All three of my chosen projects for this Looking Outwards have to do with music. I thought that I focused more on video and games in my previous entries, and music seems like it is quite different but has no less of an ability to be manipulated with programming. The first work I chose is called Chimeres Orchestra, and is a project that is designed to be installed in public space. It is a kind of “spider” that uses it’s “legs” to strike whatever object it is attached to, creating different sounds depending on the size and material of this object. Some possible examples include street signs or lighting “in an urban environment,” or simply a pole that happens to be present in an installation room. The ability of this work to be set up in an almost unlimited amount of places, and for it to be programmed by the user to creative different music, is really interesting. If I were walking down the street and saw one of these I would probably stop to listen!

Although the video is a little silly, and seems to not display the full capabilities of this work, the concept is well thought out. There are a series of pumps attached to a machine that allow various users to control the amount of a sound that is present depending on how fast they pump. This means that user interactivity is actually required for any sound to be produced at all, which I think is pretty cool. And it also encourages interacting with other people at the same time, to produce more interesting combinations of sound. It was kind of hard to tell if the speed of pumping had a direct correlation with the tempo of the beat, but I think it should, as it would require the users to be in sync to produce something that sounds good.

The last work I chose is BeatBearing by Peter Bennet. As the video shows, this work is highly interactive and, like Pumpbeats, encourages multiple people to interact at once. Depending on the placement of the balls, the beat changes. Rows can even be pre-constructed to allow for quick changes and the tempo can be speeded up and slowed down as well. The ability to directly control the sound output of this work is something not quite present in the other two works I chose. Where you place the balls decides the beat, so if one ball is placed differently, the output will not be quite the same. While Pumpbeats seemed to have the user manipulating a pre-made beat, BeatBearing has the user constructing the beat. It seems like a very hands-on way (with immediate feedback) of writing music.

Credits:

Chimeres Orchestra: http://impala.utopia.free.fr/travaux/?id=67

Pumpbeats: http://xciba.de/pumpbeats/

BeatBearing: http://www.beatbearing.co.uk/index.html