Author: Hoiyan Guo

Link to GitHub –

https://gist.github.com/HoiyanGuo/41ae8088198c4179d606cbfb8b3efc89

Experimenting with BEAP was such a frustrating but fun experience. For this week’s assignment, I made a second synthesizer in conjunction with the first provided one and attempted to mix the sounds from the two sequencers with some sort of sense. In the second synthesizer, I replaced most of the modules but still followed the structure of Oscillators – Mixer – Filters – Level Control – Effects. I connected two unfamiliar oscillators, FM and Wavetable, to an Audio Mixer, then ran it through the highpass filter under Classroom Filter. After adding the VCA level control and connecting it to the sequencer’s gate through an ADSR control, I added one Flanger effect before connecting to the final mixer then stereo output. The decision of each module was a result of experimenting with different modules under BEAP. As soon as I finished building the second synthesizer, I felt ready for my favorite part of the assignment – endless knobs twisting. 

Since my knowledge for synthesizer is limited, I find it quite impossible to have an overall control of the generate sounds – I had to mute or bypass each module back and forth to understand how each thing was contributing to the output. I ended up with elusive traveling sounds and did my best to make the sounds from the two synthesizer fit with each other rhythmically (unfortunately not so much with pitch). As I wish to learn more about the connection between modules, specifically the use of envelops, I feel happy with the experimenting process which was indeed full of surprises and can’t wait to learn linking BEAP with Vizzie.

The experience of attentively listening to Lucier’s I Am Sitting In A Room left me amazed and speechless – starting from a familiar voice recording, it ended up being an unexpected journey leading listeners to the underlying and unfamiliar territory of the physical world. It was indeed a beautiful realization that our surroundings are beyond what it appears to be. The recording as an artwork is self-explanatory and independent from labels because of its incorporation of the spoken language. However, as listeners gradually understand the artwork’s medium and process through the sentences narrated by Lucier, the language dissolves. The absolute presence of the artist becomes an ambiguous absence and is inevitably replaced by the overpowering environment.

Reverb has been one of the most common sound effects from singing in the shower to the echoes traveling between canyons. Lucier’s piece took the sound phenomenon to the extreme. He created a gradual process of stripping any human trace from the environment – from an individual’s speaking voice to the human pride of language, and restores the space with the natural resonance frequency of the room – a pure soundscape which is both futuristic and ancient.    Is sound the coded language? Or is language the coded sound? Lucier challenged the common understanding of our relationship to sounds.

Reading about the installation of I Am Sitting In A Room in MOMA reminds me of the site-specific quality of the piece. After all, the piece is about directing listeners’ attention from the recoding itself to how it is reflected by the room or the overall surrounding. As Cage exemplified in his piece 4’33, there never exists a silent moment. The aural experience is a major part of our encounter with the world – the sounds of traffic, verbal communication, music… The nature is weaved by sounds even if we don’t hear it at the moment. I believe sound art shares the common mission with other forms of art to inquire about the knowledge of the world we are living in and our connection to it.

Link to GitHub – https://gist.github.com/HoiyanGuo/f7ab1203f61ef025a3ddc5b15d90efbe

Using Vizzie to generate visuals is a magical experiment. In accomplishing this assignment, I tried incorporating blocks from each categorization, which helped me better understand their different functions. The general idea of the patch is to create two video inputs with INPUT, transform and filter either of them through EFFECT, TRANSFORMER, GENERATOR, then finally layer the two using MIX-COMPOSITE.

Between the first player under INPUT and the crossfader under MIX-COMPOSITE, I insert a resampler and a toner with the toner being controlled by a randomizer that changes the value over a specific period of time. Before the second player and the crossfader, I insert a downsampler controlled by a twister, then a kaleidoscope effect controlled by an attractor. While the resampler and the downsampler alter the original videos’ shape and texture, the randomizer and the attractor induce constant changes to the values of each effect. My intention for the assignment is to filter the original videos heavily and generate the visuals based on altering the pixels. The practice helps me better understand how Vizzie works and what it can do.

Emrich’s essay mentioned a case of synesthesia which was included in John Locke’s text on human understanding – a blind man who perceived the sound of a trumpet in scarlet red (416). The correlation between a color and a musical instrument instantly reminded me of Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian artist who pioneered in Abstraction both in painting and theory. Although the Abstraction movement’s huge impact on contemporary art and design has its strongest emphasis on visual elements without its initial meaning – the awakening of spirituality, being fully understood or appreciated, its aesthetics is still often reflected by the pop culture today.

According to Emrich, the experience of synesthesia consists of perceiving multiple senses simultaneously (414). A synesthete doesn’t receive a piece of visual or audio information solely, instead, a synesthete’s impression of objects or words is based on the coupling of sensual perceptions including emotions. In Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky provided a formula where each color choice suggests a particular emotion – for example, while he sees blue as peaceful and calming, yellow is full of disturbing sentiments. As a music lover, Kandinsky also depicted notes and sounds through combining colors and shapes. In his creative world, paintings became compositions.The contribution to the art world made by Kandinsky or any other abstract painter around his era was beyond inventing a new form to capture sounds or emotions using brushes. Through freeing the painting subjects from objects, abstract painters pursued the purity of senses, explored the essence of an individual soul, and formed a unique conversation with the spiritual world. Kandinsky’s art invites each viewer to become a synesthete in tracing the perceptions and inspirations involved in the creating process.

 

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VIII (1923), Oil on canvas, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 

 Emrich, Hinderk M., Janina Neufeld, and Christopher Sinke. “Synesthesia, a Neurological Phenomenon.” In See This Sound: Audiovisuology a Reader, 414–23. Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walthar Köning, 2015.

GitHub Link:  https://gist.github.com/HoiyanGuo/25255a361b624d85ccb6ca759d539064

My first attempt in figuring out the assignment was directed at the portion between the select and the makenote object within the sample patch. It wasn’t until later that I was guided to accomplish the assignment based on the idea of creating a new toggle, a new metronome object and feeding the three values for pitch with new values that are generated through the random object.

In order to better understand the connection, I first created three new number boxes following the new toggle which helped me to test how the random object and + objects function and whether they connect to one another properly.

After finishing the connection following the new toggle, I took away the reference number boxes which are lately added and connected the objects to the already-existing number boxes within the sample patch. At last, I added two loadbang objects to have the patch set up to play as soon as it’s opened.

Through the assignment I became very curious about how Max users can alter the sound and how samples can be introduced into the patch. I also want to find out how to set the a minimal value for a range when using the random object.