September 2018 – Page 31 – [OLD FALL 2018] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Yingyang Zhou-LookingOutwards-4

Ryoji Ikeda
born in 1966 in Gifu, Japan
lives and works in Paris, France and Kyoto, Japan

Japan’s leading electronic composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda focuses on the essential characteristics of sound itself and that of visuals as light by means of both mathematical precision and mathematical aesthetics. Ikeda has gained a reputation as one of the few international artists working convincingly across both visual and sonic media. He elaborately orchestrates sound, visuals, materials, physical phenomena and mathematical notions into immersive live performances and installations.
Alongside of pure musical activity, Ikeda has been working on long-term projects through live performances, installations, books and CD’s such as ‘datamatics’ (2006-), ‘test pattern’ (2008-), ‘spectra’ (2001-), ‘cyclo.’ a collaborative project with Carsten Nicolai, ‘superposition’ (2012-), ‘supersymmetry’ (2014-) and ‘micro | macro’ (2015-).
//Ryoji Ikeda website

‘superposition’

superposition is a project about the way we understand the reality of nature on an atomic scale and is inspired by the mathematical notions of quantum mechanics. Performers will appear in Ikeda’s work for the first time, performing as operator/conductor/observer/examiners. All the components on stage will be in a state of superposition; sound, visuals, physical phenomena, mathematical concepts, human behaviour and randomness – these will be constantly orchestrated and de-orchestrated simultaneously in a single performance piece.

I like the projects of Ryoji Ikeda because it origins from matchmatic element and by extending it to the realm of philosophy , it shows what audiovisual can do to inspire people.

other works of Ryoji like supersymmetry presents an artistic vision of the reality of nature through an immersive and sensory experience.
This project is a series of work conceived as installation versions of the performance work “superposition” (2012-) and as a platform to update the process and outcome of a residency during 2014-15 at CERN in Geneva, the largest centre in the world for particle physics.

Elena Deng-Looking Outwards-04

After looking through the websites given to us, I wanted to analyze my favorite example of sound art. The piece I am going to describing today is Sonic Playground by Yuri Suzuki. I admire how it plays upon the idea of childhood wonder as well as transforming the space it into a playground. As a kid, my favorite part of a playground was the different forms could transport noises to the opposite side of the playground. I enjoy how the project focuses on the mechanisms of that same design in playgrounds and yet still add a different technical side to a childhood toy.

From the diagram given, it seems as if the different installations are connected. According to the article, the designer uses Grasshopper and Rhinoceros which are 3D geometrical software. It uses ray tracing techniques for specific frequencies which allows for acoustic applications. It was also stated that the plug is a 3D raytracing tool that can allow the selection of a specific sound in a particular direction.

According to the artist, he wanted these pieces to animate the outdoor space and allow visitors/passersby to look and interact with the art experiences.

Sophia Kim – LookingOutwards-04: Sec C

Inspired by the production of electroacoustic music and the “Symphony – electronic music” composed by Bogusław Schaeffer, the panGenerator team created the “Apparatum” to purely produce analogue sounds. The panGenerator team used two 2-track loops and three one-shot linear tape samplers as primary mediums. Along with these primary mediums, spinning discs with graphic patterns were used to obtain noise and basic tones.

I appreciate how sound design was fused with product design and communication design to make a personal experience for each user. At the end of each recording, your audio file is uploaded to a server and a ‘receipt’ is printed to show the sound patterns. The server is linked to a code/website to download the uploaded file. This experience allows the user to take something back home to remind them of this experience. I like how this machine gives freedom to people through customization of different types of sounds.

Rachel Lee Looking Outwards 04 Section E

Sonic Playground by Yuri Suzaki Design and High Atlanta (2018)

The project I have chosen to write about is Sonic Playground by Yuri Suzaki Design with High Atlanta. I admire this project because of its interactive quality, and how it engages the public in an immersive experience based on their own personal input (manipulating the sounds they are making via various processes). I think this creates an intimate relationship between the user and the artwork, and invites them to be curious and explore it piece. The creators of this piece created algorithms via a raytracing tool. This tool allowed users to pick a sound source of their choice, and relay that sound in a specified direction, or towards the shape of the mirrors of bell at the start and end of the pipes. The result of these algorithms includes sound that envelopes those interacting with the piece, and lateral reflections. I think that the creator’s artistic sensibilities manifested in the final form via the bright colors of the sound sculptures, and the shape and direction in which the ‘speakers’ point– this allows for a playfulness in not only form, but also in sound that has the potential to evoke strong emotions of joy and wonder in those interacting with Sonic Playground.

Han Yu Looking Outwards 04

MULTIVERSE by fuse*

The record of MULTIVERSE by fuse*, Italy 2018.

MULTIVERSE is an audio-visual installation by the Italian based studio and production company, fuse*. The project draws inspirations from physics theories about multiverse and simulates the everlasting births and deaths of countless parallel universes. Watching the replay of this magnificent display of the multiverse that only exists in my wildest imagination before, I felt the power of infinite possibilities of life showcased in this project, magnified through a gigantic display. The project was delivered by a vertical projection of 7.5 meters high and two echoing mirrors that generates an infinite display.

How developers from fuse* generate the non-repeating simulation using live data.

The algorithms used in the project was in a software by openFrameworks that manages interactions with multiple softwares like AbletonLive and Max/MSP through with various scenes are generated and connected. The project successfully simulated the random changes during the creations of universes as each scene represents an evolutionary path of the multiverse. Each display is a unique variation that never repeats itself.

Snapshot of MULTIVERSE projected for the first time in Borgo delle Colonne, Italy in 2018.

Alice Fang–Looking Outwards–4

<a href="http://dantapper.bandcamp.com/album/turbulent-forms">Turbulent Forms by Dan Tapper</a>
Turbulent Forms

Dan Tapper is a British artist who combines code with his interest in celestial bodies and objects in the universe. The second iteration of his project Turbulent Forms is in collaboration with the Canadian Music Centre, and is a sonification of cosmic phenomena. Using abstract ideas of space and chaos, Tapper created software that generated modulated “sine tones of various pitches” and then collaborated with various artists and composers to create a composition. In total, six songs were produced, and performed at a NOVA concert.

While listening to the pieces, I was immediately reminded of the scores produced for the movie Interstellar, and it’s interesting how the generated pitches and almost mechanized sounds lend themselves to imagery of being in space. The general concept of the music is to “collectively simulate motions of bodies being pulled into the influence of a black hole” and that feeling of nothingness, of tension and anxiety, are definitely captured by the different pieces. I also think it’s really interesting that some of the artists actually pulled from NASA recordings as source material, creating an ambience that is very reminiscence of space.

Jonathan Liang – Looking Outwards – 04

Meandering River is a collaboration between Funkhaus Berlin and onformative that saught to represent the fast-moving world through gradual, rhythmic movements rather than a snapshot. onformative used a custom-written algorithm that reinterprets fluctuating river patterns based on the sounds that are generated form the river. They take this data to then generate a colorful river landscapes (that are changing real-time) and project them onto screens. This type of data visualization is common amongst onformative’s works, which can be found here :

https://onformative.com/work

Another onformative project that can best exemplifies sound art is its project titled Porsche Blackbox. In this project onformative takes the sounds from a blackbox in a Porsche and uses that data to visualize what driving the vehicle was like at that time. Their work has really inspired me to explore what artists can do with data like sound, or even other senses that are not sight related.

More on the Porsche Blackbox project is in this link below:

https://onformative.com/work/porsche-blackbox

Emily Zhou – Looking Outwards – 04

On the subject of sound and computation, I recently downloaded an iOS app called Seaquence that composes music using petri dish of life forms.

Screenshot from Seaquence: rudimentary lifeforms

The app by Okaynokay uses a custom physics engine to develop the lifeforms. The creatures’ tempo and waveform are represented by their antennae and tail respectively. I admire the game developers’ visualizing of sound in such a unique way; relating them to living organisms.

The interface allows you to adjust scale, octave, and rhythm and apply transposition and delay for each life form. Before playing the game, I assumed that the UI would be extremely complicated and it would be difficult to produce pleasant sounds. The fact that I was wrong makes me respect the effort put into finding a large range of sounds that work together and applying different parameters to each.

Sample music produced using Seaquence by Okaynokay, 2017.

Creators Gabriel Dunne and Ryan Alexander combined their acoustic and visual artistic sensibilities to develop an algorithm that intricately weaves together the parameters for sound.

KadeStewart-LookingOutwards-04

Apparatum, a project created by panGenerator, is an “apparatus” that allows a user to create analog sounds via a digital interface. It’s a callback to one of the first studios to create analog sound, the Polish Radio Experimental Studio. With a description in words, the machine sounds completely unattractive; however, seeing Apparatum and hearing the sounds it produces will give you a completely different sense. The appearance is interesting, the interface is simple (albeit a little abstract), and the sounds are amazingly diverse.

The generation of the sounds, or rather, the movement of the parts in the apparatus are controlled in length by choosing the corresponding widget and elongating its width. The algorithms for this would probably track the width of the widget and translate that to a certain length of time to move the part associated with the widget. While not the most advanced, even useful, application, there is a clear and close relationship between the user’s digital input and Apparatum’s analog output.

Apparatum Project

Vicky Zhou – Looking Outwards 04

“Volume” is an interactive and responsive sound and light installation designed for a popular NYC festival, Panorama. The installation is a series of responsive mirrors formatted in a cube; these mirrors rotate individually in response to the presence of people (in this case, excited festival goers), which then redirect light and sound as a result. The mirrors process presence and rotate using cameras, and the LED lights change in response to the changes of sound around them. This data is then converted via DMX, and to the motors via OCP and Arduino microcontrollers.

Although the final result of the project seems to be “created” or “formed” by the viewer (ie. festival goer), the team, Softlab, showcased their own artistic voice by choosing exactly what medium Volume was created in –mirrors, LED lights — and what mediums Volume chooses to interpret — sound and physical movement. I think Volume is a playful installation that is affected by aspects we find fairly simple — sound and movement, but utilizes intricate data interpretation which then creates an elevated and dynamic environment.