I meet him on the floor of a Apple-expo in Antwerp, Spring 2002: The autonomous artificial artist is the 'Boy' who processes audio and video data tracks in realtime.
The Roving Walter Walter (RWW) operates on a house floor, just like an electric self-driving lawn mower. RWW is a mobile box (welded aluminium, plexiglass, fiberglass, plastic) containing a set of 4 independently controlled wheels, a camera and two mono wide angle microphones.
Using Max-MSP-NATO software, RWW races across the room, analyzing perceived audio and visual data. Roving Walter Walter follows visitors, it localizes sounds and objects for 'pick up' sound (sampling) and distance. Based on the sampled material it generates series of audio and visuals, within a time-based composition. Roving Walter Walter is able to compute the difference between previously recorded audiovisuals and the currently acquired material. The analysis, mobility, sampling, and synthesis algorithm is carried out by a small portable computer (G3 / 300 Apple Powerbook) on the chassis.The audiovisual creations (compositions in realtime) are displayed on the lcd-screen that is provided with integrated mobile loudspeakers. Roving Walter Walter can improvise on a theme but he also can cite from memory 13 versions of the composition-in-the-past. After simply being switched on|off, Roving Walter Walter knows when to sleep and work by himself on location, no additional assistance is needed. Roving Walter Walter is an autonomous artificial artist with audiovisual Artificial Intelligence (AI) brains.
Source:my RWW-encounter and www.mxhz.org/rww
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