For the second project, we were asked to create a mixed video, containing external input, with a focus on portrayal of internet memes. My interpretation of the project specifications brought me to comment on the most recent pop culture craze, Gangnam Style by Psy. In general, I feel that most pop music is made popular through incredibly catchy rhythms and a steady beat, and in this case, Gangnam Style is no exception. The first time I listened to Korea’s most popular song, I became almost hypnotized with the overarching melody, so I wanted to make a Pure Data patch that reflected this as closely as possible.

I started off by using some of the links in class to get the music video of Gangnam Style, along with a hypnotic spiral also found on Youtube. As I learned in class, the actual .wav of the music video had to be extracted separately because pure data doesn’t play the accompanied sound when using the video mixing objects. After importing all of the video and music files, I used the patch to mix two separate videos together as a starting point. I then took the simple sound recorder patch in order to load the Gangnam style .wav file. However when loading the file for some reason the music was played in 2x speed, which made the video and music completely out of sync. I found another tutorial on youtube that imported files a different way in order to try and alleviate the problem. However even after this modification, the file still played in 2x speed. After much research, I found out that Pure Data does not interpret files over a certain capacity, and will try to compress to music in anyway possible. In order to fix the issue, I took the music file, cut out most of the chorus, and edited the music video to match.

After finally getting the music and video to be in sync, I realized that every time I closed the patch, I had to load the files and press about ten different toggle switches in the right order all to get the components working correctly. After a little more research, I found the load bang object which would preset all of my data so that the entire patch could be played just by opening the gem window. To complete the input device portion of the project, I took an Xbox360 controller and wrote a subpatch to get all of the input from the device. I really wanted to change the pitch of the audio in realtime using the controller but it seemed that there was no built in object that could be placed before the dac~ object. Luckily there was a tutorial on how to create such a patch from a preexisting pure data example, which I modified in order to fit into my main patch.

At this point I had my left joystick controlling the pitch of the audio, (as well as the mixing between my two music videos), and my right joystick controlling the phaser, which is a built in audio plugin that creates a reverberation effect. Finally I wanted a way to incorporate transmission of information from Processing to Pure Data. In order to satisfy this, I created a random number generator inside the draw function of my processing patch. I then changed the frame rate so that it would send a value to pure data once per second. Finally I took this value, did some math operations and plugged those values into a delay object which creates a small echo effect randomly in the audio which is more heavily weighted when the hypnotic video is more defined.

This project in general introduced me into many new pure data objects as well as the powerful effect that can occur when linking two different programs together that both have different strengths. Below is a link to a video I made of the patch in action:
http://youtu.be/58u2kSjGoj0

The work I chose is called Walk the Solar System by Louise O’Connor (2010) The project is listed as a performance, but it is also presented as a series of photographs. The artist calculated how far along in a neighborhood each planet would be, if the scale of the solar system was reduced. Whichever buisiness or shop was at that point, was asked to produce a round object representative of the planet that would be at that point.
I think one of the most successful aspects of this piece is that it deals with an often misunderstood concept and presents it in a very understandable way. The scale of the solar system isnt something most people can easily imagine so presenting it in such a simple and clever way is a great idea. Another thing thats done well is the way the planets are represented. By making the person who just happens to be at that spot, produce the object, rather than say having objects created by the artist, the work has a much more humanistic element to it. It also proves again the arguement “art does not exist in a vacuum” as the “viewer” must go to each location to experience the object there rather than sit in a museum absorbing information.
I think the work is perfect as it is. However to expand I would suggest to the artist, doing a series of these “performances”, going around to different neighborhoods around the world, and doing the same thing, and presenting the work as a collection.
Overall I think this is a unique and interesting piece, that many people would enjoy.

See the link below, for pictures, and information.

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/talktome/objects/146228/

I suppose inspiration comes from many places. I would like to think of myself as someone better versed in the types of art presented in this class than the general public, but I would point out the general public has a very broad taste.

When discussing VJs and visual/audio art the first piece that popped into my head was “The 600 Years”:

The 600 Years from the macula on Vimeo.

Talk about impressive. I am impressed at the time it took to make such a spectacular show. Further the detail was exquisite. The tower truly looked as though it was alive.

I think this kind of art carries heavy weight in that it both combines the new and old and possibly restores interest in older cultural icons. Due to this piece I could easily see some young blood so to speak looking into ways to improve the clock tower and entering the historical society surrounding such historical monuments.

I myself am fascinated by the blending and combination of different projectors to produce such impressive displays. The amount of math and geometry surrounding such a display truly boggles the mind. The Latin metaphor nani gigantum humeris insidentes succinctly expresses my view. (The Latin stands for Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants)

There were a lot of blog posts for the nature and machine assignment that I thought were really well done. I feel that the best of them was the Nebulae project, it just looked great every time it reset and really felt like you were looking up at the night sky. Another project that I loved was the atomic flower project. The shape is interesting in its own right, but with all of the colors that it generates, it looks amazing. One of the other projects that I liked a lot was the one that created the color bubbles that mixed colors as the bubbles spread out. For the suggestions, I will have to say that the abnormal tomato could be changed slightly. Nothing big, but I would suggest that the background be in the draw section so that there isn’t the build up of the stem/leaves. Another thing I would suggest would be to change the speed of the bubbles on the magic bubbles piece. I feel like it would make the image seem to flow better. The rolling eggs one is the one that I make an association with because, a few times I was able to make the eggs in a pattern that seems like a hypnotic spiral. It just looks cool because its actually spinning.
The interactive piece that inspires me most of all is the Shadow Garden at the Tech Museum in San Jose. It is a shadow art piece that is cool in it’s own right because shadow art is pretty cool in it’s own right, but the screen has little butterflies on it that land on the shadows that you cast. If I were to try to improve the Shadow Garden, it would be really hard. I guess I would add more of a background to it to try to make the scene more alive and I would also try to make the butterflies a little more defined. It is still probably my favorite interactive piece though.

http://benfry.com/anemone/applet/

The applet is an artistic representation of a site map. The white is traffic between pages, and the orange is paths visitors take throughout the entire site.
It’s a very interesting piece, site traffic changes the contents, generating something different every time. White parts are generated as visitors go from page to page, and become thicker as more traffic flows to those pages. Orange lines are generated as visitors travel throughout the site, connecting nodes throughout the piece.
In all, I think it is an interesting experiment that should lead into some good future projects. Perhaps something using the pedestian traffic of the location it’s installed in.

Lair of the Marrow Monkey and its sequel Chroma are two interactive, abstract animated movies by the digital artist Erik Loyer. Together they comprise the first two parts of an unfinished story about an ancient ‘natural cyberspace’ called Mnemonos. The story follows Dr. Ian Anders, the man who rediscovered Mnemonos, and his team of three explorers, known only by their pseudonyms: Orion 17, Duck-at-the-Door, and Grid Farmer Perry. A fascinating and mysterious meditation on consciousness and cyberspace.

Lair and Chroma combine interactive graphics with a linear storyline. In fact, it is much like a picture book with interactive illustrations—except the illustrations are symbolic, abstract, and downright psychedelic. The experience of playing Chroma all the way through in a single sitting is nothing less than hypnotic. Some might view this limited interactivity as a drawback, but I don’t think “interactive story” has to mean “choose your own adventure book.” In the case of Lair and Chroma, the effect of the interactivity is that the user’s experience mirrors the characters’ experience—floating in geometric dreamtime, adrift in a sea of signal and noise. The non-linear is pressed into the service of the linear, and does its job beautifully.

Thinking of possibilities for expanding this kind of work, one potential path to take would be to add an exploration element, to reimagine the images as a place for the user to navigate through, closer to a video game than a movie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game or interactive art that explores the idea of navigation through a purely abstract space—I’d love to know if anyone’s heard of something like that before.

Lair and Chroma are both built on a decade-old version of shockwave, and as a result they can only run on Internet Explorer, and only with the old shockwave installed. Loyer’s website will prompt this installation, but it can’t be done on a WPI computer without administrative permission. However, segments of the movies are on Vimeo, and although in this form they are no longer truly interactive, they are still very much worth watching.

Lair of the Marrow Monkey

Chroma

Chapter 2 of Marrow Monkey on Vimeo

Prologue of Chroma on Vimeo

While researching interactive art projects I found an interactive alphabet synthesis machine. The project is described on this site: http://www.flong.com/projects/alphabet/ The site also highlights other interactive art projects. According to this site “The products of the Alphabet Synthesis Machine probe the liminal territories between familiarity and chaos, language and gesture. ” I thought that quote was an interesting illustration of the artistic side of any alphabet. In my opinion an alphabet would have to be clear and recognizable as well as simple but varied from letter to letter.That said the alphabets made by this machine varied drastically in complexity and in shape. Some alphabets have extremely simple letters like this: and others are very complex like this: A large archive that shows sample letters from many alphabets can be found here: http://www.alphabetsynthesis.com/~flongco/alphabet/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?page=0 I feel that some alphabets work better than others. The machine itselef and farther description of the project can be found at this site: http://www.alphabetsynthesis.com/ I played with it myself and the machine has an interesting way of creating the alphabets. First the user writes a sample glyph that has some properties indicative of their language. Then the user gets a sample alphabet and gets to set various parameters than can click to evolve their alphabet. How it will evolve is not always obvious. Here is an image of the full alphabet I created using the machine. I now have it as a typeset that I can use in most programs.I really like the idea behind this project because it is very imaginative and could be used by people as part of other projects and creative endeavors. I think it succeeded in showing that alphabets can vary greatly. It also succeeded at mimicking characteristics that are familiar to us from other languages without directly copying them. That said I think they did a bit less well with the evolution portion of the interactive. I felt the controls were fairly unclear and it could have been more strait forward. Overall I still think the results were very interesting. As someone who likes videogames and role play games world building is very interesting to me. Having a made up alphabet is a good step in adding life to a made up culture. That said a person would likely want to vary the number of letters in the alphabet or maybe change the way they are used within the culture, but this gives someone a creative basis to start with. If this project is going to be extended maybe they could ask the user for input on how his/her culture would format their writing. Would it be left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom, diagonally, in square bunches, spiraling inward, scattered like a code, etc. It could then generate a simple sample correspondence from a “citizen” of that made up species. Another extension that would be useful could be the addition of numbers and special characters. They could also have some sort of dictionary where the user could store words he/she came up with for his/her civilization, and then after he/she have added a lot the program could sometimes suggest possible words based on the structures of the ones you have entered already. In general I like the idea of creative tools that helps with the world building process and allows for the development of further creative projects using your results.

I found this piece of interactive art to be incredibly inspiring: http://www.uva.co.uk/work/always-never
The reason this piece is particularly interesting is because it appears interactive while having no moving parts.All of it is completely stationary, yet how the user stands in relation to it they can see different patterns. Because of the three dimensional effect, depending on where the viewer of the piece stand it has potential to create patterns not only with the materials the piece is actually made of, but with the shadows that are created. I am also intrigued by the idea that each triangle is meant to be based off different sun-dail positions, which can lead to some interesting ideas regarding what the piece might mean, or what it might have meant to the creator. I would be interested in seeing a similar piece created virtually that responded to mouse positions as opposed to where the viewer was standing. Whether it was created with a 3D program, or just created using pixels, the idea has potential to create something very fun to look at and play with. I would also be interested in seeing color patters on a piece like this. In the original every triangle shares the same pale color. If color was introduced, it could ever create a greater variety of what people might see from different angles.

I have chosen a new piece from an artist I have studied before. The artist is Christopher Janney and his latest work is called “Harmonic Convergence”. His work is architecturally based and usually very public. The newest piece is set in an airport, as a remodel of a walkway in the Miami International Airport.

The Piece Itself
The piece is a colorful exhibit of stained glass across a stretch of white based interior. This visual allows the exterior light to project a flowing mixture of color across the area. To add excitement to the ambiance the window panes were installed at 45 degree angles to match the crossed beam structure across the walkway. Janney creates a separate atmosphere during day and night times by having the light source switch from natural lighting from the sun to LED lights after dark. The installed lighting is set to change by a computer program hooked to activity sensors so that lighting will produce different moods as the movement level changes in the room.
However, the work adds a more interactive element through its auditory effects. What Janney has put together begins with a sequence of speakers across the room that produces a composition of sounds from tropical birds, the surrounding Everglades and indigenous music in Florida. The mixture of tones across the way changes according to the activity in the walkway. Using video sensors on either end of the crossway Janney allows the sound to continually change on its own throughout the day making each experience a new one.
I summarize “Harmonic Convergence” as a convergence in several ways. The walkway is a symbol for connecting different parts of the airport while bringing the sounds of the nature indoors. Also, the windows matche the original ‘x’ structure of interior beams and light the room with a kaleidoscopic of colors. But most importantly it shows Janney’s convergence of his passion for musical art and his education in architecture. His combinations are good, but acknowledging his older work forms a dusty residue over his mimicking design.

My Critique
This work is inside the Miami International Airport and it replicates his design in another section of the airport. That detail is fair and understandable; however, the use of this type of set up is similar to his creation inside of another airport. The Rainbow Cove that connects the parking lots at Logan International airport in Boston is also a layout using mixture of colorful window panes and indigenous nature sounds. Even though I find it a simple repeat of a previous work that is not the only reason I hold a bit of a disregard for the idea.
Applying nature noises and other Florida native audio is very nice and definitely can set a good mood for entering into the humid heat. This impression it gives is great and the idea is that it should never get old because the composition of different elements may never be repeated. But nowhere was there a check for if the generated sound will actually mesh into a soothing whole. I know flutes and birds sound good separately, yet I feel that some mixtures of screeching creatures and timed melodies may produce an ear ache to such a beautiful delight.

Additional
More info can be found at his own website
http://janneysound.com/urban-musical-instruments/harmonic-convergence/
Janney does many other works using the same use of sensors controlling the ambiance of the area he is given. Almost every project uses musical elements and is made so that the participants are moving.

I attribute the word mosiac with this piece because of the dark lines that appear between the mixing colors. The original intent was to allow the person to click on the sketch to release drops of color. Those colors would then expand slowly across the piece. Eventually multiple drops collide and mix into another color. The process still does this, but the dark lines seperate the area of mixtures from the original color so that a moving mosaic style creation is released on the sketch.
I find the patterns very alluring do to there flowing color patterns as the drops mix. Also, the sharper lines contrast the more organic growth of the drop and their natural color.