Jason Freeman

In MTRX, the musicians in the laptop orchestra use a text-based performance interface to create, share, and transform rhythmic motives. These motives are built from a collection of sounds recorded throughout the city of Middletown, Connecticut by community members and Wesleyan University students. The sounds, captured between April and October 2012, were recorded using smartphones.

MTRX was commissioned by the Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. LOLC, the software used by the laptop musicians, was developed by myself and my students Akito Van Troyer, Sang Won Lee, Andrew Colella, and Shannon Yao, with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF CreativeIT #0855758). UrbanRemix, the software used by Middletown residents to capture and share sounds with their smartphones, was developed by myself, Carl DiSalvo, Michael Nitsche, and many of our students, with support from Google, Turner, the Georgia Tech Foundation, and Georgia Tech’s GVU Center.