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