Initial thoughts
This project appears to be exactly what it is titled, to visualise audio, it is a 4 week long project, this will prove useful when looking into avenues I perhaps would be hesitant to explore. My first thought for this project is the Daft Punk “around the world” music video
In this music video each dancer represents a part of the song, the swimmers are the high pitched synth, the robots the vocals are the robots etc. I feel that this is a good example of something for this project.
Taking a trip back in time to nat5 physics looking at how audio is brought to our ears vs how visuals are brought to our eyes. Light waves vs sound waves.
I also have a bank of audio visual things from various gigs / club nights I’ve been to that I can take for inspiration.
these are all taken from my time in Barcelona, some visuals are linked to the music, some aren’t but I feel they convey the music well.
I really like the idea of using live audio / the pgraphics elements of the first workshop. Creating a small workstation that can sync up with audio and produce visuals that work hand in hand with them. I tried this in p5 previously for new year but didn’t really come to anything .
Previous stuff
https://editor.p5js.org/Stewart.M98/sketches/aVxVKTuc5
https://editor.p5js.org/Stewart.M98/sketches/Icg2mn_f2
These focus on amplitude to display different changes on the screen. I would quite like to take these into processing and combine with other aspects in workshop1.
Looking into other examples of what people have done online, I quite like the idea of either having multiple displays or a projector to stage the work.
Music
I have also looked into musical movements such as noise, which I feel in a way is similar to the anti design movement I have been focusing on in other projects. Taking special interest in the origins in the early 1900’s. Started by Italian Futurists that were focused on using machines to create music. This article by Artforum explains it very well
https://www.artforum.com/print/198101/futurism-and-musical-notes-35751
Although this movement has little to do with modern noise movements sonically, however it paved the way for the genre in the future. I have also touched on Futurism in DHT and have a particular distaste for it due to its links to the rise of Fascism in Italy. If I were to use a pre recorded sound I would go more along the found sound aspect focusing on things similar to tape manipulation.
One of the bands I listened to a lot of growing up was Slipknot, I was instantly drawn to them again speaking about samples. They have a member, Craig Jones who is dedicated to finding these samples and are key in parts of their songs, their samples range from common such as the amen brother drum break in their song Eyeless to a spoken word sample from a Manson documentary in their album intro 742617000027.
Another good example and my favourite use of sampling to create songs is the artist Burial.
Using samples from other songs, videogames etc. He creates them into something new.
Experimentation / dev
I am thinking of creating a box to control and distort various samples however I’m not sure what the best way about it is. Either using a midi controller or to create my own, maybe both will be needed but I’m still unsure. I’ll ask about it during the studio support. If I need to make my own i’ll need to be quick as to not clash with the strikes that are ongoing at tsd. By next week I will have a better idea of what I want to include so hopefully there will be some slots still left over to work with.
Looking at my previous work to convert to get an idea for my visuals, using noise and forms such as sin and cos waves.
After some help with paul he helped me figure out how to get the midi controller working with processing
figuring out how to use the buttons to stop and start the audio file using different buttons. This will allow me to play multiple sounds, potentially at the same time.
I also took inspiration from this the trip to Soundplay Projects it especially made think about how the final would be presented. They made use of things such as back projected material so it would be good to hopefully get touch designer working with my sketch via syphon/ sprout
looking into cymatics as these outcomes are not an abstracted form that we associate with sounds, they are generated the actual sound that resonates with the plate.
Looking at this work, using AR the user scans the shapes and sound is produced based on the shapes. It combines shapes, objects and sound to create the experience.
It took a lot of versions for my sketch, my main issue being controlling PGraphics layers with the midi controller, however. I managed to fix this, using Pauls code as an example and adapting it to fit into what I need.
I have also tried to keep everything in separate tabs to keep more organised.
in pg1 I have kept the original experiment I had in the video previously, with dials controlling the size of the ellipse, as well as the colour, with the controller 36 (first pad) this also loads up as the default state.
PG2 so far does mostly the same thing, however 3 incorporates a for loop.
Im not quite as happy with my outcome so far so will continue to experiment, I also wish to make use of different aspects such as trig waves and noise similar to some pervious dev I have conducted, with the aim to get this done sooner rather than later in order to have plenty of time to get my setup sorted.
In terms of sound output, I have a set of old altec lansing speakers (picture from google below). If I had a chance I would use more higher quality audio outputs but I feel for what I am trying to achieve it works well.
One of the things I have been looking into is this messy unkept look that comes with a lot of electronic music’s more analogue setups. I do enjoy mess in these kinds of works as I feel they have a level of effectiveness to convey a part of the music.
Looking back into the processing examples for more effects to use on the dials such as various filters and other aspects of reverb etc
https://pauricfreeman.com/projects
Pauric Freeman
Looking into Pauric Freeman, an AV artist who Paul had linked in the facebook group, I decided to visit his website as the setup he had in the video was similar to what I have in mind for mine.
some other works were also of interest to me in terms of their setups such as; Embodied Live @ The Complex, Culture Night ’22 and River Poem.
many of these are also available on vimeo. The performances are essentially what I was going for with various sounds and visuals on screen.
Adding sound effects to my sketch has been one of the harder aspects to implement into my work, as I don’t want them to just be plonked in with no meaningful place, I went on a bike ride to clear my head from the project and gain the closest thing to fresh eyes and came up with the idea of using natural sounds. Using my good friend contrast to signify the differences between natural / digital sounds, although the natural sounds will be stored as mp3’s or wav’s digitally.
Thessia Machado
Matthew had also suggested I look into Thessia Machado. I found their work transient modes & antinodes quite interesting.
The work has a sculptural significance with the long droning bass notes, the concrete, its very industrial and creates a dark atmosphere, which is interesting as it is in a very well lit and bright room, with the walls the same colour of the materials used, it makes us focus on the texture and form of the piece, the Arduino (I think) is mounted as part of the work, with the wiring exposed and in straight lines, its very utilitarian in nature.
In a similar vein their work Photosonic Field uses the same utilitarian style but with light projections also implemented.
The work is a combination of AV and data visualisation work, with a more relaxed feel to the wiring of this piece with wires protruding outwards of the walls like flowers sprouting from the ground. The word choice within the description “fertile”, “field”, “colonizes”, “tendrils” the description then goes on to state more industrial phrases, highlighting the contrast within the piece. This has the same level of contrast as what I was thinking with my natural / digital sounds.
Other inspo
I was inspired a lot by watching youtube iceberg video formats, specifically one for Assassins Creed in which the human body and technology have an extremely deep connection.
In which the character learns through actions of their ancestors, learning abilities and skills via actions that they have performed. Living consciousness also resides in these machines allowing those who have passed on to communicate with the living, it in a way brought me back round to my artist research, with Thessia Machado, in which her language and her forms with her various materials bringing nature to the non natural world.
Techy stuff
I have also made some changes into my code that takes some advice from the folks at soundplay, that is the idea of “phasing”, where actions and features are phased in / out so a user would be able to get more used to the platform and it not to be overwhelming, in my instance sketch 1 only controls size and colour, 2 controls the amount of rectangles that are being drawn and 3 controls multiple aspects, I may re jig a middle point between 2 and 3 because there is a large jump but so far all is good.
At first I was worried about my visuals for being too simple, however I don’t want to give myself overly complex outcomes to produce since there are so many variables within them.After the workshop I have taken big inspiration from those at vectorhack and drawing to oscilloscopes to keep a general theme of this retronew DIY aesthetic.
For the 4th action on the midi board, I decided to try out the .get function, to create an effect similar to what I had with control in second year.
However when I loaded the sketch up there was a black line where the camera feed should be. I came to the conclusion after a good deal of trial and error, it was this line of code causing the error.
as when removed and the camera is called normally, without .get it works normally, im sure there is a way around this but for now its not for happening.
I have managed to find some natural sounds on my machine from a pervious college project so I will most likely use them for my project.
The sounds are all very long, some upwards of 2 minutes so I will cut them down using audacity to maybe only last 1-2 seconds, I will change this with some experimentation depending on the feel in situ.
I am hoping to find a way to get this effect working with my sketch as I feel like it would be highly impactful with the camera feed.
I couldn’t get this to work with the camera, however I did get it with a photo.
Signing up to the extra curricular Buchanan Galleries project has proven a bit difficult to balance this and the rather intense workload that has been given to us by that brief so I am thankful for the extension granted to us. The only issue being is that it bleeds into Design Domain, however it should be fine if I prep everything I need to in the meantime.
I have decided during this project that perhaps projecting isn’t the best route.
Further Implementation / Experiments
I have wanted to experiment with multi screen displays for a while and I feel like this is the perfect chance to do so, I feel it fits well with my previous research looking into noise music, with a DIY-esque setup.
Adding some extra effects, I thought the pan(); function would work well, however, it only works with mono files, I tried in audacity to convert the file to mono, however, it really doesn’t have the same atmospheric feel as the full stereo versions, you can tell there is something missing.
I also tried to get variableDelay(); to work however I was having multiple issues with this and if I were to implement this I would obviously want to do it meaningfully and this is something, after multiple attempts I don’t think ill be able to do.
I also didn’t end up using sound effects, however the audio track I have used “Making Gardens Out of Silence in the Uncanny Valley” includes a lot of these natural sounds within it and I feel this is a better showcase of the theme rather than some sound effects that wouldn’t really fit.
Setup
I have uploaded this video to youtube as it shows well the setup of the sketch, including the taking of the photo that is being used in part 4 of the sketch. Ideally whoever is using the installation see themselves in the work.
Further Thoughts / Reflections
Looking back on this project it probably is one of my favourites in terms of outcome and process. Working with processing is something that I have grown to very much enjoy and is something that I will defiantly continue in my practice into 4th year and beyond. These long term projects allowed me to really dive into the research of a project and discover new things. Not just look into what I already know, this was advice I was given in my first ever summative assessment and is something I have tried to continue with to this day. This project has especially benefited from that approach delving into subcultures such as tape looping and noise music, incorporating these into my own work. Working with audio is something that I have grown to enjoy over the past 2 years, coming from a more static graphic design background the implementation of live inputs is something that I have always wanted to achieve but never knew how. I plan to even further realise this project over the summer break making the changes that I could not do for open share.
Stewart Marshall IxD 