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 » |
September 14th, 2009

Reflections from the testing of Hitmetron and the remaking of “I am sitting in a room”

Hitmetron

I would like to elaborate on some topics as experienced from the testing of the original Hitmetron and Hitmetron the spatial version:

  1. The difference between active and passive user generated input
  2. Degree of involvement
  3. Stage fright -> intimidating microphones
  4. Degree of transparency in processing, layers
  5. Reaching the state of Flow

1.

It is evident that the theme of passive versus active user generated input is an important consideration when designing interactive installations. The original Hitmetron was designed purely for active user generated input, whereas Hitmetron Revisited, the spatial version, was designed for both active and passive user generated input. The original Hitmetron was purely active in the sense of being an “instrument” that the user actively had to engage with. Hitmetron Revisited was active as it kept some of the same “instrument” parts (vocal microphone, “drum” in the form of a wooden box and “gong” in the form of a metal sheet) and passive with the addition of a metal sheet mic’ed up and placed on the floor by the entrance to the room so that any people entering the room would have to step on it and create sound input. I find it important to make conscious decisions as to how the input is generated as the activeness or passiveness of the input is closely linked to the degree of involvement and degree of transparency in the processing of the input.

2.

The degree of involvement, as I see it, is affected by the form of user generated input, the degree of transparency in the processing of said input and naturally by the content of the installation in itself. It is a goal when designing immersive experiences in the form of interactive installations to enable the user to reach the state of Flow. I will come back to this.

3.

Most people have a natural stage fright. They find it intimidating to be the centre of attention, especially when it comes to artistic performances such as music, theatre and film. This is something that we as designers must strive to overcome when designing immersive experiences in the form of interactive installations. To do this it is again important to bear in mind the form of input and the degree of transparency in the processing of the input.

4.

The pitfall when being considerate of people’s stage fright is that the whole experience can become rather flat and uninteresting. We can remedy this by tweaking the degree of transparency in processing of the input to increase the level of involvement in the installation. It is important that the users get a feel of what they contribute to the installation without crossing the line to exhibiting them. One way this can be done is by combining multiple layers of input and/or processing. There must be at least one level of more or less direct feedback, but several other layers can be added where the input in no necessarily coherent way is played back. This ensures that the users aren’t alienated from the piece, but still opens up for endless artistic expressions.

5.

When creating immersive experiences the concept of Flow, as proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, is important to bear in mind. Flow is the mental state of operation in which the user is fully immersed in the activity at hand, enhancing the sense of focus, involvement and success. This must be the ultimate goal when designing interactive installations, especially when the installation is an active one in form of input.






I am sitting in a room

I chose to do a remake of Alvin Lucier’s “I am sitting in a room” for a few reasons: to explore the impact of acoustics on sound, to explore the relation between sound input and sound output, to sensitize myself to sound as an artistic expression (not as a musician) and to familiarize myself with an old masterpiece.

The original piece is a recording of Alvin Lucier’s voice reading:

I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in
now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am
going to play it back into the room again and again until
the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves
so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the
exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will
hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the
room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not
so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as
a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might
have.

The recording is played back while it is recorded. This new recording is then played back and recorded, and the process is repeated until satisfied.

I used AT&T’s voice emulator to generate the starting vocal track. I chose to do it this way to remove any personal characteristics in the voice (you can argue that that the voice still has a strong personality, but it is clearly a machine and not a human being) so that the characteristics of the rooms would be at centre stage.

Acoustics

I used two different rooms to be able to compare their impact on the piece. First I ran through the piece in an auditorium, and then I did the same thing with exactly the same settings in a meeting room. The rooms were very different in their impact on the sound. I talked to a friend of mine who is a sound technician who mentioned how different rooms have different degrees of saturation, the point where it is impossible to amplify sound further without it peaking and becoming an incoherent mass. This is quite clear in the meeting room where after only a few iterations the higher frequencies peak while the lower tones are still quite clear. After these experiments it is evident that the room a sound installation is presented in is an important part of the result, not only visually.

Sound input versus sound output

It was a fantastic experience to follow the transformation of a clear spoken text into a piece of space evoked noise music, solely through the use of playback and recording and playback again. Unfortunately no video or recording can give justice to the quality of the sound live. It has to be experienced. Such an easy concept has great possibilities. I definitely confirmed that great experiences can be created by simple means.

by ka-d | Posted in Installation, Reflections | No Comments » |