A Song of Noise and Fire

The idea for our final project had a lot of mutations over the weeks since the initial idea was agreed upon.  The idea started with a simply: let's do something with music and fire.  That turned into making some Ruben's tubes and doing something with those.  Then we added a karaoke idea which we scrapped.  We finally settled upon having two Ruben's Tubes set up and using Brian's Loop station code to create a nice installation that we could have people use to trigger different fire events while music played.

Since our final idea consisted of using fire we were unable to present in the classroom for the end of the semester show, however we made a video (which will be linked at the end of this post) which shows our works and what it is capable of doing.  Our final vision was to have a setup in which two Ruben’s Tubes would be sitting next to each other and a user could come up and create their own sound by using a modified version of Brian’s loop station processing code.  We switched out many of the beats in order for the the fire visualization to be affected in a greater manner.  Once achieved this left us with a fun, interactive installation that added just a hint of terror.   

 

As far as the technical data for our project is concerned, we had to build our Ruben’s Tubes from scratch.  This left us in need of doing some research, buying materials, and finally constructing the tubes.  In order to see how we built the tubes please read HERE.  

The audio portion of the project went through a handful of different stages. During the karaoke stage, we spent a significant amount of time finding an efficient way to pan the music audio to one tube while having a mic signal going to the other. The solution that Ryan came to before we had to scrap the karaoke idea was simply use two separate amps running in mono. As a result of not being able to bring the Ruben’s Tubes to class, we settled on one of our original ideas of running loops and songs through the tubes. We also used signal and noise generators to determine how the flames interacted at different frequencies and pulses. We found that the most effective way to achieve a dramatic fiery display was using solely the amps bass crossover and focusing on frequencies around 300 Hz. While not the best sounding setup, it did provide the most dramatic visualizations.

Our aim with regards to this project was to create an interesting and engaging visual art piece with a strong interactive element. In part due to a certain level of group immaturity, and a general male interest in all things loud and ignitable it was agreed that working with Ruben’s tubes would fit both our intended goal and our effective attention spans. Our hope had been to create a installation that would attract and maintain the attention of a user; to encourage a high level of interaction and be noticeable enough to attract new users to the piece rapidly.

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My part in this project was largely focused on the audio and any coding.

Project Brainstorming

Just a list of some ideas..

1. Utilizing a macbook camera to capture light and translate it to sound or visuals
2. Using a kinect to record movement and translate it to midi to be used for a VST
3. Or more specifically, use a kinect to record someone "playing drums," and recreate the drum sound through midi
4. Create a visualizer the interacts with sound or recorded motion
5. Use visualizer to interact with any spin off of 1-3
6. Ok, I really painted myself into a corner with the motion capture ideas. How about motion capturing people to interact with an avatar on screen? What if you could fight a second person Mortal Kombat style?
7. Being able to manipulate a picture or sound with hand gestures. Maybe even a picture the user takes.
8. At this point my mind is leaning towards demo scene type challenges. Putting as much rendering or visuals in a scene as possible, while keeping the code as simple as possible?
9. I'm thinking more specifically using the kinect and processing to mimic a theremin? That could work
10. Really anything that has to do with interactive sound. I even thought about recording a real drum set, and using it as samples for 3.

Artistic Statement

Ryan Bram is both an artist and musician fascinated in the way in which sound can elicit response and emotion. Ryan's showrooms have two main ways to garner responses from audience, both physically and emotionally. His approach to interactive art is such that the audience must participate in order too see the art in sound. He explains that while one might be able to listen to Mozart and agree the piece is a work of art, the real artistic skill comes with how the music moves, and naturally uses proven techniques to influence emotion. His latest piece, "It Took The Night To Believe," takes this a step further in subjecting the audience to extremes of these examples. The body's physical reaction to the exhibits in the show drive home to the audience that at all times, they are participatory in the artful music process. Regardless of writing a piece, they become part of the piece in a way to fully realize the artistic vision.

Artistic Showrooms

It Took The Night To Believe

This project would be a very participatory art exhibition in which the audience will experience how different sounds and volumes affect them. The showroom would be setup in such a way that the minimal amount of 'other' senses will be needed to go from one art piece to the next. This means fog and very low lighting will probably be used. For example, one art piece in particular will subject the viewers to bass soundwaves (~60 hz) at extreme volumes. Even with ear plugs, the audience will find themselves becoming disoriented and possibly hallucinating after a given time.

A Glacial Place

Similarly to "It Took The Night To Believe," this project would again using music and sound to influence the viewers. This would specifically utilize different music and sounds to bring very specific emotions to the viewers. The exhibition showcases the art in music, in how for example major chords make us feel happy, and minor chords make us feel sad. The various art pieces will explain what about the music is making the viewer feel the way they are. Uplifted, hopeful, hopeless, etc, and what about the music is giving them that feeling. Rather than a physical experience as "It Took The Night To Believe," this exhibition explores emotions.

Poetry Notebook Generator

My poetry generator code mimics a person writing out a poem on normal notebook paper. This was achieved by creating a background design that resembled a piece of notebook paper, and using a handwriting-type font for the words. The nouns are colored red and are slightly bigger to provide emphasis and stand out more.

The text I used was an excerpt from H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu. The skeleton for the poem was from a song called "Sideshow" by a french band called Kickback. Given the extreme nature of this particular band, and the creepiness of Lovecraft,  I thought the generator would pop out some very interesting, albeit random, poems. Nick Vogel and I collaborated together on this project, however our poems and fonts came out pretty different.

Link to download here

Duchamp's Rotative Demisphére

For our first project, we had to recreate a piece of art using Processing. I chose Marcel Duchamp's Rotative Demisphére´, as seen below. Came out pretty cool, and I gave the center piece actual rotation. The actual piece, followed by my recreation:

           

Download link to the application and code: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5Hamygr-o7MG9BZkNfdE0xYTQ/edit

Media Artists

The very first artist that came to my mind is Randall Munroe, the mastermind behind the popular geek web comic XKCD. On the surface. XKCD can appear to be just a simple, stick-figure comic but fans know there's much more to it. Munroe utilizes alt-text with all of his comics that provide more meaning and humor. This could not be achieved without having the site take advantage of web technologies. In addition to almost always being on the subject of technology and nerd-ism in general, the comic "Click and Drag" shows how much of an emotional and artistic impact a web-comic can have. This particular comic utilizes a simple yet genius web element to hide an immense, explorable XKCD world within a single frame.

The second, although I'm not entirely sure how well he fits in, is Steven Slate. Steven Slate is a music producer, audio engineer, and songwriter, who has in the past few years ventured into the market of developing audio software. It's hard to pinpoint a single artistic "piece" he has created, rather than the contribution he's made towards audio and music creation as a whole. For instance, he has developed a pro-audio plug-in that will trigger and/or replace sounds (in use, usually poorly recorded drums) with various drum samples he recorded himself. This would be less impressive had he not gone through incredible lengths to record specific drum sets in such specific settings (inside a castle, for instance), while striving to retain a natural and "analog" feel to what would become the samples used in his program.

Lastly, another audio engineer, Sam Pura. Pura has co-developed a robot which he aptly dubs "The Intern" to assist him in studio work; Specifically with mic positioning for guitar cabinets. A simple, but effective way to solve a very common problem in studio work. This is one of the most ideal usages of technology. Solving problems, and again in this case, problems that once solved lead to quicker and easier ways to develop and create art.