Looking Outwards

What inspired ME

Smile TV from David Hedberg on Vimeo.

I really liked the concept and the execution of smile tv, a piece by David Hedberg which is essentially a TV that only functions when the viewer is smiling. For one thing, I that that conceptually, the simplicity of the piece really works to make it both endearing and interesting. Even while watching the piece I found myself smiling. Personally, I really like artwork that is interactive in that sense and I especially enjoyed watching the reactions of people as they used the piece. In addition, what I really admired about the piece is that it uses just one really simple function of FaceOSC which is the function that tracks the movement of the lips. As a piece, I think it is really successful in the way it works to make the viewer an essential part of the piece. Also, having one chair makes it a really intimate piece, between the viewer and the tv. I’m of two minds when it comes to this. For one thing, I do like how intimate it makes the because, however because watching tv is such a communal for me-I always watch with my family or friends—I’d like to see a piece that only works when everyone is smiling while watching it. Overall though I was just really drawn to the piece and I really like it as a whole.
http://www.creativeapplications.net/maxmsp/smile-tv-works-only-when-you-smile/

What surprised Me

SoundAffects: Behind the Scenes from Tellart on Vimeo.

The first thing one might come to know about me is I’m not really musically inclined. When I say this I don’t mean I don’t enjoy listening to music, but that when it comes to notes, or levels, I’m essentially tone deaf which makes me especially clueless to the idea of mixing sounds together. SoundAffects, a collaboration between Parsons the New School for Design, Tellart and mono, is a piece I wouldn’t have thought of in my wildest dreams. Basically it essentially translates the sounds of street activity into music that people passing by can listen too on their headphones. A data visualize also translates the vsuals into audio that goes along the music online. It’s a really interesting idea and I even liked some of the sounds complied by it. The only thing I would really critique is the presentation of the piece. When you are listen to the sounds you are looking at a white wall that says sound effects. You’re not looking at the city or the environment, which I feel is an essential part of the piece seeing as it wishes to change your perceptions of your environment. I think if the wall were in a position where you could look around better, or if it was even made out of glass so you could see through it, it would work to create visuals for the piece rather than having to rely on a computer to do so.
http://www.creativeapplications.net/maxmsp/soundaffects-maxmsp-sound-arduino/

What could do better

Voice Lessons from AudioCookbook.org on Vimeo.

John Keston’s piece Voice Lessons is a visual and digital piece that reacts to the touch of the user as they move up, down and left and right on the screen. As a whole, I really like the way the voice changes seamlessly according to the touch. The visuals also surprisingly transition seamlessly along with the shift in tone. The sounds made as the user moves along the screen are really eerie and unsettling. With that said I don’t know why I find this piece a bit disappointing. I suppose I expected it to be something that also interacts more with the viewer than it does at this point. I think that this surprisingly low amount of interactivity is what makes the piece disappointing .I don’t know if technologically this is a viable option but if the viewer’s voice could play a roll in the piece I think that would be really interesting. Also, if find the position in which his father(the instructor), begings to be odd. He begins looking away from you but turns to face you when you touch him. I think just having him continuously facing the viewer might be a better approach.

Something that inspired me

Mew is an interactive sound piece where a mounted strip of fur responds to the viewers position and touch. If you approach the piece, it emits a purring noise, and if you touch it, distorted cat sounds are emitted depending on the pressure of your hand as well as the direction. I have an immense affinity for animals, taxidermy, and our interactions with pets and creatures, and despite the visual and interactive simplicity of this, this piece very much so feeds into that area of thought for me. I do wish however that the sounds emitted upon being touched were a bit more refined, and less chaotic.

Something that disappointed me

Speaking Angle fell somewhat flat in my opinion. I enjoyed the idea of using a fixed architectural space to form an interaction, especially with the use of words, but the fact that the words did not change, and their movement was accompanied by a very superfluous “wooshing” sound, it left me wanted something more. I think this piece would have turned out much stronger if the viewer’s movement generates different phrases or words, instead the same phrases moving up and down a plane.

Something that surprised me

Musical Skin is an interactive installation where two people interact with one another through touching, which directly creates a sound that is played by a water-filled glass. I found something very sweet in this concept, as well as the execution. I enjoyed the fact that people were the medium, as well as the creators of the sound. In addition to this, the installation creates a reason for people to touch, which is something that as we grow older, we tend to forget how fundamental it is to our social natures, as well as its role in brain development.

Art work that Inspired Me

I couldn’t choose just one art work that had inspired me so I’ll introduce the studio which has made the works that had inspired me. Kimchi and Chips is an mainly interactive installation art studio which is located in Seoul. Most of their art consist using Max/MSP/Jitter. Their art consist of code, form, material, concept and mechanism, where their concept is creating an emulsion of imagined reality within the real world developing natural interactions between people, nature and digital network. Their works focus on the smallest part of the nature such as light, wave and the small movements.

Kimchi and Chips

One of the works that I especially found interesting is Lunar Surface. The concept of the Lunar Space, the fact that they were drawing space in space was really interesting to me. They used computer and lights to project it into space, and our eyes see it as an  space due to after image. This is fully captured by the long exposure photographs but seeing with the human eyes also makes the work more stand out to me. This art was inspired by Murakami Haruki’s book 1Q84 and since I had liked the book a lot the art was more appealing and interesting to me, and I could read what they were trying to say through the art.

Project that surprised me

Brilliant Cube by Jin Yo Mok had surprised me since his work was comparably simple in concept and its function but it give a lot to think about in our life. It is a 6meter square cube with LED lights that express the brilliant moments in our lives by pattern. The theme “Live Brilliant” is simple but pure to my thought. It is installed at one of the most busiest and crowded place in Seoul and most might not recognise it as an artwork but many people take time to appreciate it rather than go their own way. I think the placing of this work was really effective since it would not be as effective when it was a museum setting. By placing it at a busy district area, it could have its full potential.

Jin Yo Mok

Project that could have been great

Time of Doubles by Artificial Nature, group that is made up of two artists Haru Ji and Graham Wakefield was inspiring but I personally think it had more chances to be a better and more interesting project. They create an artificial nature where people can interact with the fluid space, where it actually is a sustainable nature with in it. It reproduces, grows and sustains itself. However, it is simulating nature, the real world, inside not a real world, inside a screen. I thought that this was similar to the zoo or the aquarium where it is more like a one time viewing event rather than providing a chance to think about nature and its mechanism. I think it might have been better if the viewer could interact with it and modify the lives behind the screen.

Artificial Nature

Tripwire (2011)

Tripwire by Jean-Michel Albert and Ashley Fure

Tripwire is a set of 18 or 24  (depending on which installation) strings attached to motors. By spinning the motors at certain frequencies, and projecting light onto them, a captivating audio visual display is created. I specifically like that the colors projected onto the strings create the appearance of a volumetric light similar to a light projected into fog, but with much more defined boundaries. I find it interesting that the audience influences the piece by moving in front of it. This is done using infrared sensors that trach the presence of viewers.

I wonder though what this project would have been like if rather than rotating the strings were moved back and forth. I think that there would have been a possiblility to give the piece more tone, by vibrating at appropriate frequencies, rather than just whirring.

Tele-Present Water

 

This is a project where the artist David Bowen, simulates the movement of water in a grid sculpture controlled by maxMSP, Arduinos, and some DC motors. It collects data from the actual topology in the ocean near a buoy station in Alaska, scales it down, and displays it in the grid.

I liked this installation because I have always been fascinated by the movement of water. I find it interesting that the artist chose to simulate the fluid movement of water in a rigid grid. The installation reminds me of a wireframe of a video game terrain. However, the sculpture does appear to be slightly jittery. I think I would enjoy seeing it in a larger scale moving more “fluidly”.

Electric Stimulus

Daito Manabe has created a piece in which he associates a facial expression to sounds by forcing an expression on another persons face using electrodes that are activated differently depending on which finger is used to touch the other person. I’m not sure but this seems kind of dangerous. However, it is very interesting. I did notice that a finger is associated with a sound and facial expression, but the spot where the other person is touched is not. I would think that the project would be more interesting if the “instrument” reacted differently depending on where it was touched. It would also be interesting to see this paired with swept frequency capacitive sensing rather than single frequency binary capacitive sensing like they are using. For an example of swept frequency capacitive sensing, please see Touché.

Wow ok so when Golan brought up my synesthesia  in class the other day a couple of folks were asking me about it, which always happens, but I’m never super good at explaining it beyond “song x is colors a b and c” or something. Mainly the problem is that I can’ t show people what it looks like inside my head when I’m listening to stuff.
But this.
This.
This is what music feels like.

I’m not exactly clear on what’s going on beyond the fact that the video is being distorted in response to the sound (I tried to dig deeper into the sources but several of them are in Japanese and as much of that as I can speak I still can’t read it super well). From what I can tell from watching the video, the percussion seems to be having the most visible effect on the distortion of the image, but I don’t know enough about music or programming to say whether that’s a music thing or a deliberate programming choice.

Either way it’s rad and fun to look at.

http://www.creativeapplications.net/sound/brdg004-hazcauch-%C3%97-vokoi-maxmsp-sound/

SOMETHING THAT INSPIRED ME
Fragile Territories by Robert Henke

In Fragile Territories, Robert Henke uses four fast moving lasers to create a network of flowing light on a 30 meter wide wall. Globules of light quickly flow through paths which themselves bend and twist according to some incomprehensible rules. The piece inspired me because of its new take on the familiar idea of particle systems. The particle systems work and move in a more geometric fashion, unconcerned with “flocking” or any sort of attraction behavior. Instead, the laser particles serve only to render the true focus of the piece: various interweaving networks of curves and lines which whip about the wall. The whole piece gives me a very distinct feeling that I am watching data move through execution threads within a program structure, but I get that feeling all the time so Fragile Territories is not unique in that sense. Nevertheless, it remains quite inspiring in its subtle use of particle systems.

SOMETHING THAT DISAPPOINTED ME
GPS Beatmap by Face Removal Services

The GPS Beatmap lays the framework for a beautifully conceptual way to explore musical combinations. Exploring a spatial map of music, or any other multi-faceted subject matter, engages the user and provides a new perspective on said subject matter. What disappoints me is how little the GPS Beatmap builds upon this framework. The music map is static. The user has no way to specify genre, nor do they have control over the shape of the map. A feature where one ‘breakbeat’ remains at medium volume while the user moves throughout the map would allow a more cohesive mash-up than attaching every loop to a geographic location. Overall, the GPS Beatmap is a wonderful concept ripe with opportunity which Face Removal Services takes little advantage of.

SOMETHING THAT SURPRISED ME
Chaper 1: The Discovery by Félix Luque

The Discovery surprised me on multiple fronts. Firstly, Luque takes control of the user experience before they even see his sculpture. An entire room exists solely to condition the user’s perception of the sculpture. Videos play of fictitious discovery scenarios in which the sculpture is stumbled upon within mysterious environments. This preps the user for their own ‘discovery’ of the sculpture. I never thought of dedicating an entire space to building up expectations for interaction with another space.
Luque’s sculpture’s behavior surprised me as well. The sculpture’s lighting patterns, a sort of pseudo-communication, change based on the number of people interacting with it at a given time. If one person stands before the sculpture, it emits distinct and directional patterns to that specific person. As more people surround it, the lighting patterns become more hectic and disorganized. When fully surrounded, the sculpture flashes all of its lights on and off in what I interpreted as a display of fear.

Ambient Synthesis by Amanda Ghassaei “is a sound sculpture that responds to light stimuli to construct a unique, audiovisual interpretation of its environment.”  the light sensor data is interpreted by a MaxMSP application to produce abstract symmetrical patterns and a slowly evolving synthetic drone.  I really enjoy the minimalistic aesthetic of this cube in these landscapes.  I also enjoy the way this knee height square is able to interpret its surroundings and release a noise that engulfs an entire space.  One I’m prove meant that could be made is either a more developed focus on the lighting visuals or not have the lights at all because they appear to distract the viewer because they are not that pretty.  The documentation of this project is very effective because it draws a professional focus on the object as well as its surroundings.

 

“Commissioned by Sonos, Light House is an interactive light and sound responsive installation created by NY’s SoftLab that responds in real-time to Sonos components. The installation is constructed of a grid of 600 florescent light tubes at varying heights and lengths to create an interior volume.” It appears to be used as a interactive light display/set for musical performances.  I enjoy the clean look of the florescent lightbulbs.  However, because the installation exists in a three diminutional plane, some of the lighting patterns  are blocked by the inactive lights in from of them.  Another direction this piece could take is that the artists could think about the bulbs coming up from the floor, out from the walls in all different directions rather than just a cloud from above.

http://www.creativeapplications.net/maxmsp/light-house-light-and-sound-installation-for-sonos-by-softlab/

 

“Object” is my favorite of the three.  This “is an interactive installation that generates an ever changing sound thanks to the dynamic relation established between its different parts.”  Ass the viewer gets closer to the plate, it bends away and makes a louder noise as if it is afraid of the viewer.  It is very interesting because it is a give and take kind of fear.  The piece physically fears the viewer but the sounds and reaction of an inanimate object causes fear in the viewer from getting closer.  The documentation of this piece is kind of poor because it appears to be in a class room setting.

Hindsight is Always 20/20

 

Hindsight is always 20/20 is a review of all of the State of the Union Addresses based on frequency of words used in said address each year. As the name suggests, the piece serves as a forced historical re-evaluation of these presidents based, quite literally, on their choice of words.

I have to say that I am personally a fan of DuBois’ work. A few months back, I had the pleasure of walking into his exhibition at the Ringling Museum without prior knowledge of his body of work. Hindsight was being shown there. The piece is initially quite confusing: rows of large cards on the walls, reminiscent of something an optometrist might have hung on the far wall. You probably didn’t read the small plaque explaining what is going on, but these cards seems to be politically oriented. Then everything slides into place once you see the president’s names and dates in the corner.

DuBois has a strong grounding in the conversion of data into conceptually meaningful work, and this shines through in Hindsight. Also, the piece’s inherent dryness coupled with the seeming foolishness of the some of the choice words come together to give it a strange humour.

D.O.R.T.H.E. – Lasse Munk and Søren Andreasen

 

D.O.R.T.H.E. is a machine that converts written language into music. It consists of a number of heavily-modified machines, cobbled together into an input device (seen above) , and a number of smaller ‘instruments’ that the main body uses as the output from the writing.

 

This piece fascinates me. The idea of turning words into music in this way is strong itself, but the physical implementation of this idea, from the typewriter as input to some truly strange musical inventions, is what makes this outstanding.

It’s difficult to tell from the video, but it seems that the situation under which D.O.R.T.H.E. will function seem quite constrained. The player always seems to stage the music in terms of small phrases, and the creation of sound does not seem to be real-time, but instead the machine seems to have to wait until the writer is finished.

Z-Machines – Squarepusher & Rhizomatics

Z-Machines is a set of robotic musicians, designed to be able to play conventional instruments in ways that people cannot.

I’ve hear some of Squarepusher’s stuff, and I like both his solo body of work and the end result audio of Z-Machines, but for me this piece is ruined by the robots. The decision to constrain the machines to anthropomorphism makes them visually weaker (by riding straight into the uncanny valley), as well as hamstringing the machine’s potential to be something new. Instead it just emulates what has already come before, and attempts to directly compete with human bands for performance value, which seems like wasted effort to me.

Pedro Reyes work comes to mind of someone who took similar principles in a more interesting direction.

Underwater by David Bowen

underwater from david bowen on Vimeo.

Basically, this piece is a real-time water simulator and visualization interface that records the topology of a field of water via Kinect and relays that information into a matrix of servomotors controlling a purely mechanical representation of the same water surface. What inspires me about the project is that the recording is being done in a far away lake, possibly on the other side of the globe, and that it controls the servos in an installation where there is no water nearby. David Bowen has done a few other Kinect-based mechanical water recorders, but this is his most advaned one. I do wonder what happens if the real waves get very turbulent though. I think the piece would be even more interesting if he make made the installation interactive in a way, though I am not sure how. Perhaps he could even reverse the recorder and the manipulator, such that instead of the waveform controlling the mechanical interface, the mechanical interface controls the waveform.

Moviestar@Todays Art by Marieke Verbiesen & Neeltje Sprengers

Moviestar@Todays Art from marieke v on Vimeo.

I found this piece really cool – basically, it is real-time movie making interface, where you are the hero and you are exploring around in an unknown alien planet with dinosaurs, UFOs, and jet fighters. The thing is in real time – you are greenscreened into a generative film being recorded live with little animatronics and other real-time screen effects. While you act, you see youself in a little TV embedded with other random goodies just like a scifi flick from the 1960s. The concept of this is very similar to the notion of a videogame; you are immersed in another world and you are the hero, where the environment acts and reacts in real time according to your actions. I think this piece vividly demonstrates the potential of real-time generative film making, and could be well improved upon by simply adding more environments the user can interact with.

Sound Fountain by Todd Vanderlin

Sound Fountain from Todd vanderlin on Vimeo.

I can summarize this piece in two words: laser harp. This piece is more a less a musical intrument where you play notes by blocking the laser at various points of the device. Interaction is very similar to a harp; in a harp, you strum and pluck the strings from left to right to create music, whereas in this piece, you strum and pluck the lasers from left to right to create harmonies. There is another touch I find particularly clever – because lasers are more or less invisible in the open, Todd uses water as a refractive substance in the lasers’ trajectories so one can see where the lasers are. To improve this piece, I would make it resemble even more of a harp than what it already is – add more notes (at least a full octave), and make it so that it plays a sound once when the finger hits the laser, and another sound when the finger is released, rather than continuous sound.