Intro
Griasdi, servus
Dear people,
I am Thomas. I love creating experiences that touch people by fusing the analog and the digital world. I believe in free software and enjoy collaborating with others. Aside from working as a senior creative technologist at 2av, I am freelancing and teaching Machine Learning at HfG Schwaebisch Gmuend. Music plays an important role in my life, which is reflected in some of my side projects as well. I write my own performance software and tools, to make my life and the life of others easier and more fun.
What I do
My skills
I write software, mostly using c++ or javascript, whatever fits the requirements.
Frameworks, such as openFrameworks, Qt or JUCE are my choices when high performance is needed.
I do lot of graphical UI prototyping, using javascript frameworks, e.g. react, vue or framer. Node.js usually does the job for the server-side counter parts, hardware and backend interfaces.
I am not an electrical engineer, but I am definitely not afraid of the soldering iron, designing pcbs and getting them manufactured.
Arduino compatible boards are my friends, as well as raspberry pis.
I am a DIY person. I love working with wood and building my own mechanical parts.
Unfortunately, I do not have access to laser cutters, but the 3D printing parts very often help to build quick prototypes.
Projects
The ones I enjoyed doing
Unfortunately, I cannot show most of the projects I have worked on due to confidentiality reasons. But here is a small selection of projects I did aside from my job.A Scroll through the Garden of Tangled Data
I worked with double lucky productions on an interactive parallax scroll website (yes, I know it is 2022, but still ...). It was commissioned by the HAU theater and also shown at re:publica's offstage program 2021.
The frontend was written using react, the image processing/pixel shifting was done with p5.js and a couple of shaders. For the backend, we used directus.
2021luce diretta - direct light
luce diretta is your friend when working with led installations. It is a prototyping tool to display animations directly on led strips. No need to wait for a developer to try to replicate an animation. Time for iterations. No surprises the day before the deadline when first seeing the actual colors. luce diretta can work with different inputs, e.g. ndi streams, videos or syphon. And it can export animations to be used standalone on microcontrollers.
It is built with openFrameworks. The source code can be found on github.
in 2021vjam & vgig
vjam and vgig are two collaborative musical experiments. Both started as weekend projects during the Covid-19 pandemic. vjam is a virtual jam session system where users can create virtual jam session rooms and play music together. vgig is a virtual concert hall systems that adds omni-directional communication to virtual concerts; communication between audience and performers, as well as audience and audience. vgig is a collaboration with artist and composer Windy Setiadi and was shown at Media Art Globale 2020.
more
in 2020video looper
I wrote a little multi channel video looper for Residenztheater Muenchen. It is able to capture video from live video sources or load video clips from the hard disk. The software is fully midi controllable, it can be synchronized with external midi clocks.
The most challenging part was to get accurate frame seeking working. Some parts of the tool are already open source, e.g. its video player.
It is built with openFrameworks.
in 2020Klang-/Licht-STROM
klanglichtstrom is an audio visual performance by Ben Bengler and me. We developed a custom software based on ofxLiveSet. It extracts audio features and creates light patterns.
It is built with openFrameworks and JUCE.
since 2018record label grantler records
grantler records is a music label founded in 2020. Following the diy spirit, we wanna support honest music that touches us. Besides the label, we run a small blog and dj collective.
The blogging software is written with gastbyjs, hosted on github pages, built and deployed with github actions.
since 2020music and compositions
As written earlier, music is a big thing in my life. Lately, I am very much into experimental music and plugins, e.g. custom-made plugins, such as esrever. Here are some of my most recent musical projects.
glump
Guitars and electronics at glump band.Silent Sex
Keys and electronics at Silent Sex.Film Music
I had to pleasure to score my very talented friend Aylin's short film "Spirits and Rocks: an Azorean Myth". It was premiered at Locarno Film Festival, its international premiere will be at Sundance Film Festival.
since 2018nantlab
Several interactive installations with nantlab, ranging from interior design to live visuals and everything in between. E.g. Bar Love Triangle a modular, interactive furniture and interior design.
moresince 2012kapitael zwei kolektif
moreSeveral performances in collabration with Kapitael Zwei Kolektif, such as the Dauerperformance at Schaustelle (Pinakothek der Moderne). In order to perform Dauerperformance, we built connected rfid readers, web interfaces, voice user interfaces and a rule based AI.from 2012 to 2015polywand
moreSeveral light concepts and design and development of polygon wall, an interactive, kinetic installation in collaboration with Martin Lerf.from 2014 to 2015
Open source software
Tools and libraries
Some of my open source contributions can be found on my github page.
- ofPackageManager: package manager for openFrameworks
- ofPackageManager-frontend: its electron, react based frontend
- ofOSCDebugger, ofMIDIDebugger: osc and midi debugging tools
- ofMIDI2MQTT, ofOSC2MIDI, ...: small cli utilities to convert between different protocols
- ofxLiveSet, ofxNDI, ...: openFrameworks addons
- QMIDI, QOSC, QFirmata, ...: Qt libraries
- gitable: small cli utility to enable git usage for ableton live projects
Past, present, future
My json2svg rendered cv
Yes, I know how to operate a fork lift. But after realizing that this is not what I wanna do for the rest of my work life, I decided to do my Abitur at BOS and study afterwards. I studied to be a teacher (mathematics and informatics) and in parallel I did my bachelor's degree in computer science (mathematics minor). I haven't finished the master's degree in human computer interaction and I haven't finished Lehramt, but I still like teaching and mentoring. It took me a while to find what I want and what I do not want, but now I am quite happy with the field I am working in. Currently, I work as a creative technologist at 2av, building interactive exhibits and tools. Besides that I am freelancing.