Author: Yu Sang

Title

Myth

Project Abstract

By combing Chinese traditional art form with the digital effects of MAX, the project adapts and visualizes the original story from the song, “Myth”. Through this project, we demonstrate our thoughts about human’s inner fear.

Project Description

Our project takes the form of shadow play to visualize a narrative story. In a nutshell, this story is about a young king struggled with his fear and successfully freed himself from it. We divided the story into four senses. The first scene describes how the young king was troubled by different charges and criticism. To gain courage and ability, he decided to follows the demand of the public to find the demon and kill the demon. The second scene is the young king’s journey. Along his way, he was always in dangerous situations and faced different obstacles. At the end of the second scene, he found the demon. In the third part, the young kind and the demon confronted with each other. The demon tried to tempt the young king to kill him. Once the young king followed the command of the demon, he was controlled by the demon and lost his own will. It cost the young king a hard struggle to finally give up killing the demon but leave it behind. In the fourth scene, the young king went back to his country and at this time, he has gained true freedom because of his decision. We want to demonstrate the theme that the most horrible devil that people faced is the fear and loneliness in their hearts and the only way to gain independence and freedom is to face the fears and coexist with fears.

In terms of content and theme, we were inspired by the Dementor in Harry Potter and the Chinese song “Myth” (Shen Hua). Both Dementor in Harry Potter and Old Lady in Myth are not the devil in the traditional scene. They are the projection of people’s inner fear and can never be separated from people. For the Dementor, it consumes human happiness, creates an ambiance of coldness, darkness, misery, and despair. For the Old lady, she seems to be soft and gentle but always tried to control the king by her tenderness in disguise. Based on these two characters, we came up with the image of the devil in our project and developed the story about the young king. We hope to deliver our critical thoughts on the relation between people and their inner fear. Besides, in terms of performing form, we were inspired by the shadow play. Among all the Chinese traditional art, shadow play can make full use of light and shadow and perfectly combine vision and hearing to narrate the story.

Perspective and Context

Wilfred emphasized the significance and possibilities of lights in his LUMIA work. Light also plays an important role in our project. On the one hand, we take the form of shadow play, which should be achieved by lights. On the other hand, we use removable light sources to create a more vivid environment. Also, our project response to the concept of Synaesthesia. I think the Synaesthesia in audio-visual performance means high consistency and harmony between vision, hearing, and emotion. In our project, we tried to use different color filters and different environmental sounds to create a certain atmosphere that can fit the story plot and evoke a certain emotion of audiences.

Development & Technical Implementation

The development of our project can be divided into three stages, developing the script, implementing technicality, practicing and rehearsing.
In the first stages, we determined the practical script. At first, we were quite interested in the Dementor in Harry Potter and wanted to reproduction one clips on the movie through the Chinese traditional art form. But after communicating with the professor, we found there was not too much significance to repeat the plot. Also, it was difficult for us to achieve a higher level than the movie. Luckily, the Chinese song, “Myth” gave us new inspiration, based on the song we determined our story. We wrote the story as detailed as possible and then considered and examine the feasibility of each sentence in the story. We deleted the scenes which were hard to visualize and organize the practical and realizable script. Based on this script, we can know the materials we need to prepare, the audio and video effects we need to achieve and also the final performance effect we may realize.

In the second stage, we divided our work into three parts, shadow figures, audio effects, and video effects. We made shadow figures together. I took on some of the work on creating images. I drew the tree and bat as well as figured out how to fixed them in the stage when performing. My main job in the second stage is planning the script for both video effects and audio effects in each scene. I wrote down the script detailed, for example, “In the first scene, in order to demonstrate the confusion and pain of young king through a chaotic scene, we will hold the black bats around the young king and use video effects rotate the hole video and at same time, change the color of video. Also, for the audio, based on the mysterious background music, we will add people’s voices at a specific point in time. With the gradual chaos of video, the sounds of video will also become more and more slur and mix. At the end of the first scenes, the chaotic sounds disappear, only leave a clear to push the young king to find a demon and fight the demon to refresh himself.” Not only that, but I also draw graphic scores to demonstrate the whole process. And then, Ellen worked on the background music, Katie worked on video effect and I worked on the audio effect. The main problem I faced is how to balance the volume of different sounds. I totally need to control eighteen pieces of sounds during the performance, I need to control both order and volume to make sure each sound is triggered at the right time and can be heard clearly, especially the background music, it should be always there but cannot too loud to cover other sounds or too small to be covered. I wrote a separated timeline for myself and left comments in Max to remind myself.

I collected different environmental sounds

I combined  and controlled different audios by MAX

I drew the graphic scores

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

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

In the third stage, we determined the division of work when performing. Our project is a little bit complex so it will be hard for three people to complete the performance if we do not plan well. Through many rehearsals, Ellen does most of the acting, Katie control video effect and light source, and I control audio effect and do some of the actings. To avoid the mess, we wrote a new script for both performance, video effects, and audio effects. We spent a lot of time performing in the dark classroom. But on the day before the presentation, when we rehearsals in the auditorium, we still found many problems. For example, the position of the camera and main characters should be determined again and the video effects and audio effects were always out of order.

Performance

The final performance generally went well but admittedly, it still did not meet my expectations. Firstly, the position of the camera did not put well so its shadow can also be seen during the presentation. Secondly, we did not expect that some video effects gave out. Maybe we still more practice before the formal presentation. Thirdly, I was so nervous during the presentation that I did not control the audios well. My classmates pointed out that some audios were too light to hear clearly. Although I prepared the audio script to remind myself, I still felt a little bit hectic during the presentation as I needed to control all the audio effects and one-character performance. Also, I cannot see the screen as I need to focus on MAX. Thus, I did not quite sure what was going on about the overall performance. I think I need to spend more time practicing and adjusting the volume and it may help to develop my confidence and relieve tension. Last but not least, our presentation could be better if we introduce the overall story before our presentation. It can give our audience a basic idea about or presentation and help them to understand our performance. But from another aspect, it may constrain the imaginary of the audiences. In short, we need to explain our performance more clearly to our audience.

Conclusion

I want to highlight two aspects of the project,
The inspiration. We were inspired by the shadow play but from another aspect, we were also restricted by this kind of performing form. We thought a lot about how to made the shadow figures more vivid but neglected the deeper and further exploration of MAX. Just as the professor said, we can make a piece of video to demonstrate the environment and remove the tree, mountains, and bats during the presentation. My classmates suggested that we can visualize the dialogues. Maybe made an original video and add the subtitle or video effect can be a possible solution. I appreciated this suggestion and it shows me how narrow I was when I using MAX. For my later project, I think I need to more carefully think about the role and function of MAX and full use it.
The collaboration. I think our group perfectly collaborated on this project. We worked together to determine the overall script, make shadow figures but also separated the work of MAX so that each of us took on a similar amount of work and can learn more about MAX by ourselves. This kind of group work achieves high-level efficiency.
Although the final performance is not so perfect, the process itself is meaningful enough. I enjoyed the process of turning the idea into reality and working with my partners. Also, the suggestions from other groups bring me new ideas and thoughts. In conclusion, I need to think more deeply, widely, and critically when using MAX and considering the project content.

Basically, our performance can be divided into four scenes. The first scene describes how the young king was troubled by different charges and criticism. We use humanoid pieces of paper to represent the young king and black bats to represent charges and criticism from other people. We will demonstrate the confusion and pain of the young king through a chaotic scene, where the black bats fly around the young king and further they intertwine with each other as well as rotate together. At the same time, for the audio, based on the mysterious background music, we will add people’s voices at a specific point in time. With the gradual chaos of video, the sounds of video will also become more and more slur and mix together. At the end of the first scenes, the chaotic sounds disappear, only leave a clear to push the young king to find a demon and fight the demon in order to complete himself. The second scene is the young king’s experience on his way to demon. Along his way, he always remembers the charges and criticism from others. Thus, in this scene, the black bats always go alone with him. The young king climbs the mountains and goes through the forests, and at the end of the second scene, he finds the cave of demon. In this part, we use different sounds of footsteps and winds to indicate where is the kind. Also, we use the different filters on the video to demonstrate the young king has experienced different severe environments. And the overall atmosphere of the second scene is depressive. In the third part, the young kind and the demon confront with each other. The demon tries to tempt the young king to kill him. Once the young king follower the command of the demon, that means the king is actually controlled by the demon. We used the environment sound here and also record the voice to imitate the sounds of demon. At the end of the third scene, the young king decides to give up killing the demon. All the sounds will stop for a while here and the light will also turn off for a while. The fourth scene, the ending, we demonstrate the young king come back his country but there are no black bats flying around him to trouble him but only follow him as he has realized he can never escape the rumors and fears, but he can coexist with them and bravely face them. The music here is more relax and lively. The overall picture is brighter than before.

Both Belson and Whitnys were the Youngblood in the area of new “synesthetic cinema”. Thus, there exists obvious characteristic of new “synesthetic cinema” in their artworks. They left behind conventional and outmoded concepts as narrative drama but fused new technology in their works. Whitneys used contemporary technology to push visual music into new cosmic dimensions. At the same time, Belson used both old and new technology, including standard animation, optical printing, lasers, and liquid crystals to achieve a similar goal. Also, they desired and paid more effort to eliminate the representational imagery and any association with the real world. Whitney tried to reduce the image down to its most fundamental stats —— the lights while Belson also wanted his audience to turn their focus from screen to the music. But they had a different selection of images. Unlike the Whitneys, whose small atomic globules seem to spotlight new technology, Belson never used an image that bespoke its origin, he wanted the image that straight out of his minds.

They have the same basic conceptual basis lying behind their works, that is achieving high harmony between image and audios, eliminating the realistic meanings and ideas of images and creating a more experiential, musicogenic works. Their emphasis on high harmony is extremely strong. They not only pursue the consist ideas and emotions between images and audio but even chase the results of extremely tight music-to-image relationship, just as what explained by Belson, “you don’t know if you are seeing it or hearing it.” Both Belson and Whitnys have significant meanings and high positions in the visual music area. The images started to operate directly on the audience optic nerves and the distance between the viewer and the art object became closer. The new concepts and new machines created by them started to apply widely and inspire more artists to turn to alternative forms of spirituality while simultaneously embracing mind-expanding drugs and innovative technology.

Both the Vortex concerts and lights show were one of the experiments in the area of visual music and influenced by Whitneys and Belson. Music drove everything. High art and popular culture, abstraction and representation, the scientific and spiritual, the electronic and natural all fused together and express by music. The Vortex concerts and lights show popularized in many areas and there appeared a large number of artists work on practicing and developing the new concept.

Title
Dream diction

Github Link: https://gist.github.com/TheaSang/69a6a812ea307aba1860a9a0bd191c39

Project Description

My inspiration comes from oral poetry, Ursonate, performed by Kurt Schwitter’ in 1926. I was deeply surprised by this kind of art performance. As an audience without any knowledge about oral poetry, I feel a sense of struggle from the performer. A telling stutter, nervous echolalia in Ursonate seem to deliver an illusory story but constrained by huge limitations and obstacles in reality. My project is aiming at simulating the state of chaos when people are half asleep. Primarily, I hope to create a state of distortion between reality and fantasy through combing the sounds of human twitting and a piece of melody with non-repeating and unordered rhythm as well as the video with translucent colors moves easily.

Ultrasonography: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs0yapSIRmM

Perspective and Context

According to the article Synaesthesia, we have read, I think synaesthesia is not only a genuine neurophysiological phenomenon but also an extraordinary genius. I think it can create extremely fantastic works in the area of arts. For example, in my early research, some genius painter like Melissa McCracken, a Missouri-based artist can paint music. She is a synesthete and her situation can turn what she hears every day such as someone’s name or a song on the radio into vibrant, beautiful colors.  

When the concept of Synaesthesia comes to the audiovisual, I think it requires high consistency and harmony between audios and videos. On the one hand, for project creators, they should express personal ideas and concepts on both audios and videos. Although in our first project, we can not use external video resources and the transformation of videos follow the transformation of audios, we can still adjust the style of videos through different effects and filters to the overall concepts. On the other hand, for the audience of the audience, they need to interpret the audios and videos as a whole and they can freely develop their own ideas based on their understanding.

For my audiovisual project, in order to achieve this kind of harmony and consistency, I made a lot of effort on trying different kinds of effects on both videos and audios. However, due to my limited knowledge of MAX, I cannot control the audio and video by myself. Thus, to some extent, I did not achieve high harmony between my audios and videos.

Development & Technical Implementation

Before starting actual developing my project in MAX, I reviewed the past in-class examples and tried to find something that I can start with. Besides, I also studied from some online resources to better understand different effects on videos and audios.

These are the screenshots of my final video.

For the audio part, I need to create both melody and simulate the twitting of human beings. In order to simulate the twittering of human beings, I use SEQUENCER and GRANULAR and speed up the audio in order to make a sense of contortions and distortion. But I failed to make the melody I want. The final output of the melody is more random. I tried to use FM, LPF, and VCA to change the style of the melody, but it does not seem to be a success. The connection between twitting and melody was not as strong as I expected. Finally, I used STEREO MIXER to combine them together.

For the video part, I use 3EASEMAPPR to turn audio into video and at the same time explore some other effect functions to change the angle and colors of my video to make it more illusory and like the picture in a dream. I did a lot of adjustments and achieved the final result.

(when I open screen record and MAX at the same time, my computer died so I did not record the demo.)

Presentation
It is a pity that I did not do the presentation in class due to the emergence and I also did not get the comments from my classmates. My presentation was not so formal but more like a conversation as I directly presented it to the professor Eric. But it can also be regarded as a good thing as I have more time to convey my idea breezily and got a timely response. I first introduced the development of my project and then, put forward my confusion and problems. I felt like I lacked the introduction of inspiration and ideas lying behind the project, which made my whole project seem a little bit confused. In the next time, I think I need to add this part and explain my subjective emotion on the projects and my audience can follow me easily. Also, I can still talk about the problems I meet during the development of my project and I can get more useful and possible solutions. Last but not least, I need to practice more on my own project as when I presenting it, I found there still some audio effects did not reach my expectation.

Conclusion

I am glad that I made a complete project by myself and conveyed my personal emotions and ideas in this project. I will conclude my overall projects in two aspects.

1. At the stage of research and exploration, I quickly found the topic I was interested in and had a strong passion to build some new things based on the existed artworks. In the later projects, I think I need to keep the passion and curiosity on exploring different kinds of artworks and have critical thinking on these works. However, I need deeper and more detailed consideration of the feasibility before I start making projects. Because during the process of making the project at this time, I sometimes had no idea on the next steps and I was not so clear about what I really want to achieve in the end. If I can plan in advance, the process of the project will be much smoother.
2. As a novice in MAX, the most difficult thing for me during the process of making the project is to figure out the effects of different functions. In order to find the most suitable effects for my audios and videos, I did a lot of researches and watched tutorial videos （https://cycling74.com/get-started）. I really enjoyed this learning experience and exploring experience. However, as I pay most of my attention to these detailed effects, I lacked a holistic view on the overall framework of MAX. For example, in my project, some effects did not play their own roles as I lacked some necessary functions. In the future, I will become a more active learner and proactively learned from the professor and my classmates.
3. After finishing and presenting my projects, I gained valuable suggestions and instructions from professor Eric. Then, I analyzed and carefully thought about these suggestions and further adjusted my project to meet the demand. I believed that when I rethink my projects after the presentation, I can make faster progress.

Generally speaking, I will make more effects on developing mature ideas and exploring more possibilities in MAX to build coherent and comprehensive projects with strong personal styles.