Interactive Media Installation: Sound Drawings
In the end of november I was a part of the Sound & Vision 4 concert for Music and Media Technology at the Anton Bruckner University.The Sound & Vision concert serie allows young musician and audio-visual artists to present their new experimental artworks and installations.
In my installation "Sound Drawings" the musicians can use their instruments for drawing an abstract painting. The pitch and the volume of their instruments paint the canvas with an harmonious-sensitive-line-based brush (a digital ribbon brush). The installation tries to put the aesthetic experience of music and visual on an equipollent level. Usually , the music defines the visual experience (see the battle between DJs and VJs) or vice versa. The realtime visual feedback gives the musicians an additional channel for improving and influencing their improvised perfomance. The musicians are oriented towards the visual aesthetics of their drawing and their bandmates. New sounds and musical aesthetics can emerge.
Emily Stewart (violin) and Mira Lu Kovacs (singer) performed three different parts. These parts were influnced by transforming the coordinate systems of the canvas.
- Part: Against each other : Volume axis are reflected | Painting | MP3
- Satz: Rotation : Volume and Pitch axis are rotated through 90° | Painting | MP3
- Satz: Together : Both using the same coordinate system | Painting | MP3
Technical implementation:
The whole software is written in Max/MSP/Jitter. The ribbon brush is strongly based on Mr. Doob's Harmony Drawing application. For this installation I ported the original Web JavaScript version to a Max MSP working version. After the porting process I extended the application with a multiple brush ability. In the end it was possible to use several brushes at the same time. The sound and pitch tracking is done by the external Max MSP object Fiddler. This object works nice for voices and string instruments. Also the color management uses the data of the Fiddler object in combination with a pre-defined color set.
Equipment:
- Dell Latitude E6400 2,66GHZ Notebook
- M-Audio Fast Track Ultra Soundkarte (2 channels)
- HD Beamer
- Max/MSP 5 (Software)
- Harmony Open Source Project (JavaScript)
- Fiddler Project
Acknowledgement:
Big thanks to Andreas Weixler for the technical support, his great advice to use the Fiddler object for sound analyzing, and of course for getting the invitation for his Sound & Vision concert serie. Furthermore, big thanks to Mira and Emily for their great performance, feedback and their patience during calibrate the software. The whole work was a real pleasure. Thx!
A very nice project about the harmonics of visual and auditive signals.
The Harmonic Series
Again another nice project space palette of combining visuals and music together
http://spacepalette.com/
http://blog.makezine.com/2013/05/17/space-palette-music-and-visuals-in-one-fluid-motion/
Additionally, Tunetrace – iOS app by Ed Burton converts drawings to music
some of my friends see a connection to Iannis Xenakis in my work. Especially the method of transforming the music sound / musician performance to a visual representation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iannis_Xenakis
https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/apr/23/contemporary-music-guide-xenakis
http://www.iannis-xenakis.org/
http://www.iannix.org/en/whatisiannix/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2O8bMlEijg&list=RDn2O8bMlEijg
Another cool tool for audiovisual programming and interactions (also with OSC) is i-score. A FLOSS intermedia sequencer for the precise and flexible scripting of interactive scenarios
http://i-score.org/
Amazing project: Music Designed for an Oscilloscope http://sploid.gizmodo.com/music-designed-for-an-oscilloscope-looks-and-sounds-coo-1789345209 | https://asdfg.me/oscistudio/ | https://asdfg.me/osci/ #sound #art –> translating Blender 3D objects to sound
Drawing and playing with a guitar
http://www.workinprogress.ca/projects/guitare-a-crayon/
https://vimeo.com/5212424
Another great exampe of Visual, sound and music
MIDI Drawings by Mari Lesteberg is a collection of musical scores, which present visual narratives with the music they dictate
http://prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com/post/158400073186/midi-drawings-collection-of-musical-scores-by-mari
https://www.youtube.com/user/maisplante/featured
Another great example with good mood palettes
Synesthesie – UPIC Synthesizer Online Version
https://encyclotronic.com/apps/additive/synesthesie-upic-synthesizer-online-version-r15/
live demo (for touch devices)
https://synesthesie.buzzinglight.com/
“Edgard Varèse” (1958) is a very interesting composer, who was an artist of the past. Rather than dealing with sounds as sounds, he deals with them as Varèse.
It is very interesting how he draws and composes rhythms visually:
http://www.ayearfrommonday.com/2012/01/edgard-varese-1958.html
http://proyectoidis.org/edgar-varese/
http://florencedemeredieu.blogspot.de/2009/08/du-son-comme-de-lespace-edgar-varese-et.html
https://goo.gl/images/itGZVL
Damn that #Musical Chord Progression Arpeggiator by Jake Albaugh makes me addicted to experimentation
https://codepen.io/jakealbaugh/pen/qNrZyw
visual representations of rhythms directly with sound patterns output
#web #sound #generator #algorithms #generative #art #math #harmony #melody