Brainstroming~

Coming back from the CNY holiday, feeling fat and lazy after the long feasting weekend.
At the start of the class, Mr Dirk did a simple performance of a piece called "I am sitting in a room", by Alvin Lucier. This is a very interesting composition because it deals with the idea of making imperfections perfect. Alvin Lucier being a person who stutters, composed a piece that requires one to read out a paragraph in a room. The program will record the voice and play back repeatedly. As this goes on, the voice of the speakers fades off and resonance of the room was heard. The diversion of our attention from the text to the echoes and resonance of the room was amusing.

Mr Dirk brought across a point that art is about creating something simple to something sophisticated. The sounds that were produced varies from room to room. Factors like corners, furnitures and movements also played a role in the sound. He actually made his stuttering speech produce noises that resonate from the room and these noises sounded rather beautifully.

I personally felt that as the recoding is repeatedly played, the noises becomes music. The sounds that the piece produce is kind of soothing and made me felt that time had slowed down. He was very brave to face his weakness. Correcting his disability in an artistic manner, with the aid of technology and science.

In class today, we downloaded the program called Maxuino. It is supposed to aid the use of Arduino.
Pictures of my Maxduino program.

Picture of Mr Dirk's program~

Alot of work to do for me!!

The later part of the class was more like a brainstorming session. We were required to think of an interesting concept for our 1st assignment. the idea should incorporate the knowledge of Arduino and Max. Furthermore, the presentation will be in a performance format and should also encompass the ability to interact with the audience.

It sounded easy, but I had been hitting the wall all the time. Coming up with ideas like creating a tuner, an instrument and even to composing a piece. Many questions had to be asked. What my idea wants to bring out? How is it artistic? What are the technical limitations I have? Not so easy bro.. Sighs~~

Cool idea!! LED table. It can be commercialized and used in pubs or clubs with low lightings. It provides a smoothing ambience and interesting interaction between human voice and the table. The amazing thing is that the table actually detects different human voices. How cool is that. With a color representing each individual, making the design very personal. It also shows who is the passive speaker among friends. LOL.

I don't know how it is done, but i guessed the device detects a certain frequency and lights up the LED. Since the every individual has different frequency when speaking, different colored lights will be triggered.

I found this video while browsing through Korea got talent.

I thought the concept was great. It infuse technology with dance and come up with an entertaining performance.

A random thought i had in mind. How can I change the sound pitch using counter or pressure censors. More thoughts coming as the assignment due date is near~

  

Coming up with a program yo!!

The first week of DM2009 was literally a crash course. In theory its week 4 but this is only my second lesson. Move on buddy!!

This week is the application week. We were introduced to Arduino?!!? According to Mr Dirk, it is the most basic equipment and the most useful equipment one can have as a sound engineer. Woohoo~ it sounded easy.

We were asked to follow the guides from the tutorial and try to light up a light bulb. It can be frustrating to some extent that everyone else had their bulbs lit and mine was to no avail. But when it finally lights up, its as though you found an oasis in the desert.

This is the picture of arduino and the smart board before connection.

After connection~

In the photo, we couldnt really tell that the bulb was lit. But it was...

Evidence...

Furthermore, I was also fascinated by Mr David Bryne with his performing piece "Playing The Building". "Playing the Building" is a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. He connected devices to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes. The devices miraculously made the dead objects produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. Being a Civil Engineer, I was amazed by the fact that building made of steel and cement can actually become a musical instrument. He also uses the knowledge of physics to produce sounds 

I felt that he was trying to remind us to understand and listen to our surroundings. Do not view the buildings that we live in, the place where we work in merely being a tool for civilization and urbanization. The awareness of the beauty in something that does not have a life itself is just amazing. Appreciate things and people around us, they are all as beautiful as one can be.  

I found this other video in youtube. Mind-blowing!!!!! I think its very clever to infuse art and science. The device will only produce sound when it detects red color. Dance was also incorporated into the performance, making the experiment very interesting. 

Next week is chinese new year!! Many red packets! If I have the device installed in me, the sounds that comes out from me when I see a red packet, probably shows my eagerness and enthusiasm in receiving. LOL. - random thoughts

Performance and Interaction

Finally!!! After been through 3 weeks of class with Mr Dirk Johan Stromberg, I'm starting to have glimpse of what performance and interactive art is about.

Having limited knowledge on this subject, and being entirely new to the topic is overwhelming. To make things worse, I only started my class on the 3rd week of school. Oh wells, only have an assessment due 3 lessons after my start-date.

On my 1st lesson (week3), I was humbly introduced to the alien environment of Mac. Its kind of scary if you don't even know how to switch it on. Fighting!!!


This is the only video that I chanced upon when trying to do some research on the course, after successful application. To be honest, I was a little intimidated by the video as I have almost no idea what the video is trying to portray. Being a Civil Engineering student, my appreciation for art is coming from a different perspective. :/

Attending class for the 1st time was kind of stress as peers around me seem to have settled down pretty well. We were asked to come up with a simple program using the Max program. Crash course!!

Begin on an uncertain journey with art~