Controlling a supercomputer with a violin!

Presentation (2011) and paper publication at the International Computer Music Conference, 2012.

How can highly complex simulations and systems be effectively controlled in real-time? What sort of interactions are appropriate in a space with thousands of independant, or complexly connected coefficients and parameters? This work starts with a highly complex instrument, the violin, and an expert in its manipulation and control, a violinist. What happens if an interface is constructed such that the musician, through the creation of sound and music, is able to directly control the parameters of a supercomputer simulation?

A flocking simulation, with 50,000 agents, is run on Abe, a 9600 core supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and is rendered in real-time. Simultaneously data gathered from a live audio stream (from the violinist's microphone) is analyzed and mapped into the coefficients of the simulation.