LookingOutwards-04

LO – 4

With my short-lived experience in physical computing taking an intro Arduino class last semester, I was drawn to the appearance of Ototo by Yuri Suzuki. It resembles a chip but claims to be a musical invention kit. Reading into it, Ototo does exactly as it promises. It allows the user to interact tactically with the product to experiment with possible sounds, manipulate add-ons that increase the range of sounds that can be made, and wire the product to everyday items (i.e. water, a piece of cake, a spoon) so that the musical performance experience expands to include any object you desire.

What I love about the Ototo is the accessibility of the product by the communicative means of sounds and its relationship with touch. From a young age, we are introduced to toys with buttons assigned to certain sound effects. I think this project builds on that simple concept but elevates it to something even more interesting by allowing the user to transform their own personal items into musical instruments. I’m unsure of how the machine detects changes in the connected objects (conductivity?), but I do know that a lot of thought was put into writing code that assigns sounds to different ports on the device that is further changed based on the additional input information from the connected objects. I think Suzuki’s artistry comes into this project in the consideration of human emotion and how we respond to interactivity and sound. His sound projects are highly engaging and portray sound as a viable and fun aspect of art and design.

Any object the Ototo is connected to becomes a musical instrument.

BIY.HEAR is a numerological processing project that acts like a prophet or a fortune teller. It interprets what the person said and calculates a destiny and a lucky number for this person. I admire how the creator enriches the meaning of technology and computation, which used to be purely pragmatic and mechanical. BIY.HEAR gives the user the illusion that it has some mysterious connection with supernatural power, which is a power conventionally unique to psychics.

BIY.HEAR was trained on Indian numerology and Astrology. The microphone on the board takes in words from a conversation and match the words with its symbolic meaning based on traditional Indian knowledge systems.

The visual design of the chip addresses the culture from which the calculation is based on. The creator made an interesting choice to preserve the general form of a normal chip instead of using a form of a human figure. This design choice renders the user to reflect on what is the difference between humans and machines and the level of sophistication that computational artifacts can reach.

Looking Outward-04

Since David Cope is a composer, he already had an interest and extensive knowledge in different genres of music which probably compelled him to make this and incorporate jazz, classical and chorale music. After doing some searching, I found that he learned LISP in college which is programming language for AI. I would guess that this (among other things probably) is what he used to make EMMY because EMMY makes music from artificial intelligence. I like that it keeps a consistent melody and harmony I was very surprised by that especially since it incorporates a number of different voices singing in different vocal ranges. It is very consistent and there are no jumps at all, so it is actually very calming to listen to. However, it is strange hearing the choir voices sing words that aren’t real. I’d be interested to hear how EMMY interprets jazz since there are so many instruments involved. I would be curious to see if it incorporates more random and unexpected elements of sound and rhythm since jazz doesn’t always follow a specific rhythm.

LO 4 – Sound Art

As a student who works in the IDEATE space at CMU, I have really come to appreciate some of the creativity around our own University. A sonic art piece that comes to mind is in the stairwell of the Hunt library. A search on the Internet renders not much more than the name of this installation – “Acrylic plastic Ambient auditory experience”, but this product is cooler than it sounds. Using hanging light fixtures that extends from the top of the stairwell to the bottom, it responds to the sound of footsteps on the stairs and lights up the piece of the fixture closest to the sound. I really enjoy this interaction, and I think it’s a creative way to make such a boring space feel exciting and alive. It was created to emphasize the area of the library where you are allowed to make sound. In the publishing of this blog post, I have found more information about the piece – it was created by Jaime Chu and Robert Rudolph. Using clear acrylic, the designers were able to achieve and interesting floating lightbulb effect. See here:

LO – 04 : SOUND ART

François Quévillion – Algorithmic Drive, 2019

François Quévillon’s “Algorithmic Drive” is a project that I personally found to be very interesting. This project is an interactive installation that was inspired by cars and dash cams. It began with François collecting a large database of recordings from a camera attached to his car’s computer. The data collected includes information on location, orientation, speed, temperature, stabilitiy, etc. This data is fed into a sampling system that uses signal processing, data analysis, and computer vision algorithms that then begins to sort the content statistically. The information is mapped using a Uniform Manifold Approcimation and Projection dimension reduction technique.

This project was interesting to me because it utilizes data and information that surrounds us in our daily life, but is then used to create something new and creative.

Algorithmic Drive – Spectacular car(au)tonomy

LO 04 – Sound Art

Sample visualizations that Milkdrop is capable of.

Milkdrop is a visualizing plugin created by Google employee Ryan Geiss for Winamp, a media player for Windows systems. Milkdrop turns input audio such as songs or movies into abstract, constantly-changing psychedelic compositions. Since its release in 2001, Geiss has added extra features into the plugin, such as pixel shaders that allow for more complex and layered visualization presets.

Milkdrop takes the wavelength of an audio file playing in Winamp and analyzes it to create a visualization based on a preset, which is like a template for the program to convert the wavelength into a visual. Milkdrop uses a grid system on screen in which it calculates a pixel’s value based on a preset and interpolates the other pixels based on these values. In other words, it will calculate the values of about 32 x 24 evenly spaced points on the screen and averages the others based on the calculated values.

I was drawn to Milkdrop from how different it looked from other audio visualizers and how unlimited the potential for creating visualizations based in the program could be. I also found it interesting that Geiss’s skillset translated over to his work at Google, where he currently works on AI software for Pixel phones to help it take better photos.

Looking Outwards 04 – Sound Art

Image of people with Urban Lights Contacts by Scenocosme

Urban Lights Contacts is an interactive sound and light installation by Scenocosme (Grégory Lasserre & Anaïs met den Ancxt). The installation is composed of a small interactive sphere. When a person puts his or her hand on the sphere, the body turns reactive and sensitive to other living bodies. When the person touching the sphere has a physical contact with another person, the installation starts emitting sounds. Each contact of each person generates varieties of different sounds. What this installation is doing is sensing the body’s electrostatic energy and emitting them as sounds. What’s interesting and unique about this installation is that it creates a sensory interactive experience with what we cannot detect in the eye. Encouraging people to have interactive contacts with other people they don’t know also gives a total unique experience. The interactive device generates a very sensitive approach of the body, recognizing different degrees of electrostatic contacts according to the proximates of living bodies. What I find interesting is that different people produce different electrostatic energy, which also makes the installation emit different sounds as well. The artists of this installation really focus on the interactive experience, an experience people cannot see but can hear and feel through the installation.

Video of Urban Lights Contacts

LO-04 GENERATIVE MUSIC

Music in today’s environment can be digitally manipulated to create certain sounds. Computational systems and digital generation of music has allowed sound to transform into anything the artist intends for it to be and can create new ways of human expression. An artist I admire in this field of music is Billie Eilish and Finneas. These artists are able to interact and communicate with other artists who may be able to mix or distort sounds according to notes.
In Bad Guy by Billie and Finneas O’Connell, the mix session contains 68 tracks, 49 of which are audio tracks. The mix template and stems are loaded into Pro Tools where the mix is produced. The remaining tracks are drums, percussion, bass, and synth tracks. The aux tracks in the background are also run For the vocals in the song, they are grouped together and are then put through Waves PuigChild 670 plug-in which compresses all vocals. The vocals are smoothed out and are dynamicized and then put through another plug-in called Waves De-Esser to add more variety and color to the track. Through these digital means of transforming sound data to a certain style, Billie and Finneas are able to provide new ways of human expression and are testing limits of what music is and can be.

Billie & Finneas O’Connell

FINNEAS Explains How He Builds Songs For Billie Eilish | Critical Breakthroughs
Pitchfork
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsSkRjgjFvU&t=290s

Billie Eilish and Finneas Break Down Her Hit Song ‘Bad Guy’
Rolling Stone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpx2-EMfdbg

LO 04 – What do machines sing of?

“What do machines sing of?” is an art piece by Martin Backes, an artist, technologist, and self-described hacker. The piece consists of a microphone placed in front of a standing computer monitor that uses a computer program to reproduce popular ballads from the 1990s. It was created in 2015.

I chose this piece because it deals with voice and language in an interesting way. The piece raises questions about the increasing capability of technology to perform inherently human tasks, but it also says something about our capacity to personify technology. While the program works to imitate a human voice through blatantly digital sounds, our perceptions work to interpret those sounds as such; thus, the program and the viewer work together to create the music.

Singing Monsters

Looking Outwards 4 – Sound Art

I chose a project by WIARNE01 entitled “My Singing Monsters.” It was created by a student of Jared O’Leary, who specializes in combining computer science and music education. I admire this project because it was created by a kid!! And it feels like I can understand the way this project works. Also the monsters they used are really cute. It was created using Scratch, a block-based programming language. When you press any of the arrow keys, it takes you to a visual of a new monster and adds that monster’s music to the cacophany. There are also a couple of on screen keys to stop the music.

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/86391365/