VART3490 - Installation Art :: Final Installation

 

Today I performed the work at RMIT in building 37. The work was performed via Ableton Live through my Presonus Firebox soundcard with 6 outputs routed discretely to 4 speakers placed in each corner of the room and the subwoofer placed in the centre.

I placed the CRT monitors upon tripod stands used for ceramics, which added an industrial aesthetic I found pleasing. I performed the work for 10 minutes in the darkened room, using only the sounds and lighting from the CRT monitors to fill the space. I was able to pan the audio through the quadrophonic array to create spatial effects, moving the audio sourced from the ducts along from front left to back right via front right - directly representational of the airflow movement within the ducts of the site.

I used the electromagnetic recordings sourced from the computers primarilly on the front left and right speakers, also congruent to their sourced locations from the site. I used the lower frequency capture from the duct recordings to generate the sub tone, which was in turn routed to the right CRT monitor, creating horiztontal agreen bands that would cycle at its lower frequency rate, these bands moving slowly upward in time with the droning sub. During the performance I sent this channel more frequencies from the electromagnetic capture of low frequency tones I sourced from the lighting and power boards. This low hum modulated the frequencies from the duct, allowing me to adjust the pulsing rhythm of the sub tone and the bands of the right CRT monitor, generating purple and green lines with pulsing widths.

The left CRT displayed the higher frequencies from the left and right channels, creating a more chaotic pattern of horizontal red and blue bands that increased and decreased in width in congruence with the dense array of frequency bands it was receiving.

Performance setup in Ableton Live

Reflection: 

The response from the group was entirely positive, each being able to discern the sounds used as being captured from the space and presented in this context. Spatially and visually everyone was absorbed and engaged by the installation. There was an agreement that effect of the the multichannel array and the presentation of light via the CRT monitors was sucessful at creating immersion, which was the intention of the installation.

If I were to extend this work, I would remove the performative aspect from this and compose a looping sound work to present. Though the criteria of the assessment mentioned "performing the work" I feel that my presence in the installation conducting the performance was distracting for the audience and myself, and not entirely necessary to articulate the piece.

VART3490 - Installation Art :: Synchresis Experiments with VGA Audio Hacking

Synchresis - 

Synchresis is the forging between something one sees and something one hears - it is the mental fusion between a sound and a visual when these occur at exactly the same time. Synchresis is an acronym formed by telescoping together the two words synchronism and synthesis.

- Michel Chion http://filmsound.org/chion/sync.htm
 Synchresis further reading: http://www.generativeart.com/on/cic/papers2005/p10.danielwilson.htm

I also intended to incorporate a visual element to represent the site, but this would be entirely emergent from the the performed audio - being the dominant mode of expression.

As I had initially intended to use a projector to display an abstract temporal construct of the lighting and/or electomagnetic elements of the space via timelapse or color during the installation - I came across a more conceptually congruent solution - a simple hack for computer monitors.

I had indentified my computer screens as the primary focal points of the site as being the key visual elements I wanted to represent in the installation, this hack served ideally to represent these screens in an abstract form - their displays entirely emergent from the performed audio - allowing my soundscape to illuminate the space via the audio frequencies being sent to the speakers.

VART3490 - Installation Art Site Recording

The most prounounced sonic characteristics of the space I wanted to incorporate were those that tonally represent my emotional state when using the space as a studio. Some of these are emergent of the architectural and mechanical elements of the space independant of the elements I bring to it.

These elements include the massive heating ducts that run along the ceiling, the electromagnetic noise present in the lighting and the muffled voices of my the owner and his wife above, all of which are very present in my thoughts when I am present in the space. Just these elements are sonically rich enough to warrant a composition in themselves.

I used my Zoom h4N recorder's onboard microphone to capture 2 long recordings from either end of the rooms heating ducts while they were operating. One of these recordings was conducted while the owner and his wife were having dinner with the intention of capturing their conversation filtered through the floor as part of the recording.

I was unimpressed with the recording as it didn't adaquately capture the ominous rumble of the heating duct as effectively as I required for the composition. I created a contact microphone using a piezo disc to attach to the metal of the duct as a method to electrically capture the vibrations across its surface.

I used Zach Poff's design for his LED limiter circuit to prevent the h4N from recieving voltage spikes from the piezo.

I made another one of these so that I could capture a stereo recording direct into the h4N, though for a quadrophonic composition I would need to split these channels into discreet mono channels.

I used a design I found on the web to create a balanced contact microphone from two piezo discs with common ground with their positive wires wired independently to the positive and negative pins on an xlr microphone plug. The result was much more sensitivity on in the higher frequency ranges complimenting the other larger contact mic I created quite well. With both mics plugged into the Left and Right channels on the H4n I was able to capture a much greater range of the frequency spectrum and split into bass and highs which is ideal for the compositional stage.

Creating the balanced piezo contact mic

 

Lower freq capture from larger piezo contact mic on R channel

Upper freq capture from balanced piezo contact mic on L channel 

I made several of these stereo recordings from different positions along the duct. In order to get a better sound I would have liked to have made this piezo preamp design. The impedance mismatch in the simple DIY contact mic design creates a high pass filter which produces the scratchy, lifeless sound that is usually associated with contact mics. Unfortunately within the time allotted it was not practical to craft this preamp. What is practical is to address this in the compositional stage by supplying the missing bass frequencies through synthesis.

I also wanted to incorporate the electromagnetic and acoustic elements that I bring to the space. These consist of  a range of electrical devices I use within it. I used a pair of transducers to capture the electromagnetic signals being emitted from the key elements of the space I intended to represent in the final installation. These include the fluro light fittings, my laptop and external LCD screen, the power boards and wall outlets, my media centre (nintendo wii) and desk lamp.

Using only a palette of the above recordings I will use the compositional process to articulate my own representation of this workspace as an temporal amalgam of emergent acoustic markers and abstracted contextual sonic symbols. The composition intends purely to depict my conceptual respresentation of the space. As the composition will be abstracted, the literal elements are purely tools to work with in this process. The intention of the piece is to immerse those within the exhibition space into my mental state whilst working in my workroom through sonic and visual cues.

VART3489 - Score and Sound Design Project 1

 

Project 1: Sound & Vision Exercise (15%) + Reflection (10%) Due week 4 (August 12)

Create a work which explores audiovisual relationships in an interesting way.

Select a video work from the shared folder on the SD computer to score/SD.

Reflection:

Selected this piece as it matched my sound palette best. Big reeses and granular with glitchy distortions interrupting the movement in the darkness. First attempt at scoring a piece, discovered the process is even more akin to painting than my usual compositional process. Cherry picking events in the piece as points to build around filling the detail outwardly between points. Rewarding definitely. 90% of the source material created from my own sound library. I used some kicks from a pack while sketching that worked instantly, so I rolled with them. If the project required me to use strictly my own sample library I could have synthesised these sounds pretty easily. Same goes for the 2 field recordings I used from a pack. I could have gone to the kitchen with my h4N if needed.

I used Ableton 9 to compose, using 37 channels of audio, a single reverb send/return, barely any compression or insert effects, filtering or EQ. I relied primarily on the more effective tools of volume, panning and layered arrangement. I find working using the approach infintely more effective with this many channels of audio. To create some of the movement in the later section I layered a fast LFO on a bandpass filter unsynced to tempo, I set the rate by altering it while watching the video. I definitely could have achieved a cleaner tighter mix with more diligence - but I really wanted to avoid mix purgatory for this task and move quickly through the process.

While mixing I had some of the tonal non foley elements soloed and found taking all of the foley out of the mix actually really compelling. I could have built on this and taken this piece in an entirely different direction, this more subtle tone would have also been entirely suitable. This "less is more" mentality would have made this ~24 second piece feel more like a short film than a drum and bass/videogame trailer. More expression is required for a more subtle approach, though I thoroughly enjoyed the engineering aspect of building foley for abstract forms.

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VART3490 - Installation Art :: "Site Assessment"

RMIT SCHOOL OF ART

Installation Art
Semester Two 2014

Installation Art

In the light of the issues sighted in the introduction to
SPACES FOR INSTALLATION
consider this starting point; an objective of a personal space.

PROJECT ONE: A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN

. Under take a detailed objective examination of your bedroom / space.
. The research should include the following (as in a forensic report): the dimensions of    the room, the orientation of the room as to the rest of the building, contents of the room, the location of the contents, architectural details of the room.

. Make a series of schematic drawings of the room: plan view, side elevation etc.
. Use further drawings and photography to visually document the room and its contents.

. What are some of the sensory aspects and functions of the room, e.g. sounds, smells, textures, activities etc.

. Once you have exhausted the objective analysis of the room list some subjective responses to/ of the space.

. Through these lists, drawings, photographs etc, make a simple scale model of the room, schematically blocking in the main forms (furniture etc).

. With all this information consider translating the room’s existence into another place i.e. the Life Room. Think of this process as ‘ performing the room’ for the rest of the group.

. This could start out with you physically marking out the plan dimensions of your room with masking tape or some other material, and you as a guide to activate the bedroom’s identity. Installation as a Live Art event.

. Work will another person to document the ‘performative installation’ Photography? Video? Duration: 10 minutes.

Slitscan Photography

Originally used in static photography to achieve blurriness or deformity, the slit-scan technique was perfected for the creation of spectacular animations. It enables the cinematographer to create a psychedelic flow of colors. Though this type of effect is now often created through computer animation, slit-scan is a mechanical technique. It was adapted for film by Douglas Trumbull during the production of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and used extensively in the "star child" sequence. It requires an imposing machine, capable of moving the camera and its support. This type of effect was revived in other productions, for films and television alike. For instance, slit-scan was used by Bernard Lodge to create the Doctor Who title sequences for Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker used between December 1973 and January 1980. Slit-scan was also used in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) to create the "stretching" of the starship Enterprise-D when it engaged warp drive. Due to the expense and difficulty of this technique, the same three warp-entry shots, all created by Industrial Light and Magic for the series pilot, were reused throughout the series virtually every time the ship went into warp.


Slitscan Video

You can make your own slit camera out of any video capable digital camera with a regular sensor and a regular lens. All you need to do is the following:

1. record a video of your action
2. extract each frame as an individual image (the opposite to what you would do for a time lapse)
3. extract a vertical single pixel wide line from each image (for example a line from the center)
4. stack those lines horizontally from left to right to form an actual "slit scan" image

This can be automated by tools like e.g. ImageMagick and the longer your initial video was, the wider your image will be. In fact, the width of your slit scan image will have exactly the same amount of pixels as your initial video's frame number.

Now, to go one step further you can proceed for all the other vertical lines of your images and create one slit scan image for each particular set of vertical lines. This will give you a set of as many slit scan images as your initial video was wide in pixels. Combining that set of slit scan images to a video (this time exactly as in a time lapse) your result can look like this.

Important note:

I decided to abandon the slitscan method in order to focus on sound as the primary medium for this work. Delving into the slitscan technique is too tangental to be practical for my development as a sound artist. I chose instead to use this assignment to focus on developing audio capture skills and multimedia electronics which have been the focus of my installation work in the past.

VART3504 - Instructional Piece

Instructional Piece

Possible:
Draw a square on the ground, then inscribe a circle within it.
Take a piece of paper, tear it into equal pieces - one for each person in the room.
Distribute these to each person.
Individually compress each piece to the smallest size possible.
Individually drop each piece over the square.
Count the number of objects inside the circle.
Multiply this by the total number of objects.
Write this result in the centre of the circle.

Impossible:
Divide the result by zero.

Inscribed circle within square

Based loosely on the (Monte Carlo Method) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_method

Monte Carlo methods vary, but tend to follow a particular pattern:

1. Define a domain of possible inputs.
2. Generate inputs randomly from a probability distribution over the domain.
3. Perform a deterministic computation on the inputs.
4. Aggregate the results.

Division by zero:
Why can't we divide by zero?