I received an email yesterday from Christian Bannister of Subcycle Labs asking me to view a video of a project he is working on. This is another example that shows how transforming touch screens are going to be for musicians.

“This is part of a series of sketches exploring the potential to bridge the gap between sound visualization and musical instrument. With multi-touch interaction it is possible to manipulate multiple characteristics of a sound—visually, and simultaneously. This shift has the potential of bringing the experience of synthesizer as music instrument to a whole new place. This approach allows the performer to have a more tactile and immediate experience of the synthesizer and also creates a visual reference for the audience. In the performance of electronic music it is fairly common that the audience is alienated from the process and performance of the musician. This project hopes to create a common visual language and experience for the electronic musician and the audience by enhancing the perception of sound and music on both sides.” – Christian Bannister

For more info: www.subcycle.org

Today just a heads-up on something useful I discovered. Living in New York City I am a bit obsessive about washing my hands. Every time I walk in the apartment I head right to the bathroom and shock my hands with blazing hot water and industrial strength soap. A side-effect of all my paranoia is the skin on my hands gets crazy dry. Therefore, my bathroom ritual ends with a decent slather of moisturizer. My routine was all fine and dandy until the day I bought and iPhone. My silky moisturized fingers turned into iPhone screen paint brushes aka streak city! I tried an anti-glare screen protector but after a few weeks I realized it made my screen dull.

My usual moisterizer ran out and by pure luck I picked up the “Gold Bond Ultimate healing” tube you see above. I was surprised to see I wasn’t getting any more iPhone streaks and took a look at the tube to find sure enough “Non-Greasy” is a feature. This little tidbit in my life made me so dam pleased I thought I’d tell you all today.