As we traverse our world we leave a trail. These paths
tell a story about from where we came and where we are
headed. As much as these paths are of our own free
will, they are also a product of the intentions of
those around us. With footprints we explore these
individual paths and in turn manipulate them through
subtle actions. Our intentions force the creation of
an all seeing eye which only we as the controllers and
observers are aware of.
Our camera watches from above recording motion with a
tracking algorithm while those below walk unaware. We
record motion by looking at frame differences which
then translates to activity. As a space becomes more
active it goes from blue to red.
“White beatles” project is for making a variable shape to bring the new type of musical experience and interactions. It will have two main changes and functions.
First, the form of this will have flexibility and inflexibility both by the special structure, the longitudinal-Transverse Hinges (Yuichiro katsumoto and Satoru Tokuhisa & Inakage Inakage 2013). With this structure, user can switch from inflexible to flexible form such as from a 16 inch straight bar to a bracelet for woman’s wrist. This special structure also become the switch for different function modes such as a headphone mode to activate headphone units or a speaker unit that produce different amounts of volume and a way to deliver sound privately and publicly.
Second, we believe this new form could hold new types of musical interactions like a famous old saying ‘new wine in old bottles’. We like to bring Active and Playful listening interaction mainly. With this option, a user can get a chance to explore sound space like that a user can hear more and loud guitar sound when they move their mobile device to virtual guitar position. Also, a user can edit and modify sound by simple tangible interfaces. For example, when they press some buttons and pads in this devices, they will hear more bass boom sound, compressed and time stretching sound. We assume that it could be seemed as the instagram App for music, easy editing tool for music.
Here are our plan and some experiments examples. Basically, we are planning to make a real product for the consumer market.
Suspended Motion is a setup that tends to make the user believe that he/she is in a state of motion on a spinning chair, while in fact for most part of the experience the user remains stationary. It is based on a Philosophical Theme revolving around Scientism.
Today, we all live in the Age of Science and we embrace everything that science brings with it. Just look around and you will find that we are surrounded by technology that was just science fiction some decades ago- but this sometimes tends to make us believe that Science is the most authoritative worldview: it has all the answers to our questions and it alone can explain the true inner working of the universe- only science can answer how the universe came about, how we evolved or what our purpose in this world is. Suspended Motion gives a different perspective on the topic.
Suspended Motion consists of a rotating-chair (in fact any rotating chair) where the user sits on the chair, wears a headphone (preferably wireless, or hold your laptop as you spin) and follows the instructions on the sound clip (link below). He is first instructed to close his eyes, spin the chair and observe how the sound field exactly matches his current position. This is done by angular position data sent to the laptop via OSC from an iPhone’s Compass attached to the chair. After about 40 seconds, the user is instructed to give a final push and to set off in a decelerating rotation. The user focuses on the sound, and experiences Suspended Motion for the last 25 seconds of his spin.
This is more of an ‘experience-based’ instrument so I would urge you to try it yourself using the following setup. You can always hear the audio clip, just to get a sense of how things go. Audio Clip (Disclaimer: Lock Howl-Storm Corrosion from the 2012 release “Storm Corrosion” is the copyrighted property of its owner(s). ) MAX Sketch Ambisonics for MAX Compass Data via GyroOSC (iPhone App)
GlasSpinner is an instrument, where a player stations his fingers on the wine glasses, touches and the instrument produces sound while the glasses spin underneath.
In the past I’ve worked with wine glasses, and I loved their sound. Just to be clear, if you don’t know what I’m talking about – when you rub your fingers, they make beautiful sounds! But this is a hard process. You have to hold the glass, rub your finger with a constant spin, and it’s a tricky thing to achieve. So I’ve came up with the idea of making wine glasses spin automatically! Me and Patt teamed up, and together we’ve designed an acrylic base that holds them together. Instead of rubbing your finger around the glass, the motor drives the two bases that hold and spin the glasses, allowing you to place your finger stationary. The first prototype worked, but it was bulky and unstable. We were able to achieve a decent sound from the first glass, but the spin rate of the second glass wasn’t enough, because of the design of the spinners.
After the first working prototype, we decided to design a new body, focusing on stability and simplicity. This time, we’ve made it very modular(ikea-esque) for ease of carrying and use. We chose different sized transparent acrylic as the main material, and lasercut all the parts. There were some problems due to the accuracy of the laser cutter, that prevented the glass holder to spin smoothly. However, we managed to fix it by sanding the holes to leave some room between the circles and the holes.
The workshop aims at exploring performativity through converting the sound into a bodily experience. The two voluminous speakers, set on the middle of the floor in the lobby, produce two different fragments of the sounds. One produces the Soviet Union composer, Dmitri Shostakovich’s musics. The other produces Charlotte Moorman’s American Avant-guard cello sounds, creating a juxtaposition and a dialogue with each other. In front of the speakers, the performers dance in response to each sound in delay; they perform the music in silence through the memory of the sound, dividing the sounds from its sensory perception. The performers focus on reacting the memory of the music in order to express how the sonic-ideology affects the human body and its movement.
In order to add extra functionality to max, you can download and install “3rd party externals”. These are binaries that you download, unzip and place within your MAX SEARCH PATH (i.e. in Max, go to Options > File Preferences… and add the folder where you’ll put your 3rd party extensions; I recommend a folder called “_for-Max” in your “Documents” folder).
