April 12th, 2010

Dual levels of behaviour, experience and interaction (or reaction)

I am currently thinking a lot about dual levels of behaviour, experience and interaction (or reaction).

First some background:

The installation I’m working on these days is based on the idea of a division between the whole and the parts that constitutes said whole. A fascination with the theory of emergence, a term usually used about the novel and emergent behaviour seen in more or less complex systems based on relatively simple autonomous agents (examples are the way flocks of birds fly in formation, the way schools of fish move as one, or the way ant colonies organize with no central control), has given rise to the installation’s form.
The installation is built on a system of 16 autonomous agents, in the form of microcontroller controlled units each with an embedded LED (light), LDR (light sensor) and solenoid (for percussive sound). All the units are identical in shape and loaded with the same code. The units are spread throughout a space in all three dimensions, with a gap of approx. 1.5 meters between each other.

spread_in_space.jpg

An analogy for the behaviour of the units is that they are like social creatures, feeling safe and content in the company of others like themselves. But when something/someone isolates them, they start to get agitated, wanting to get back into the fold. The units will regularly ping each other with light, and as long as they are touched by a beam of light within given intervals they are happy. The LED and LDR of each unit are placed at 90 degrees to each other, thereby making a rippling effect possible, as a unit can be separated from others on one side, but is still able to agitatedly blink it’s LED, transferring its “adrenalin” to the next unit in the group.

So, to take it from the beginning again:

I am currently thinking a lot about dual levels of behaviour, experience and interaction/reaction.
In the context of the above mentioned installation:

  • Dual refers to the local versus the global, the individual unit versus the group, the active versus the passive interest shown by visitors.
  • Behaviour refers to how the autonomous agents function by themselves, and how the installation functions when viewed as a whole.
  • Experience refers to how people perceive the whole installation versus the parts that it is made of.
  • Interaction/reaction refers to the kind of action people take when in the presence of the installation, whether they keep to the edges looking at, and listening to, the whole or diving into it playing around with the separate units.

My hope is that the installation will be perceived on both levels. First when someone enters the space it is in, they might stop up for a bit, viewing the play of light and shadows bouncing from unit to unit, listen to the soundscape. After a bit they might start getting interested in the separate units, trying to figure out how it works. The difficult part to predict is whether most people will dare start walking between the different units, discovering how they can be affected (or at least that they can be affected). I am looking forward to doing proper user tests to find out more about these things.
People are different. Some people shy away from everything that might put them in the spotlight, while others jump at every opportunity to explore new things. I hope that the installation will cater to both types of people, as visitors may choose themselves whether they want to interact or react, and whether the level of the behaviour in the installation that they experience is local, global or both. There are of course tricks one can use to force the timid visitor to interact in an installation such as this. One way is to create a sense of security by exhibiting in a smaller space, thus removing the audience/performer association from the experience. Another way is to place the first units a visitor will encounter right by the entrance to the space, forcing them to move through the installation to get inside. The trick is to hold on to the original idea of dual levels of experience; it must be possible to observe the installation from outside, while encouraging people to walk among the agents.

November 20th, 2009

Piksel 09 _first report

I’m attending Piksel 09 in Bergen these days. What follows is an update of what I have experienced so far…



Yesterday was the opening day, these were the things I attended:

- Talk by Eleonora Oreggia (IT) called “Virtual Entity”

- Gallery opening at Lydgalleriet with several interesting works displayed

- New media/dance performance called “Action Potential” by Jenny A Torino (US), Benjamin A Margolis (US) and Lee Azzarello (US)

- Audiovisual performance called “Kunst Und Musik mit dem Tageslichtprojektor” by Ralf Schreiber (DE), Tina Tonagel (DE) and Christian Faubel (DE)

- Noise jam called “Noise Invaders” by Diego de Leon (ES)



Today I’ve so far attended:

- Talk by Pall Thayer (IS) called “Microcodes”

- Talk by Marius Schebella (US) called “Re-ware”

- Talk by Sébastien Bourdeauducq (FR) called “Milkymist, an open hardware VJ platform”

- Talk by Mattin (ES) called “Noise and Capitalism/Free Software”

- Talk by Letizia Jaccheri (NO) called “Open Source Software Tools for creativity”

- Workshop/performance called “Chaoslab” by Julien Ottavi (FR), Jenny Pickett (FR), Dominique Leroy (FR), Julien Poidevin (FR) and Ryan Jordan (UK)

- Gallery opening at Galleri 3,14 with several interesting works displayed



I will attend a couple of performances tonight, more on those at a later point.



Now some thoughts and images from the different things I’ve experienced and observed so far:



Eleonora Oreggia (IT): “Virtual Entity”

Eleonora Oreggia has a background in archiving artistic and creative digital works. This always present difficulties when considering the multitudes of formats and versions often available of different works. She has now made a program for archiving these kinds of work, from a philosophical standpoint where she tries to isolate the different files and their states as “entities”. An example is giving files parent/child relations to each other, based on whether or not the have any “genetic” material in common. For instance, if I made a image collage of stills from a video work, the video would be the parent and the collage the child. In addition to different quantifiable data that she gives the different files, she also has the metadata slot where the qualitative description is written. This is of course subjective, and she refers to it as the “soul” of the digital entity. I find this view quite frascinating.



Exhibition Opening at Lydgalleriet:



“intrinsic” by Angie Atmadjaja was a beautiful installation. Four glowing tubes suspended from the ceiling in a dark room. They had small microphones attached them, and dimmed the light based on level of sound input. Ambient sound was running, and this together with the sounds from the visitors made the tubes come to life, almost dancing in their stillness.



DSC_0073



“Health & Safety Violation #14 – Randomly Activated Tripwire Proposal” by Ben Woodeson was a cute interference in the hallway. The tripwire was hooked to an arduino, going up or down based on a random calculation between 1 and 30 seconds. But even if this was a random program, you could not help but feel that there was some sort of sensor involved. When I first walked over it it coincided with an upwards motion. I spent some time trying to find out exactly what it was I did so that I could controll it, but there you go. Standing there and observing other people interacting with it was a pure joy. Everything from people showing considerate care, to people getting a fright, to people not bothering a second look.



DSC_0082DSC_0083



“Musica Vista 1.0″ by Carlos Tricas displayed some nice graphics based on the physical location of big foam buttons. A camera tracked the locations and visitors were encouraged to move the buttons around.



DSC_0089DSC_0090



“Generative Audio Prototypes” by Dream Addictive, Carmen González and Leslie Garcia was a box that produced sound based on the nearness of things and people. IR sensors lined the sides and related to different parts of the soundscape, a knob adjusted the speed of the sounds created. Fun to play with.



DSC_0099



“augen-auf-schlag” by Wolfgang Spahn and Thomas Gerwin was the most elaborate installation on display. An electronic drumkit was hooked up to liquid light projectors, the shapes, colours and orientations based on which drum pads you hit. Even more fun to play with.



DSC_0103DSC_0104DSC_0106



“The serv seq” by Gijs Gieskes was a more transparent sound making machine, even though I didn’t find out exactly how to use before the artist came and explained. Optical sensors were attached to swinging arms, the sensors read the graphic pattern on a turntable, and the arms could be controlled to hit outside objects:  a cymbal, a wooden block and a plastic ball. You could control the speed of the turntable, the motion of the arms and a couple of other things I honestly can’t remember. Fun thing, but without instructions not really accessible.



DSC_0117DSC_0121DSC_0123



New media/dance performance “Action Potential” by Jenny A Torino (US), Benjamin A Margolis (US) and Lee Azzarello (US)

DSC_0127



This was, in my book, a classical example of falling in love with the technology without taking enough care to make sure the audience is happy/intrigued. Three “dancers” were rigged with a varying amount of sensors, boxes and cables. The sound was supposedly generated by the readings from the sensors, but if I hadn’t known I would rather think they moved to a prerecorded sound track with fancy props attached to themselves. After some time of moving around they started swapping sensors.



DSC_0128This was of course not really interesting to look at. The sensors were elaborately enough attached so that they used at least a couple of minutes doing it, standing there on stage, no music, no dancing, nothing of interest.



Audiovisual performance “Kunst Und Musik mit dem Tageslichtprojektor” by Ralf Schreiber (DE), Tina Tonagel (DE) and Christian Faubel (DE)



DSC_0137



Now this was fantastic stuff. Three artist, three overhead projectors, loads of mechanical things making sounds. Basically, they made sounds with different things, dc motors that vibrated, strings and bow, blowing bubbles in water, etc. The sound was also amplified and modified, but it was in general quite easy to discern what made which sound. The neat trick was that they used the overhead projectors as tables, all the things that made sound were also carefully shaped and/or chosen based on how they would look projected onto the wall.



DSC_0152



They went through several themes, both visually and musically.DSC_0161



And here’s the gear:DSC_0162DSC_0163DSC_0164



All in all a fantastic experience.



Noise jam “Noise Invaders” by Diego de Leon (ES)



Now this was just a plain old good noise performance. Enjoyed it immensely.



DSC_0170

October 30th, 2009

John Cage _quotes

John Cage (1912-1992) was a composer, poet, graphic artist and teacher. I would like to share some quotes from his book Silence: Lectures and Writings.

John Cage (1968). Silence: Lectures and Writings. (Reprint 2009). London: Marion Boyers Publishers.



The Future of Music: Credo

(From a talk 1937; Silence [p. 3])

I BELIEVE THAT THE USE OF NOISE

Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at fifty miles per hour. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as sound effects but as musical instruments. Every film studio has a library of “sound effects” recorded on film. With a film phonograph it is now possible to control the amplitude and frequency of any one of these sounds and to give to it rhythms within or beyond the reach of the imagination. Given four film phonographs, we can compose and perform a quartet for explosive motor, wind, heartbeat, and landslide.

TO MAKE MUSIC

If this word “music” is sacred and reserved for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound.

WILL CONTINUE AND INCREASE UNTIL WE REACH A MUSIC PRODUCED THROUGH THE AID OF ELECTRICAL INSTRUMENTS.



Experimental Music

(From a talk 1957; Silence [p. 7-8])

For in this new  music nothing takes place but sounds: those that are notated and those that are not. Those that are not notated appear in the written music as silences, opening the doors of the music to the sounds that happen in the environment.



III. Communication

(Text; Quotation from someone else (?); Silence [p. 51])

Contemporary music

is not the music of the future

nor the music of the past

but simply

music present with us:

this moment,

now,

this now moment.

(…)

There is no such thing as silence. Get thee to an anechoic chamber and hear there thy nervous system in operation and hear thy blood in circulation.



Forerunners of Modern Music

(Article 1949; Silence [p. 62 + 64])

Definitions

Structure in music is its divisibility into successive parts from phrases to long sections. Form is content, the continuity. Method is the means of controlling the continuity from note to note. The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.

(…)

A finished work is exactly that, requires resurrection.

by ka-d | Posted in Inspiration, Reflections | No Comments » |
October 8th, 2009

Visualization _ noise translated

I am currently looking into visualizing sound and music as part of my installation project. Whether any of my work during these couple of weeks make it into the final installation remains to be seen, but at least it serves as a sensitizing towards visual representations of sound and music.
I have found that my main focus lays with the dynamics and contrasts of any given musical piece. I try to find the “feel” of the music, through it’s dynamics, contrasts and intensity and translate this “feel” into visual representations.

As a part of my work I have made a short animation in two versions: Black on white and white on black. The two versions both inhabit the same use of dynamics and contrast, but still convey slightly different “feels”.



Black on white:



Noise translated from Kjetil Austvoll-Dahlgren on Vimeo.






White on black:



Noise translated _ inverted from Kjetil Austvoll-Dahlgren on Vimeo.

by ka-d | Posted in Reflections, Video, Visualization | No Comments » |
September 28th, 2009

Sources graded cont.

Attached is a rough estimate of the degree of generative potential in the system inputs. An Installation needs to not only work when there are visitors there, but also when there aren’t anyone there – to draw visitors into it. Naturally, this doesn’t necessarily apply if the installation is meant to be surprising, for instance when placed in public spaces.

input_scale

Reposting the list as a reference:

1. Adjust channel by visitor’s location in room
2. Adjust volume by visitor’s location in room
3. Ambient light temperature affects effects/sound (windowed room or just affected by outside light)
4. Concealed ambience microphone
5. Huge mobile, objects on strings hanging from the ceiling, makes sound when visitors move through them (kinetic)
6. Microphone inside hard object, resonates on touch/hit
7. Microphone on floor
8. Punching balls -> microphones inside record hits
9. Punching balls -> sensors inside trigger sounds
10. Record time-lapse of people in room; generate sound from the pattern that is created
11. Several objects together make sound when moved/shaken
12. Single light source, shadows cast by visitors block out sounds based on which light sensors they trigger.
13. Single light source, shadows cast by visitors trigger effects.
14. Single light source, shadows cast by visitors triggers sound.
15. Sound triggered by touch (button/switch), effect/filter by ambient sound level
16. Sound triggered by touch (button/switch), effect/filter by location in room
17. Sound triggered by touch (button/switch), effect/filter by number of people
18. Tilt sensor in object, generates sound
19. Tilt sensor in pendulum, generates/tweaks sound
20. Video -> Movement triggers sound
21. Video -> Movement creates sound
22. Video tracking, when silhouettes overlap, triggers sound.
23. Visible ambience microphone
24. Vocal microphone

I find it only partly interesting to sort the list in this scale, as the generative potential is as much influenced by the processing of the input as the input itself. It is always possible to create idle modes regardless of the input.

by ka-d | Posted in Reflections | No Comments » |
September 25th, 2009

Masked sound – decomposing canvas

When something, like a person, blocks a light source, a shadow is cast. This shadow is in effect a mask, masking out parts of the visible space, as the absence of light is dark, and dark is invisible (in the extreme). So what happens if you translate the same mechanics to sound? To find out more I did a couple of tests, hooking up a light sensor to an Arduino and connecting it to a program in Processing:



Masked sound explored _1 from Kjetil Austvoll-Dahlgren on Vimeo.






The next logical step was to hide the hardware inside an object and upscale the experiment:



Masked sound explored _2 from Kjetil Austvoll-Dahlgren on Vimeo.






The next test I’m planning to do is hooking up more sensors and placing them in a larger space to explore how this affects the experience of it. Other things that need to be considered are the auditive parts of the piece: what should it be, where is it coming from, should it be generated by the light? Or preprogrammed? Or effects on ambient sound? Should the shadows mask out tracks or effects on a single track?



We are used to adding components to the whole when we wish to make something better in our daily lives (seasoning in food, accessories with clothes, etc). I am going to explore what the effect of decomposing does to an auditive canvas, and how this links directly to the visual canvas i.e. the room/space you are in.

by ka-d | Posted in Installation, Reflections, Testing | No Comments » |
September 23rd, 2009

Sources graded cont.

Other aspects of the sources worth considering are the autonomous system versus the user driven system, or in other words the automatic versus the manual, or the system as an individual versus the system as a tool.

Sorting to come…

by ka-d | Posted in Reflections | No Comments » |
September 23rd, 2009

Sources graded

I then went through them, sorting them in groups by their estimated transparency in an installation setting:

input_grid_placed_graded

by ka-d | Posted in Reflections | No Comments » |
September 23rd, 2009

List of possible input sources

As a start I’ve collected some possible ways for the user to generate/trigger sound:

1. Adjust channel by visitor’s location in room
2. Adjust volume by visitor’s location in room
3. Ambient light temperature affects effects/sound (windowed room or just affected by outside light)
4. Concealed ambience microphone
5. Huge mobile, objects on strings hanging from the ceiling, makes sound when visitors move through them (kinetic)
6. Microphone inside hard object, resonates on touch/hit
7. Microphone on floor
8. Punching balls -> microphones inside record hits
9. Punching balls -> sensors inside trigger sounds
10. Record time-lapse of people in room; generate sound from the pattern that is created
11. Several objects together make sound when moved/shaken
12. Single light source, shadows cast by visitors block out sounds based on which light sensors they trigger.
13. Single light source, shadows cast by visitors trigger effects.
14. Single light source, shadows cast by visitors triggers sound.
15. Sound triggered by touch (button/switch), effect/filter by ambient sound level
16. Sound triggered by touch (button/switch), effect/filter by location in room
17. Sound triggered by touch (button/switch), effect/filter by number of people
18. Tilt sensor in object, generates sound
19. Tilt sensor in pendulum, generates/tweaks sound
20. Video -> Movement triggers sound
21. Video -> Movement creates sound
22. Video tracking, when silhouettes overlap, triggers sound.
23. Visible ambience microphone
24. Vocal microphone

Then I’ve sorted them in the grid, like so:

input_grid_placed

by ka-d | Posted in Reflections | No Comments » |
September 23rd, 2009

User involvement grid

As mentioned before, I believe that it is important to bear in mind the activeness/passiveness of the user generated input and the threshold of use when designing interactive experiences. To explore this I will use this grid:

input_grid

by ka-d | Posted in Reflections | No Comments » |
« Older Entries