where I am at (week 5)

I have the tape and camera ready to go. I'm still trying to get squared away on what the visual elements will be. I had entertained the idea of shooting the dinner table setting (making sure the distance remains the same between the camera and table) in multiple backgrounds, but I still think I would like to keep it in one location. I should be shooting video this weekend.

As a very general central theme, the video clips will relate to time. Again, I don't won't the story to be too specific, as I want to allow people to draw their own conclusions. The time theme should work well with the setting. Having to sit down and eat is a constant, and showing the passage of time through this view makes sense.

There will be a mixture of symbolism and explicit story elements to relate. The video clips should not feature any dialogue, and be about 2 minutes in length. Each video will have its own series of events, so they could exist on their own.

I will have the shots widdled down by the weekend and ready to shoot. I'm also a bit behind on the sound portion of things. I'm going to attempt to get the ball rolling soon.

Concept Architecture

Objectives:

I. Provide a meaningful interface to allow each user to explore how cross-correlation between senses colors their reality

II. Adequately arrange the project so that each experience will be unique, dependent upon the users interaction.

Technical Foundation

The input will from a wacom tablet will be fed into MAX/MSP. The users motion will affect how much a specific video will play, as well as which sounds will be queued up. The results will be fed out to a projector and two speakers in front of the user.

Basic Arrangment



Basic Setting for all five videos



Overview of Wacom Tablet



Influences

Walther Ruttman- Lichtspiel Opus 1
-early abstract animation

Fantasia
-reversal of film/music. The music inspired the visual component

Windowlicker- Dir. Chris
Cunningham, Music by Richard D. James
-a video where the combination works particularly well for me.


Les Manovich, "Soft Cinema"
-complex arrangement of several mediums

Schedule
Week 4 (4/16/07)
-Continue to plan and develop partial story
-Start to develop five different sound settings
-Finalize framework for goals with MAX/MSP
Week 5
-Finalize five partial story elements
-Continue sound settings
-Hopefully begin arranging code in MAX/MSP
Week 6
-Begin filming
-Continue sound settings
-continue MAX/MSP coding
-test interface
-have basic interface ready for prototype
Week 7
-Finalize filming
-Continue MAX/MSP coding
-Continue working on interface
Week 8-10
-Finish Sound Settings
-Finish MAX/MSP work
-Finalize interface
Finish by 5/29

In kind equipment and software:
2.0 Ghz Mac Pro and any compatible monitor
Canon Projector (SXGA capable preferred)
Projector screen or clear wall
Two speakers appropriate for a 20x20’ room
Wacom 6x8” Tablet and Pen
Sony HDR-HC3 Camcorder
2 Rhodes NT-1A Microphones
Presonus Firebox Interface
2.53 Ghz Pentium 4 PC and compatible monitor
Two 15’ xlr cables
Acid Pro 5
Sound Forge 8
Reason 3
Final Cut Studio Pro
Max/MSP……………………………………..$0

Bibiliography
Potter, Ralph K. , “Audivisual Music.” Hollywood Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Autumn 2007): pp. 66-78. (link)

Manovich, Lev. “Soft Cinema: Ambient Narrative.”
http://www.softcinema.net/

Proposal

I have long had an interest in audio and visual connections, and how in the right context each medium informs the other. This process is taken advantage of in many different fields to create the appropriate emotional setting. In commercials, the product being presented is directly shaped by specific musical styles. It can be seen as ‘fun’ by having an upbeat light sound. In cathedrals, the subdued lighting in a massive space tries to imply the divine. The music generally associated features long unwavering tones that due to reverberation slowly decay, causing sounds to blend and appear in a sense timeless. ‘Insight on Sound’ is a project meant to explore these connections, to try and provide a setting that allows this process to be laid bare and explored.

We have the ability to take our senses and in combination make our experiences more then just the sum of their parts. Our perception becomes dependent upon the relation between senses. Reality becomes separated from itself, reinterpreted into a new experience unique for each individual. Perhaps a beautiful meadow becomes even more beautiful with the soft whistling of a breeze or a densely packed crowd in a market appears even more chaotic by the sound of bustling feet and multiple conversations. Are these senses influenced merely by the physical qualities of each? Do cultural norms play a role in their interpretation as well? Would an individual use to crowded markets see the bustling energy as having a calm order, the sounds of interaction in fact as calming as a light breeze in a meadow?

This piece will be an interactive experience, centered around a single dynamic setting to help explore these questions. The central piece of the view will not change, but by the users input the environment around the center will adjust, Within the environment, unique connections will be arranged between the audio and visual components, outlining different emotional extremes. How exactly the quality of these extremes manifest themselves will depend on who is using the piece. Sound has the fortunate quality of being one of our bodies more abstract senses. It is difficult to convey in writing the quality of a specific noise, or the beauty of a passage of music, The more abstract nature of sound will allow for a wide variety of responses. Visually, each emotional pole will hint at a story, but never explicitly. In the same way sound requires a conceptual gap to be filled, the partial story will require each users imagination. By providing a system that allows for great variability, where the experience is defined by what connections each user makes between the visual and auditory elements, my hope is to force each person to question why they are making such connections and in what way they allow such notions to influence their perception of reality.

more idea stuff

So as I stated earlier, my goal with this project is to allow people to explore the connections we make between audio and visuals. I think I've come up with fairly good interface for this. I want to tell a partial story by showing a single location in five different stages. Each part of the story would have a specific emotional quality attached. By adjusting different visual qualities, introducing elements of the story, as well as adjusting the sound being played, I would hopefully portray a wide variety of emotional settings.

I have had a little bit of experience using MAX/MSP, and if I could use it again I think I could create a very effective interface. I want to take one of the tablets and use it as the control. By moving the pen around the tablet, I want it to switch between the five different scenes. The surface area would be split up into quadrants, with a fifth equal sized square right in the middle. I'm not terribly good with max/msp, but I think I should be able to take input values from the tablet to control the levels of audio playing, as well as the to what extent each video is playing. For example, if the pen was halfway between the upperleft corner and the center of the tablet, it would be showing the video of the top left and the video of the center partially overlayed with eachother, as well as the sound from each scene partially blended.

As for what exactly the scene will be, I was imagining a set seat at a dinner table. Specific things would occur around this setting, but the framing of the shot would never change.

slow ideation

I presented the Cunningham videos because of how the music and visual seem to be connected in a bizarrely intimate matter, as if the video and audio where produced at the exact same moment with the exact same goal. I want to explore the place where these two mediums meet in a way that allows the viewer to become very aware of the processes their mind is using to make that connection.

Mannovich/Experience Design

Like others, I really liked this idea of the 'takeaway'. I hadn't really put much detailed thought into the longevity of digital works. The hierarchy of experience presented is quite useful as well, data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. To create something worth taking away, you must hope to effect a persons wisdom, to allow that person to connect their knowledge in meaningful ways.

The question had been asked as to whether any of us had experienced a digital 'take-away', and I think I have perhaps had such an experience. It's a rather pedestrian thing, but it was while video-chatting with my brother. He is living in Tai Pei, and while chatting with him, he took his camera and panned it to the surrounding buildings near his apartment. Early Spring/Late winter brings some of the best weather to Tai Pei. The air is clear and not heavy with humidity and pollution. There was this beautiful blue sky with those perfect fluffy clouds hanging about, which due to the time change contrasted greatly with the rainy night we had on the pacific northwest. The image quality wasn't great, the technology really wasn't new at all, but it was still pretty amazing to me.

Mannovich I think helped reaffirm something I mentioned in one of our discussion sections. He discusses new media as two layers, the human and computer layer. My view of cybernetics at this point is that it is our experience of the world through technology; the sort of hyper-existence technology allows, going above and beyond what we are naturally capable of. Given the increased merger of computer processes in every daily activity, the layers Mannovich mention become prevalent in virtually everything. As artists, to not have some understanding of the computer layer, our work will suffer as it ignores a growing part of our existence.

Windowlicker, Come to Daddy