Description – There is a tent structure covered in charcoal drawings of old organisms, cellular structures, and spirals. This tented structure is made from large branches found in the park. On the inside, I am there, with a prompt to state a personal truth. A computer program transfers this audio information into a sentence, and the volume of ones voice is reflected by a circle that changes sizes (the louder, the larger). I observe the circle and document the sentence the program returns. I write down a number of repetitions of ones statement, based on how loud one stated it (the louder, the more repetitions). I share the truth statements and how many repetitions they received at the end of the performance. 

Process Reflection –  In the future I definitely want to work with Arduino, because it was hard to work with a new library where I didn’t know many people who could support me in the technology aspect. Because P5.js and arduino are both very new to me, I really could have benefited from more guidance from someone who had works with speech rec before, but I was unsure who to reach out to that would make time to help me. I think in the future it would be better to work on something that I knew I could get support in in the class, as this makes it easier to finish the technology well and on time. 

In the critique, one thing I learned is that you cannot just consider something you make pithing interacting with one person, rather you must consider the context of someone watching another [person interacting with the thing you made, and what. That experience as an onlooker is like. I think what could help with this is staging practice performances ahead of time that imitate the interaction I would like to happen in my piece, and record it so I could gain more perspective on this. 

One thing that I am very happy with is how the space turned out! I definitely did plan my time better than the last piece in spacing out the work for myself. Even though I am in studio art, so I feel comfortable making things with my hands, this is the first time I have made an installation someone could walk inside. I was really proud of how this space turned out and the intimacy of the natural elements and the traces of drawing. 

I am a bit critical of myself in the conceptual consideration of this piece, even though I think some parts were strong. The more I think about the prompt I had, to assert a personal truth, the less powerful or interesting I think it is. I like the idea of being biases toward what is loud, in a space that celebrates silence, but I think this prompt was distracting to that exploration. I dislike the question too, because it implies that there is a kind of stable personal truth, or feels like it is pressuring someone to establish a personal truth, when in reality, I believe we are all in flux. I dislike confessional work because it feels as though the artist is attempting to create this space that is transformative instead of actually creating someone interesting that derives from exploration/ the loss of ego. 

 

marking the sticks with string to record their position 

drawing very old plants onto the fabric of the installation tent

reference image

brainstorming self-supporting structure.

drawing on the backside of the fabric, to create some color

creating some rubbings of plants on the fabric

inspiration for the creation of my tent

image of interior of the tent, showing the wooden beams, drawing, and plants

view looking up inside the structure

image of projected voice recording text

me, inside the space

the installation entrance

detail of marked fabric

outer view

outer view of installation

p5.js Code –

/// project title – hyphen 

//  this code recognizes one’s speech and returns one’s sentence. 

//  it also draws a circle which varies sizes according to how loud one speaks. 

/// code credit goes to the p5.SpeechRec examples as well as p5.Sound examples

let speechRec;

function setup() {  

createCanvas(400,400);

let lang = navigator.language || ‘en-US’  

speechRec = new p5.SpeechRec(‘lang’,gotSpeech);

speechRec.continuous = true;

  speechRec.start(); 

  //mic information

  mic = new p5.AudioIn();

  mic.start();

  

}

function gotSpeech(){

  console.log(“I got result, the result is”);

  console.log(speechRec.resultString);

  console.log(“—————————-“)

}

function draw(){

  background(250,230,230);

  if (speechRec.hasOwnProperty(“resultString”)){

    micLevel = mic.getLevel();

  text(speechRec.resultString,100,100);

    ellipse(width/2, 3*height/4, micLevel*500, micLevel*500); 

  } 

  

}

function onresult() {

  console.log(“this is working!!!!!”);

  console.log(“________________”);

}