LookingOutwards-04 – Page 5 – [OLD FALL 2017] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

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Doug Wheeler’s PSAD Synthetic Desert III is an immersive installation I was too late to get tickets for when I visited the Guggenheim Museum in NYC last summer, which is why it piqued my interest for this assignment. It doesn’t necessarily use sound, rather, it focuses on the lack of noise and its significance.

This exhibition was designed to minimize noise and takes advantages of architectural acoustics materials. The space allows viewers to sit on a platform and soak up the silence in this minimalistic room. It focuses on the reduction of optical and acoustical sensations, and it uses the repetition of pyramid structures, similar to the type you would find in a recording studio.

Wheeler explains the significance of having his exhibition in New York City, a city riddled with noise pollution. It is impossible to escape noise, and the Synthetic Desert can act as an escape from such a loud environment. Wheeler speaks of his inspiration, which stems from when he landed alone in a dried Arizona lakebed and just heard…nothing. He says, “I’m hearing distance. When you’re in some place that has immensity…you become conscious of yourself, it changes your perspective of how we fit into the mix of the whole universe.” I admire his deep passion for having others experience what he experienced in that moment, and his commitment to this project (which he started 48 years ago).

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Bending the Arc by Jennifer Wen Ma

https://fluxprojects.squarespace.com/jennifer-wen-ma/

This sound art installation by Jennifer Wen Ma uses the combined voice frequencies of participants speaking into a microphone to raise the visual of the arc. What I admire about this project is the input of interaction in that more participation and louder singing/ speaking, etc. generate a collaborative effort to “raise the arc,” which allows audience members to reflect the action they are performing metaphorically. I was not able to find any explanations of the algorithms Ma used, but what I can assume from witnessing the piece and researching it is that the height of sound frequency is translated to the bending points in the curve drawn, which moves the line up and down.

Image result for bending the arc jennifer wen ma

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This week I looked at James Murphy’s “Subway Symphony” from 2014. This was a project in which Murphy wanted to change the harsh beep sound when passengers swipe their cards before getting on the subway. He decided to have each swiping station randomly play 1 0f 8 notes, so as the subway station gets busy, the notes play together to create music. I really admired that James Murphy wanted to take advantage of a sound that many New Yorkers hear on a daily basis, and turn it into something beautiful. It was a way of bringing generative sound art into a setting that everyday people experience daily. I know the process for this project was also very cheap, because they already needed to have a sound be generated, they just needed to program the stations to randomly play a note from a set of notes that sound nice together. James Murphy is a native of New York City and has played many shows and done many recordings there. It makes sense that he wanted to create generative art that could be experienced by the public crowds of New York. His work is also usually based in simple singular notes layered on top of each other, as represented in this piece.

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The 6000th generation of DarwinTunes sound loops

DarwinTunes is a generative music software first developed by Bob MacCallum in 2009 where melodies are produced in a manner similar to that of natural selection. Volunteers listen and rate different sound loops generated by the program, and then the most highly rated loops ‘reproduce’, creating a new generation of sound loops which are then subjected to the rating process. I admire this project because it incorporates human feedback to constantly improve it’s output. With each new generation of sound loops, they become more and more highly rated and indicative of the musical preferences of those rating them, so it actually closely mirrors the actual development of music genres and preferences over time.

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For this week’s Looking Outwards, that is focused on Sound Art, I choose Samson Young, an artist who is from Hong Kong. The project called Nocturne (2015) is a live performance project where Samson collected found footage of night bombing (Gaza strip, ISIS, gulf war etc.) from the internet and recreate the sounds of the bombing, explosions, and gunshots using household items live.

The recreation of the sounds of bombing and explosions by just using household items seems to be very interesting in this performance because it is essentially saying that daily objects withhold some sort of power and energy. I am fascinated how he was able to convey such emotions using the medium of sound.

Documentation of Samson Young’s Project called Nocturne (2015)

Live Performance Video of Nocturne (2015) – On-site radio broadcast, video, performance

Samson Young’s Web Page

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This chair is part of a series of chairs called Nóize chairs by Estudio Guto Requena. The Brazilian designers recorded ambient noise in the streets of São Paulo then used the information from the sound recordings to distort the surfaces of 3D modeled chairs. They distorted three classic Brazilian chair designs. The goal for the designers was to create a chair that represented the culture and ambiance of brazil. By taking an already iconic chair design and distorting it with the sounds of the area, the designers created a very interesting object that is symbolic of their native country.

I find this project very interesting because it is an example of designers building off of the ideas that older designers had with the new technology that is available today. However, I think that the way they distorted the models of the chairs is a pretty generic algorithm for distortion. I think that this concept could be better executed if the designers edited the distortion algorithms to generate geometry that was symbolic of some other aspect of Brazil culture or reminiscent of the original design of the chair.

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This is “Fall” by Robert Henke.

This art piece was named after a village in Bavaria that was submerged under the waters of a reservoir in the 1950’s, which reemerged in 2015 when the reservoir water level fell. It is a series of suspended, extremely thin swatches of fabric, and the laserlights that play on them in different shapes, colors, and patterns. The cloth pattern itself was designed with an algorithm, and the sound aspect pulls from granulated bavarian music, water sounds, church bells, and other distortions. I love how haunting the backstory combined with the execution of this piece is. I always appreciate art that is a well researched tribute. In this piece, Fall is resurrected.

Here is the installation page on Henke’s website.

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France Cadet – Spina Family: Hunting Tophies, Robotic Sculpture 2008

This project is simple in design and simple in action.

Each little “Tail” on the mount moves to music on its own independent basis, but when each of them moves together, or in a pattern, the result is beautiful to watch.

I admire the simplicity of this project, and I think the computation behind it isn’t very serious. If a certain frequency of sound is played, a certain tail reacts, and this creates a wonderfully mesmerizing effect. I especially respect projects that focus on being creative with simplicity, instead of trying hard to be really complicated. The value is in the creativity, not the computational difficulty.

I believe the artist’s purpose and goal with this piece were to potentially make a statement on hunting and mounting, but also to show the power of small independent movements together as one.

hyt-Looking-Outwards: “I am Sitting in a Machine” by Martin Backes

The inspiring sound installation art, I am Sitting in a Machine, is created by multi-disciplinary artist and composer Martin Backes. The piece pays tribute to the Alvin Lucier’s 1969 experimental piece I Am Sitting in a Room — a piece where the composer narrates a paragraph of text, then play the recording to an empty room, and re-recorded and re-played until the piece ends with hollow, resonated sounds. Similar process was used by Martin Backes, except that the narration is conducted by an artificial human voice, and then run through a MP3 encoder repeatedly through algorithms.

Exhibition view of “I am Sitting in the Machine”

For the physical work itself, the left portion is a 30-unit dubplate vinyl disk, and the right portion an online web page that conducts the same audio. The production presents the process of encoding until it fades into distortions and simple data formats.

I was mostly drawn to the artworks because of the reiterated interpretation of the experimental process, revealing the transformation from supposedly natural sounds to another that is so artificial and cold, and slowly goes into decay as the process repeats infinitely; at the mean time, its recursive algorithm also accentuates its properties as both a physical and digital production. According to the artist, he made 3000 iterations of the piece and eventually chose 32 tracks eventually, illustrating the variety and differences for each trial.

Web edition: http://iamsittinginamachine.net/info.html

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Specdrums

When I was home over Winter break last year a friend of mine was working on this project for kickstarter:

Specdrums is a drum machine and synthesizer that you wear like a ring on your finger. Depending on what color you tap with the device, a different drum sound will be produced. Your cell phone can synthesize different sounds and the device works on any surface. It can pick up the colors of your clothes so you can play body music.

What I admire about this project is how playful it is. A lot of new technology like this is very intimidating to use but this seems almost childish and fun.

I was lucky enough to see these guys working on this project and see the mechanisms on the inside of the test product.