Here’s a fun Google mash-up for cyclists in NYC: ridethecity.com. I wish this existed back when I rode in NYC. The route ridethecity.com proposes as “safest” looks better than the route I regularly took to work, albeit a few blocks longer. But I’ll generally choose to ride farther if it’s safer/more pleasant/more fun.

I love the indications for bike shops on the map and the distinction between roads, bike paths, greenways, etc. I also like the simple weather report in the upper right corner (though a windspeed indicator would be a welcome addition).

Let’s hope ridethecity shares their work with other cities. I’d love to see more of them.

LEMUR storms Issue Project Room on Thursday, April 10th, with a night of special collaborations. Best of ReSiDeNt: The First Two Months showcases performances by January/February LEMUR ReSiDeNtS Taylor Kuffner debuting the GamelaTron robotic gamelan and Holland Hopson playing his customized MIDI banjo in an Appalachia-meets-robots performance. Then, Ben Neill presents the NYC premiere of new works for Mutantrumpet and LEMUR robots.

Thursday, April 10 @ 8 pm, $10
Issue Project Room @ The Old American Can Factory
232 3rd Street @ 3rd Avenue
Brooklyn

Max Lord playing the Marimba Lumina with the LEMUR’s GuitarBot on the left.

Max Lord, percussion (in the mirror) and Ellen Godena, dancer with LEMUR’s ModBots on the ceiling.

Holland with his extended banjo…gotta hit that pressure sensor just right…

I’ll be playing with the LEMURbots again in early April–details to be announced.Thanks to Nicole Peyrafitte for grabbing this video on-the-fly. Check out Nicole’s new blog, Collectages. (Yum…spätzle.)

Friday February 29th, 8pm – 11pm
ReSiDeNt @ LEMUR: New Works, New Instruments, New Artists
461 3rd Avenue (between 9th and 10th streets)
Brooklyn NY
$5 at the door

• Holland Hopson will bring Old-Time Appalachia to LEMUR by creating new pieces for the LEMURbots and Tru One, his clawhammer banjo/sensor interface.
• Zach Layton will create a new work for improvising live trio plus improvising robots.
• Percussionist Max Lord will perform on the Marimba Lumina with choreographer Ellen Godena in a work for robot percussion and spontaneous robot-inspired movement

Hope to see you there!

We are happy to announce our second group of ReSiDeNts, who will be creating new works at LEMUR in February:

Holland Hopson is a composer, improviser, and electronic artist. Holland will bring Old-Time Appalachia to the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots by creating new pieces for the LEMURbots and Tru One, his clawhammer banjo/sensor interface.

Zach Layton is a composer, improviser, curator and new media artist based in new york with an interest in biofeedback, generative algorithms, experimental music, biomimicry and contemporary architectural practice. His work investigates complex relationships and topologies created through the interaction of simple core elements like sine waves, minimal surfaces and kinetic visual patterns. He is planning to create a new work for guitar, sax, drums plus robots. The piece will be composed using an open score format encouraging improvisation among the human players and neural network software to encourage improvisation among the robots.

Max Lord is a percussionist who will be writing a new piece for the LEMUR robots in collaboration with NYC-based choreographer Ellen Godena. The score will integrate a live performance on the Marimba Lumina with robot percussion and spontaneous robot-inspired movement.

Artists from all performing and installation disciplines are encouraged to apply to ReSiDeNt, including musicians, composers, dancers, choreographers, video artists, interactive installation artists, performance artists, multimedia artists and others. To learn about applying to ReSiDeNt, visit http://lemurbots.org/resident.html. Deadlines are rolling, with March submissions accepted until February 18th.