007, ed. Dr. Timo Rolf Bretschneider, comp. Dr. Timo Rolf Bretschneider (2007).  Singapore: Asian Space Conference.  (Asian Space Conference (ASC 2007), 21 – 23 Mar 2007, NTU Alumni Club, Singapore)

Lock, D., Teo, J., Narushima, T., Schiemer, G.,. Berry, R. Synthesizing Gamelan. Paper presented at the World Forum on Acoustic Ecology, Japan 2006.

Berry, R., Naemura, M., Kobayashi, Y., Tada, M., Inoue, N., Pisan, Y. & Edmonds, E. (2006), An Interface Test-Bed for ‘Kansei’ Filters Using the Touch Designer Visual Programming Environment, Proceedings of Australasian User Interface Conference (AUIC2005), vol. 50, ed. W. Piekarski, Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology (CRPIT), Hobart, Australia,

Berry, R., Makino, M., Hikawa, N., Inoue, N. Demonstration: Touch’nMusic (The Music Table) International Computer Music Conference, Barcelona 2005

Berry, R., Makino, M., Hikawa, N., Inoue, N. Panel presentation on tangible Music Interfaces, International Computer Music Conference, Barcelona 2005

Berry, R., Makino, M., Hikawa, N., Inoue, N. Points to Partials (Poster) Australasian Computer Music Conference, Brisbane 2005

Berry, R., Makino, M., Hikawa, N., Suzuki, M.

Through the Looking Glass: Subjective Physics and design in mixed reality

Interaction: Systems, Practice and Theory, Sydney 2004

Berry, R., Makino, M., Hikawa, N., Suzuki, M.,

The Bush Telegraph: Networked Cooperative Music-making Proc. International Conference of Entertainment Computing Eindhoven, 2004

Berry, R., Makino, M., Hikawa, N., Suzuki, M.

DesignAR – a code-free approach to augmented reality authoring

ACM SIGGRAPH 2004 Poster Sessions, Los Angeles 2004

Makino, M., Berry, R.A, Suzuki, M., Hikawa, N.,

The Music Table Project Proceedings of Interaction 2004 (accompanying demonstration also winner of Best Interactive Prize 2004)

Berry R., Hart, J. (HIS) Tierra Sonification: an Audio Display System for Tierra
Proceedings of the Ninth international Conference on Artificial Life and Robotics 2004 volume 1, p160

Berry, R.A, Suzuki, M., Hikawa, N., Makino, M.,

The Music Table SIGGRAPH 2003 Emerging Technologies Exhibition.

Berry, R., Makino, M., Hikawa, N., Suzuki, M.,
The Music Table Proc. 2003 International Computer Music Conference, Singapore. International Computer Music Association, pp. 393-396. 2003

Abe A., Berry R., M. Suzuki, and Hagita N. 2003  Augmented Music Composition Support as Active Data Mining – Technical Report of JSAI, SIG-KBS-A301 Jeju, Korea

Makino, M., Berry, R.A, Suzuki, M., Hikawa, N., Abe, A.  2003 The Augmented Composer Project: The Music Table – TECHNICAL REPORT OF IEICE,MVE2003-59

Berry, R.A, Suzuki, M., Hikawa, N., Makino, M.  2003 The Augmented Composer Project: The Music Table – International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, Tokyo.

Berry, R.A, Suzuki, M., Hikawa, N., Makino, M.  2003 The Music Table – International computer Music Conference, Singapore.

Berry, R.A, Suzuki, M., Hikawa, N., Makino, M.  2003 The Augmented Composer Project: The Music Table – ACM SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies, Abstracts and Applications

Berry, R.A, Suzuki, M., Hikawa, N., Makino, M.  2003 The Music Table – Keihanna Media Festival and technical meeting, Keihanna, Japan.

Berry, R.A & Tadenuma, M.2002 Metaphors in the Mix – International Symposium on Electronic Art, Nagoya, Japan

Berry, R.A & Tadenuma, M.2002 Augmented Reality for Music – International Computer Music Conference Göteborg, Sweden

Berry, R.A & Tadenuma, M.2002 Artificial Life and Augmented Reality – SIGGRAPH 2002, San Antonio

Berry, R.A & Tadenuma, M.2002 Augmented Composer –  Nicograph Tokyo

Berry, R.A & Tadenuma, M.2002 Music and Augmented Reality – International Workshop on entertainment Computing, Tokyo

Berry, R.A  & Tadenuma, M. 2002 Excuse me but your elevator is not talking – Journées Design Sonores à Paris

Berry, R.A 2001 Have I emerged Yet? – 2^nd Iteration Conference, Melbourne

Berry, R.A 2001 Unfinished Symphonies – ECAL Workshop on Artificial Life Models for Music     Applications.

Berry, R.A 2001 Life Imitates Art’s Imitation of Life – ACMA Conference Sydney

Berry, R.A 2000 Mixing with Aliens – 6^th Conference on artificial Life and Robotics, Tokyo

Berry, R.A 2000 Music and Metanature – 6^th Conference on artificial Life and Robotics, Tokyo

Berry, R.A 2000 The Artist and The Automaton – reprint, exhibition supplement SIBGRAPI, Brazil

Berry, R.A 2000 In Search of Vital Presence – proceedings of Virtual Worlds 2000, Paris

Berry, R.A 2000 The Artist and The Automaton – Proceedings of Artificial Life and Robotics Conference, Oita Japan.

Berry, R.A 1999 Feeping Creatures – evolving musical agents for sound in virtual worlds  International Conference on Artificial reality and Tele-existence, Tokyo

Berry, R.A 1999 Feeping Creatures video proceedings of Digital Biota 3 in San Jose USA

Berry, R.A 1999 Feeping Creatures proceedings of International Computer Music Conference, Beijing China

Berry, R.A 1998 Sex & Death among the Feeps – a hyperbiologist’s field diary Conference Proceedings, Virtual Systems and Multimedia 1998

Referees

Prof. Ryohei Nakatsu
Professor, National University of Singapore
Interactive & Digital Media Institute
Blk E3A #02-04
7 Engineering Drive 1
Singapore 117574, SINGAPORE
Tel: (65) 6516 7616, Fax: (65) 6773 5018
E-mail: elenr@nus.edu.sg

Prof. Nakatsu was Rodney’s immediate supervisor at ATR Media Integrations and Communications Research Laboratories, Kyoto, Japan from 1999 to 2002. In 2008, Dr. Nakatsu became head of the Interactive Digital Media Research Institute at National University of Singapore where Rodney was a Research Fellow until 2010. For this reason, he is in a good position to comment on Rodney’s research and creative work and professional character over a ten year period.

Dr David Carter

Co-ordinator, Music Technology; Lecturer in Music Technology,
Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, University of Tasmania
Private Bag 63 Hobart Tas 7001
Telephone      03 6226 7359
Email   dave.carter@utas.edu.au

Dr. David Carter is Rodney’s current supervisor at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music since 2012. He is best placed to comment on Rodney’s teaching, course development and engagement with students over the last three semesters.

Ms. Rosemary Miller

Director, Salamanca Arts Centre,
L3, 77 Salamanca Place
Hobart, Tasmania
Telephone      03 6234 8414
Email   rosemary.miller@salarts.org.au

Rosemary Miller is the director of the Salamanca Arts Centre and is well placed to comment on Rodney’s involvement in Hobart’s arts community and the activities of the centre.