Title

Double S Batteries

Project Description

The concept of our project was driven by the theme of “Childhood” and the nostalgia it brings up for us. We tried to use our project to evoke the feelings of happiness and carefreeness in a fantastical way, transporting viewers away from reality. We used a launchpad as it provided a way for us to have a light show, which evokes a sense of childhood with its bright and colorful lights and its buttons that kids often used as sensory toys. 

Perspective and Context

In terms of visuals, we are taking inspiration from Adam Chao’s VJ style, where he tells a story through the overlays of his visuals and linking them to his audio. In terms of audio, we are taking inspiration from Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) because we like their use of synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, and drum machines. 

Development & Technical Implementation

Our project focused mainly on the sequence of lights shown through the launchpad. These lights were made by MAX in Ableton to sync to the audio. We then manipulated what those lights would look using different effects and transformations provided by VIZZIE. The MIDI controller was used to determine which effects were being used and how much we were manipulating those parameters. There were some effects that I had to turn on and off with my own fingers, that couldn’t be done with the MIDI controller. 

Our setup was very physical, as we used a webcam to capture what the launchpad was showing to be grabbed by MAX. We used a cardboard box to house the launchpad because we did not want any light pollution and wanted a way for the launchpad to stand up so we could shoot it straight on. 

Sophia worked on the audio and I worked on the MAX patch and the physical display, and I helped her with the lighting effects and she helped me with curating the flow and timeline of our performance. 

Performance

I had a lot of fun performing. Although I wish that we could’ve practiced/rehearsed more, there was a good form of adrenaline as we experienced and went with the flow. The results were actually much better than what we had planned for. There were some technical difficulties such as the webcam delaying and the lights pausing, but in the end it added to the live element and even made it seem like it was supposed to be that way. Because of these difficulties, we had to try new things and realized that there were things we could’ve done from the beginning to make the experience look better. These moments were when we deviated from our original plan for what happens when, and I’m glad we were able to find new things that we weren’t able to discover during our rehearsals. 

Conclusion

I really liked how our project turned out and it was a really fun experience. I did wish we had more visuals because as pretty as our lights were, I wanted a way for enforce this transportation away from reality even more, so that we could have a different scene from the lights before coming back. I did appreciate people coming up to us after the performance and telling us that our performance made them really happy and reminded them of video games and emulated their experience as a child, which is what our original concept tried to get across. I learned a lot about the nuances of performing with both audio and visuals in mind, and how to connect them to become a cohesive piece. 

VJs work alongside DJs, making their work more in the realm of visuals that react to audio. Live Cinema leans into traditional cinematographic conventions, which means that they usually contain a narrative. Gabriel Menotti says that that although there is a live aspect involving the visuals, there is a heavier focus on storytelling. Live Audiovisual Performance uses both audio and visuals in collaboration to create a cohesive experience that blends the two together. Ana Carvalho says that there is a combination of live audio and visual elements that interact with each other to create a certain experience for the audience watching it. 

The author describes VJing as the live manipulation and mixing of visual and audio elements to create immersive and dynamic experiences. The author also highlights the evolving nature of VJing and its relationship to other terms such as visual music, expanded cinema, live cinema, and live audiovisual performance. This shows that there is a lot of complexity in this field, leading to the inability to truly define these processes. The author also says the performative character of a VJ performance has a close relationship to the “structural and formal influences of the music” and that VJing stands for liveness and is pure improvisation. 

I have had experience with being in clubs and seeing the LED screen behind the DJ change with the music being played. However, these experiences would fall under “visual wallpaper”, where clubs either want more attention on the screen or the music, with the two competing for a stronger presence in the club. In these cases, there is no connection or complement between the visual and audio, which creates a  sense of confusion in the viewing experience. 

Title

Lumianimal

Project Description

We wanted to use our project as a way to transport viewers into an environment that is different from ours. The environment we decided on was a world of nature and animals. We were inspired by the Chinese phrase 管中窥豹, which describes the story of a man only being able to see parts of a leopard’s fur while peeking at it through a hole in the wall. Although at first we wanted to look into our project with the camera and show an actual animal, we settled on a more abstract approach. Our idea then became to emulate an animal’s home, with both the mysterious and fantastical aspects of that world. This setup would allow us to both see and hear an interpretation of a creature and its home. 

Perspective and Context

We were inspired by Thomas Wilfred’s interest in doing projects that stimulated observers looking into telescopes or windows. He also stated that light is part of the universe of flux, meaning that motion is necessary in visual art involving light. We wanted to emulate both these things by combining them and using the camera as a window into our world, while incorporating movements with and without light involved- making it a dynamic and engaging performance. 

Development & Technical Implementation

We knew that we wanted to use fog to represent both the elements of mystery and movement. The fog would act as a smokescreen for Snow’s color contacted eye, which is supposed to represent an exotic animal and looking into the unknown, which contribute to the mysterious vibes we were trying to create. We wanted to play around with different colored lights shining through the fog, but ended up only using white light and adding effects through max instead, which ended up fitting our concept better because of the color palette and different individual colors we could put on one screen. The movement in this section was Snow moving her eyes and blinking, which represented the liveliness and curiosity of nature. The flame and the sparkler are supposed to contribute movement as well as a life cycle of nature, since there is a beginning an end to both these things. The music was supposed to be imitate an unknown space filled with animals, which served as a good backdrop for our entire performance. 

Performance

The performance was a little bit chaotic as Snow and I had many things we needed to control and beware of during the performance. Although we had a timeline, it would have helped if we practiced more just to be familiar with what needed to happen when and how long something would take. As my role was to oversee the performance timeline, there was a lot of pressure on me to direct the members, which was very nerve-racking and ended up with us making a few spontaneous decisions when the plan derailed. More practice also would’ve allowed us to see the amount of technical difficulties we could run into, and not have them happen during the performance. 

Team Work

Lexie and Snow thought of the bulk of the proposal of the project and the timeline for what the performance should follow; Lexie manipulated the visuals, Neo made and manipulated the audio and the graphical score; Snow was the object of the performance and I was the overseer of the timeline during the performance and manipulating our physical components during the performance. We comminuted through a timer and just speaking to each other. Although we all had our own roles which made it easy, there was a disconnect in connecting our individual parts into a cohesive performance. 

Conclusion

I think the biggest thing was that we should have practiced more, as most of our issues came from not being able to collaborate well in the live setting, which would have helped if we were more familiar with each other and the content. 

One thing I quickly noticed was that the first syllables of the words “rhythm” and “smooth” were elongated, making it sound like “rrrrrhythm” and “sssssmooth”. I thought this was interesting because it broke up the fluency of the audio and made it a good checkpoint to know when the audio cycled, which took me a while to realize- that he was saying the same thing over and over.
Another thing I noticed was that the audio got hollower and there was a rise of the ‘ringing’ sound, which I attributed to the sound reverberating off the walls of the room he was sitting in. Eventually, the words echoed out to become just sounds that reminded me of bells playing in an empty church. I thought it was really cool that the audio was able to progress like that, from very intelligible speech to sounds that don’t resemble voices at all.
After reading the article, it made me think about how audio pieces are presented in a museum. Even if the audio was prerecorded, just the space that it’s performed in and the speaker system the audio goes through can greatly affect the performance. In that way, it creates a unique and different experience every time.

For this assignment, I first started with the sample patcher that was given to us and then added another sequencer, adjusting the notes until I liked the pitches. I then tried different oscillators and eventually chose CLOUD because I liked the way it changed the sound from the sequencer. Afterwards, I tried different filters until I landed on the COMB FILTER, which affected the sound in a way that I liked. I added an ASR to modify the noise before connecting both sides to a RETUNER, changing the pitches to make a more pleasant sound. I connected my new synthesizer to the old one and changed the pulse of each sequencer so that the original one is 1/32 and the new one is 1/16, making the audios sync up every other beat. 

Link to the Drive folder 

I first chose two videos I wanted to use and put them in PLAYR. I then experimented with effects that I wanted to put on the videos and landed on PIXL8R AND KALEIDR. I used ATTRACTR to mess with the values. I then combined them using MODEMIXR and then messed with the mixing mode until I settled on one that was visually appealing to me. 

Link to the Drive folder

 

While doing the reading, the line “Each type of synesthesia can be formally characterized by a set of activating features, called inducers, and activated features, called concurrents, that are automatically coupled, which means they cannot be suppressed”  stood out to me (Bergfeld-Mills 1999). This automatic association of features reminded me of this rhythm game called [Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum ‘n’ Fun!].

In this game, the player holds two drumsticks and plays on a drum. There are two places to hit on the drum, one inside the drum and one on the rim of the drum. These differences are marked visually in the game using different colors. For example, the red drum corresponds to hitting the inside of the drum, and the blue drum corresponds to hitting the rim of the drum. Since these two parts of the drum create distinct sounds, there is a coupling between the color of the drum and the noise it makes. Not only do you expect a certain sound when a certain color is shown, but  this also applies the other way around. For map makers and people who listen to the drumming without watching the screen, they will know that the inducer of the sound of the drumstick hitting the middle of the drum has to trigger the concurrent to be ‘red’, while the sound of the drumstick hitting the rim of the drum has to be ‘blue’. 

My approach to this problem in terms of our classwork was first changing the sequence of notes every two seconds. Since there were three notes being played in the two second interval, I divided 2000 milliseconds by 3 to see how the notes should be distributed equally. 

In terms of the pitches of the note, I added a random object connected to the first note’s pitch, and added a number block to display what the random number was. I then connected that value to two other objects (+4 and +7 respectively) to ensure the consistent interval between notes. I then connected all of these pitches back to the makenote object. 

Link to the Drive folder