Author: Chenlan Yao

Title

Myth

Group member

Chenlan Yao (Ellen)

Yu Sang (Thea)

Jiayan Liu (Katie)

Project Abstract

Our project is based on a puppet show about a fable that shows our attitudes. From preparation to the final realtime performance, we built the scene and the story step by step. This documentation is my personal reflection of the whole process of this project.

Project Description

Inspired by a Chinese rap called 神话 (Myth), our project is aiming at telling a story based on this rap music. The story is about a king who has no free will and always follows others’ talk without having any own idea. His kingdom was thus decaying gradually. Someone told him that if he could find the devil and kill it, he would then get free will and respect from the whole kingdom. He went on his adventure. Surprisingly, when he found the devil, the devil was calm and told the king to kill it immediately. At this point, the king realized that if he followed the devil’s call, he would become a real puppet who could never make the kingdom prosperous. The most horrible thing should be the talk and guide by the others, which can make one lose his own ability to tell right from wrong. These talks make up one’s own devil, which is the dark side at the bottom of our hearts. We want to present a story that contains some implied meanings behind it. It is necessary to have one’s own will and mind instead of being influenced by others. 

Perspective and Context

As Youngblood argued, “man no longer is earthbound. We move now in sidereal time. We must expand our horizons beyond the point of infinity” ( Brougher, Strick, Wiseman, and Zilczer 120). Every Lumia artwork focus on expressing a kind of atmosphere and its cosmic feelings and meanings in an abstract way. But in our project, we are trying to express something spiritual in a more concrete and substantial way. We want to build a kind of microcosmos that focus on one person (the king) to reflect a larger understanding of the world.

Development & Technical Implementation

At first, we had a rough idea about the figure of the dementor (the one shows in the Harry Potter) as it was a good choice to create a kind of gloomy atmosphere. With the composition of the story, we decided to make the devil into the figure of the dementor, and use a special tissue-like paper to make the devil in order to create a hazy and ghostly image. Because the whole story is performed by paper shadow puppet, we spent some time making paper puppets and adjusted them. We did some researches about the traditional Chinese shadow puppets making. It was not that easy as the threads sometimes may not be strong enough to hold the puppets and the environment scenes sometimes may fall apart. It took us several days to finish the paper cuttings and puppet makings. For the digital parts, I was in charge of the making of background music which is continuous during the whole process. I used the SEQUENCER to create a basic audio clip and added several jumped-in voices by a DRUM SEQUENCER. The final audio pitch is as follows:

At the same time, Katie is in charge of video effects. After I finished my part, I shared my patch to Thea, who is responsible for mixing and controlling the audio. We also recorded several sentences talked by one of our classmates to be the lines of some characters (others’ judges to the king; devil’s talk; the voice from the king’s mind) and mix them into the audio pitch. 

For the setup for our performance, it contains three parts: the audio patch, the video patch, and the puppet performing stage. The Logi Cam was placed in the very front of the performance background as we only wanted to record the shadow of the puppets, and the performance stage was right behind the Cam. We put some boxes under the Cam and used them as a stage so that the Cam can capture the better scene in a better height. The light from a torch was held and moved by Katie so that the light could change anytime. The Cam was connected to Katie’s laptop so that she can add effects to it. I, as a performer of the puppets, was on the left side of the scene so that the shadow of my body would not be on the background. 

Video patch:

https://gist.github.com/JiayanLiu27/e911824cb8eca4074b1b18075bdf2461

Audio patch:

https://gist.github.com/TheaSang/85b97f92a144c0b42f15dd8ecacd2541

Performance

I was quite nervous before the performance as I was responsible for the puppet performance which was the fundamental part of the whole project. The performance moved fluently, but it would be better if the Cam’s position could be a little more precise to make the performance in the middle of the scene, or if I could move the puppets according to the position of the scene captured by the Cam. It depended on more frequent practice. The effect basically fulfilled our original idea and imagine, but still, something unexpected happened. First, the audio clip of some characters’ lines was not clear enough. Many of our classmates felt that the language was not clear so that they could not understand what was happening in the story. I think it is due to the clearance of the original clip, or maybe because we played the audio too fast and changed them too frequently, or it is because of the incongruity between the background music and the lines. Second, some parts of our video effect were not successful enough as what we saw during our practice. For example, in the first scene, we supposed to make the picture became blurry gradually in order to create an atmosphere that the king was affected by others’ words severely. But the consequence turned out that this effect was not performed better enough. Anyway, the performance went quite well, and it is the charm of the realtime performance as you never know what you are going to encounter. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, our project can be expanded a lot in the future. For the idea, it would be better if we could develop the story to a more macro and cosmic perspective, or to make it contains a deeper understanding of the atmosphere and cosmos. The story itself is good and the way we explain it is fine and profound as well, but I think we should develop its further implication and find a better connection with a broader view of the world or express a kind of feeling more directly, which can be more connected with Tomas Wilfred’s idea and also the basic idea of visual music and Lumia. Also, the effect added to the scene is needed to be further developed, which can be another way to express some feelings directly. With the help effects, many changes in the atmosphere and environment in the scene can be shown more visualized so that the flow of the story can be clearer and can make the whole scene richer and contains more. The performance can go further instead of simply a puppet show with some development of effects. 

Work Cited

Brougher, Kerry, Jeremy Strick, Ari Wiseman, and Judith Zilczer. Visual Music: Synaesthesia in Art and Music Since 1900. Thames & Hudson. April 1, 2005. pp. 126-161

PDF: 

WechatIMG200.jpeg

Our score is about a story called Myth, which is inspired by a Chinese rap song ShenHua (神话). Once upon the time, there was a king who was always blamed by his citizens as he can’t tell right from wrong and always influenced by others’ slanderous talk, which made his kingdom decline. Someone told him that only by finding the devil can he get real free will, so he went on to the adventure. The devil had been waiting for him for thousand years and calmly told him to kill it. Till this point did the king realized that if he kills the devil, he would still be a puppet lacking free will as he was captured by the devil’s word.

We want our graphic scores to be easy enough for us as performers to understand, so plenty of specific and concrete images are included. The black square represents the king and the dots around him are others’ voices distracting him. After that, the environment and atmosphere around him during his way to the devil is depicted. Both video and audio effects will be emphasized at this point. The triangle represents the devil, and after its talk, the king put the sword around its neck. The line represents a period of stagnation on the scene, as to show the self-reflective feeling of the king, and after that, the king makes his decision and the story ends. 

According to the article, the Whitneys are influenced by Belson. They both find Eastern metaphysics essential to art, which can make the artist get a clearer idea about himself: who is he? What does he want as an artist? This kind of attitude towards the essential of the world makes them have the same essential of their work; that is, to eliminate the connection with the real world and create an ideal world which is totally abstracted from the realistic one. Instead of creating something connect to one’s own feeling or expression of one’s idea, visual music artists, especially the Whitneys and Belson, are trying to reaching a higher conceptual level, which reflects a superorganic and the abstract atmosphere around us. At the same time, their conceptual basis and their artworks influenced later generations a lot. The Whitneys created a new type of visual music which is aggressive and assault on eyes and ears strongly. It was rare at that time for visual music to have a strong connection between music and images, as former images were all created by getting inspiration from sounds, or on the contrary. 

Although they shared the same aim at the original meaning of an artwork, the techniques they used to achieve the goal is quite different. As the senior of the Whitneys, Belson kept the old technology as well as the new one. He used standard animation, optical printing, lasers, and liquid crystals to achieve the final effect that he wanted, instead of what the Whitneys did. The Whitneys connected their idea and their techniques much more tightly than Belson did, as they eliminated the use of real objects and showed the origin of the image by reducing the image down to its most fundamental state with countless dots to represent the atomic based concept. They relieved abstraction from any representational reference and went beyond that by expressing the idea of the essence of the world, which was their original will. As the aim of both Belson and the brothers were showing the real abstraction and atmosphere of the world, the Whitneys used a better way to connect their idea and the real techniques together, which is the main difference between them.

The Vortex Concert had great impact on the development of visual music, as it changed the traditional restriction of painting which relies much on real materials into some abstract motions of images. With the tight connection of music and images, the Vortex Concert shortened the distance between artworks and their audiences, which also made art, a word usually considered to be high and abstract, closer and easier for ordinary people to accepted. It created a nice balance between traditional art and pop art. Like the psychedelic light created by a group of artists in Los Angeles, it was conveying a complex meaning through modern and trendy equipment, which was greatly influenced by the concept of Vortex Concert.

Title

The Building of Rubik’s Cube

Project Description

After looking at the introduction and some artworks of Mary Ellen Bute, I got some idea about the using of light. However, most of Bute’s works are in black and white or with simple colors, so I furtherly think about adding light and shadow effects onto a patch with frequently color-changing. I still remember that there used to be a popular animation in China called MoFangDaSha, which can be translated as the building of Rubik’s cube. It is a magical story about a boy who went into and experience adventures in a Rubik’s cube, and finally, he never got a chance to get out of the building, which is quite mysterious and dystopian as it shows a contrary to the traditional fairy tales with happy endings. Starting from the mysterious cube and combining it with the light and shadow effects, I develop my idea of creating something magical and animated, as well as a little strange and quirky. Therefore, for the video part, I decided to have colorful cubes changing rapidly while having lights on it, as a representative of the Rubik’s cube. For the audio, in order to connect with the animation, I want to have something electronic, animated and futuristic to have some synesthesia with the magical video. 

Perspective and Context

My personal understanding of synesthesia in terms of audiovisual is the expression of an individual feeling when viewing a video or listening to audio， which is similar to the idea that conveys in Mary Bute’s Rhythm in Light. As I have mentioned in the last paragraph, my video is trying to create an impression of a cube building, which is colorful and changing randomly. In response to that, my audio attempts to be electronic and dynamic in order to let the audience think about video games or some colorful mosaics that relate to the concept of cube building closely. Both Mary Bute and Thomas Wilfred took advantage of the light refraction from either prism or other materials, which is also what I want to convey subtly in my patch. 

Development & Technical Implementation

For the audio part, I used a PIANO ROLL SEQUENCER and an outside resource from freesound.org. I started to search for audios by entering the keywords “future”, “electronic” and “scientific”. At first, I thought it would be interesting if a complicated and ready-made electronic music as below: https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/sounds/143994/   But the music turned to be strange and noisy after edited. So I began to think that it might be easier to handle a simpler audio clip, as it is more playable and can have more options to adjust. Finally, I found the sound below, which is labeled as Dystopian Future, and showed a great relationship with my original idea of the cube building, both electronic and shady: https://freesound.org/people/BurghRecords/sounds/388750/   On the basis of that, I added something outstanding to distinguish from the Dystopian Future by adding a PIANO ROLL SEQUENCER and adjusting its offset and fatness. In order to create a kind of vacant and ethereal audio feeling, I also mixed the original piano roll which is more fluent than the edited one into the mixer so that there will be two clips overlapping together with the same tone but in a different style.

Here is the final audio clip:

For the video part, I used 3EASEMAPPR to control the background-color changing all the time as to create the mysterious feeling of the cube building. Two 1EASEMAPPR are used to create lines of lights to intersect with each other so as to create both light interactions and a kind of transparency of the cube:

Patch’s link to GitHub: https://gist.github.com/Ellen25/906f5ebae386540c2b3cbf67ba01e612

Presentation

To be honest, my presentation did not go well. The only thing I feel like quite good is that the audio reached my expectation as some classmates commented that it fits well with my theme and it reminded them of video games or comics. For the video, firstly, I want to apologize for my misunderstanding and carelessness of reading the prompt as I had an outside resource of video included. By the same token, the video clip did not run as how it is shown on my computer. But I want to be grateful to everyone in the class that day as they offer me a lot of options that I can improve and also the ways for me to improve, which is unexpected for me. For example, my color changes were not clear and strong, thus it would be better if some strong contrast colors are included.  

Conclusion

As Eric mentioned in class, my project is a good point to start, but there is still a lot I can do. The most important change needed to be made is in the video part. Except for the color improvement mentioned before, the light effect should also be improved as it is just still light dots and lines which have no relationship to the rhythm. This is basically due to my lack of research as I did not have abundant research for Mary Bute and deeper understanding of her use of lights in her works. For the creation part, my understanding of the basic logic of MAX is not clear enough to let me organize the patch fluently. I was improving my skill of using MAX through the process, but it is not enough for me to create a wholesome project at that time. 

Therefore, after the presentation, I spent a bunch of time on revising my project, and here is the final adjusted version of it:

https://gist.github.com/Ellen25/1809fe8fcfc7db86597266625772afba

I mainly did the adjustment to the video part, extended my understanding of the building of Rubik’s cube to the shaking or even the crush of the cube. By adding one more 1EASEMAPPR with 2TONR and HUSALIR connected to it, I created a background with a stronger contrast in color. And the fuzzy light created a feeling of the destruction of the cube, which matches the dystopian cube building idea better. I kept the 3EASEMAPPR to create a fuzzy background with plenty of lines and also kept one of the 1EASEMAPPR to create a kind of transparency of the cube.

The video clip and a screenshot are shown below:

Link to it:  AdjV-

In conclusion, I have learned a lot during the whole process. The most inspiring part is the presentation and my self-reflection afterward, which stimulated me to rethink and revise my project. Through the whole process, my idea towards the building of Rubik’s cube is clearer, although, in the final adjusted version, it crushed. From a shallow beginning of an idea to a better understanding of a theme, a lot more research is needed, which is what I need to catch up, as well as the technical skill of MAX. 

It is hard to tell whether Wilfred is a scientist or an artist. As the first person to fount the concept of Lumia, he put his heart and soul into Clavilux, and showed great talent and unique understanding of dealing with light. His work offers a new style and form of art, which replace the original art materials with something advanced. At the same time, Lumia creates inspiration for other artists, especially those famous ones, like Dreier who also share Wilfred’s work with Duchamp. In the video of LUMIA, Wilfred is commented as having eager to create something long-lasting and permanent. Wilfred’s work is avant-garde while having great impact on the art world.

In an artistic way, Wilfred is trying to question the essential truths of the broader universe. His idea mainly came from lights in nature – the sunlight and its impact on people. I personally think that Wilfred is trying to develop and express his feeling about the scientific world in an artistic form. The artwork is only the final consequence of his scientific research, which is presented in a concrete and visualized way. The process of his artwork is simple, as at each level of his development (from Clavilux junior to future generations), are simply using the same standard components – lightbulbs, motors, color recorder and reflective materials, with which he creates interactive art devices that convey his understanding about light and nature. Thus, he is more like a scientist or a philosopher, who is thrilled in developing the essence of the world, but with a more artistic way for expression and illustration.