This post is partly a response to Ant’s most recent email to me:
“I’m feeling slightly up a blind alley with the Monome at the moment. It’s a wonderful piece of hardware, it’s beautiful, fast, flexible etc but utterly meaningless at the moment. I can’t think of an interesting way to use it.”

I wanted to update my profile at monome.org with a photo and some info – now that I’m starting to post regularly. I was thinking about suitable 1 bit 8×8 pixel graphics – and thought of Space Invaders (obviously)… and tracked down (with surprising difficulty) a set of characters in this Invader from Space font. It turns out most of them aren’t actually 8×8 pixels 🙁 – but there are a few that are and I’ve chosen my favourite 😉

We haven’t had a chance to meet and really talk in the past few weeks – since getting the devices in fact – so I thought that a bit of critical reflection might help Ant understand my perspectives – and let me highlight some illustrative examples – and that might help him… possibly…

So to put this all in context…. I first became aware of monome in July ’07. It’s taken me 8 months to get my hands on one – an unusually long wait and feeling of expectancy for me for any piece of kit. I’ve been so genuinely taken with the project that – my own practice aside – I’ve also been developing a proposal for a Cybersonica project based around it – and I’m just at the point of submitting the Arts Council application. I’m a bit saturated in monome at the moment… and I’m not sure this is a wholly good thing…

My thoughts, in the order they came, below (I qualify these comments as my attempt to be cooly objective not glibly critical – I genuinely admire the project)…

1. I’ve worked out what it is overall I like about monome so much – its refinement as a beautiful, hand-crafted, inspirationally designed, limited edition, tactile ‘objet d’art’ (in my opinion, a very rare but actually very important model of open source development) – juxtaposed against its schizophrenic counter personality of being technologically ‘transparent’ and adrift in a tumultuous sea of alpha and beta software… plum crazy.

2. The monome community seems well established with a significant archive – rich and interesting but unsurprisingly messy all the same – and so seemingly ‘bustling’ with new developments that it’s taking quite some time to get to grips with it… but I am getting there. I’m becoming more familiar with ‘key players’ and some of the ‘significant’ software they’ve contributed – tehn (obviously) – monoserial on os x, mlr, muon, flip, bends… stretta – mabalhabla, TR-256, press cafe… kid_sputnik – mononme serial on Windows… steve_duda – Molar & Monochrome. I consider these ‘influential’ personalities and significant ‘currents’ within the alpha/beta sea. They kind of ‘pilot’ the community which has a definite ‘list’ about it… you can almost taste the ‘free radicals’ – am I taking this analogy too far? 😉

3. The community forum features a diverse almost whimsical agenda and range of interests – but actually I think it’s more limited than first appears and with some distinct ‘blind spots’. Its definitely more musical than visual – I’ve found almost no interest in processing software for example; more hobbyist than artistic – I posted this thread about The Sancho Plan & Jason Bruges Studio collaboration which I thought would have been of interest but which received absolute and stony silence… not a single response (I accept I might just smell and nobody likes me!); more GEEKY cool than geeky COOL – this thread a good case in point – New App/Toy: Boiingg (MaxMSP) – a lovely little app/toy with a thread that’s been bubbling away since it was posted in November but that got totally sidetracked (to my mind) with discussions about the physics of bouncing balls rather than the musicality of its functionality (this may be being a bit unfair…)

4. Although I have been spending a lot of time playing with my m64 I have been quite systematic and thoughtful – as I set out to do.

• I’ve invested a fair amount of time just setting up a solid and efficient working environment on my Mac – and I’ve got there – almost – just a new USB 2.0 soundcard to get. For example I’ve found some macro/automation software that I think will let me automate opening an entire project – I really can’t stand separately launching 4 pieces of software, opening 4 patches, positioning them all on screen, loading setting files etc. etc. before I even start :-[]
• I’ve been interested in finding out the m64s limitations and I’ve wanted to push at its boundaries – so I’ve been following and contributing to this thread about hacking the firmware to give per led intensity for example. I’ve also been exploring the accelerometer in this thread. For me this my natural musicians approach (twist it ’til it squeals) but also a reaction against points 2 & 3 above… I’m actually not that interested in what I suspect the monome is mostly used for – I don’t want make noodling, generative music or jam with rough & ready audio loops.
• I do have some personal favourites amongst the community software – flin – bit traffic music box, boiing – bouncing midi pattern generator – both very soundtoy like – simple but appealing and with hidden complexity. I’m particularly interested in linking the monome with ableton live and drumwreck, liveio, livestep – ableton routers – are interesting – drumwreck’s particularly good – if a bit tricky to set up. But absolutely heads and shoulders above everything else for me is steve_duda’s Molar – sample recutting sequencer VST Audio/plugin. I’ve been slow getting to it – it’s complicated but poorly documented – despite or probably because it has such a detailed and opaque thread on the board. But I finally sat down with it earlier in the week and it is absolutely stunning – and I know my music software. I’ve barely started to get to grips with it – let alone use it as a creative tool. This is one very good example of what the monome is really capable of inspiring…
• I do believe that this is a device worth getting to know slowly… it’s an instrument – a very accessible and immediate one on one level (which I really like) – but also requiring real application and practice on another (which I also really like). Both aspects challenge me – but in different ways – and I’m actually quite enjoying trying to work out how I best use it to really engage others and myself…

5. I think that unlike you, I’m less worried about being ‘inspired’. I accept this may be my bias for objective, conceptual thinking – as opposed to subjective, emotional thinking. This Meyer-Briggs ‘psychological modelling’ aside – and I’m not suggesting you’re a subjective, emotional thinker either, just that you do think differently – and so need to work out a stratrgy that works for you… For me it’s all modeled in my head at a distance – I’m not overly concerned about how I feel about it up close. It’ll dawn on me… slowly.

So I still think the best approach (for me at least) is to ‘play with intent’ – to work on a series of small, realisable challenges. Nothing too ambitious but concerted and more than just demos – I want to produce some small things that are nonetheless artistic and refined. I’m still working systematically on the discome music… and I have it in mind as a next stage, more significant project, but I’m only just beginning to think about how to possibly implement the monome within it… and these excercises are helping me to do that… hence I’ve got a few things in progress that I think will keep me busy for a little while…

• as a prototype for The Sancho Plan/Jason Bruges Studio collaboration – using the monome as a way to develop and test triggering lights/leds live and from a sequencer – and this may well involve the firmware hack I mention above to get per led brightness once I can afford the programmer I need;
• monome and Processing – I’m working on a little monome ‘visual haiku’ based on the Image Explode example I extended and developed as a little ‘Intermission’ for The Sancho Plan performance at The FOS Late at British Library event last November (though it was actually a bit of a disaster on the night) – driven by boinngg… it’s coming on and is sweet. Can’t get OSC to work but I’m using MIDI;
• really getting to grips with and working up something with intent in Molar;
• exploring the tilt functionality – implementing it more thoroughly to drive synths, effects units, draw in processing, control The Sancho Plan visuals in Flash etc. This also puts the monome right ‘in my hands’ – which is important I think. I want to become comfortable and practiced with it – but that will take time…

6. As far as ideas for you are concerned – I think a surround sound mixer sounds great, as does connecting our devices over a network, or controlling lights in a building – all of which you’ve mentioned.

If I were to throw in some ideas or my requests to apply your skills and expertise…

• 3D joystick – could you cajole the monome into sending MIDI controller data over 3 axis? This would integrate directly into Martyn Ware’s 3D-AudioScape facility for instance…
• 2D to 3D visualisation grid – could you make the monome show a 2D representation of a 3D space? Say a cube 8x8x8 little cubes big (like the 3D LED grid you’ve mentioned) – each of the 512 little cubes can be on or off – or a scale of brightness once the firmware hack is implemented. By variably orientating the monome in space you’re able to see (and/or draw in) a ‘slice’ of the 3D grid.
• MIDI to DMX512 – or MIDI to OSC to DMX512 – do you have the protocol and hardware knowledge to translate from one to the other – The Sancho Plan needs this…
• discomatic – If I get the working files from Florian – I’m pretty certain it’s Director – would you be up for adapting/reconfiguring it to trigger discreet animation loops via the monome? I’d like to see if my original idea has legs…

Hope this helps… 🙂

Ant responds:

Lewis, I take your comments on board.

Using the Monome to control sound on Martyn’s 3D-AudioScape should be technically quite straight forward, as would the visualisation grid.  MIDI to OSC is no problem.  I don’t know much about DMX, but I think I did a student project a couple of years ago that used DMX…  or there are hardware solutions to convert between MIDI/DMX (e.g. here – about GBP350 – no idea how good they are)