Stop motion super 8 film of a walk to the Shirakawa canal in Kyoto during the cherry blossom season. The soundtrack was created using an original apparatus called ‘The Octopus’. Voltages from light sensors on the projection screen control an analogue modular synthesizer. The film itself acts as a musical score.

About Michael Lyons and Palle Dahlstedt

Michael Lyons is a media arts and sciences researcher based in Kyoto, Japan. He is co-founder of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, a leading music technology research event held annually. He is currently a Professor of Image Arts and Sciences at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan.

Palle Dahlstedt is a composer, improviser and researcher from Sweden. He is currently associate professor in applied IT/computer-aided creativity, at the Dept. of Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology. His research has since 1999 been focused on creative applications of evolutionary computation to composition, improvisation and sound design, later zooming out to study aesthetic implications of such generative algorithms, and computational models of artistic creative process.