experimental

I've been spending the Christmas break learning more about interactive quicktime, max/msp and isadora for creating music and video and publishing them on the net. Below is the first piece I've created. I went a bit overboard on the effects in Isadora but it's an original piece and I learnt from it so I'm happy with it overall from a learning experience point of view.

How I created it:
- first I took videos with my dvd camera
- then I used DVDx to convert the .vob files to mpeg2 files which quicktime could open. when I installed winamp a couple of weeks ago, I noticed it can display video now also, though strangely, sometimes the winamp videos were upside down whilst they played correctly orientated in quicktime. (perhaps I used strange setting whilst encoding?)
- then I imported the video into isadora, and patched up a storm whilst trying out some of the effects
- I can only save 5sec clips from isadora as I'm using the trial version whilst I work out if I'll use it regularly in future. I'm hoping to learn how to do similar tasks in jitter (max component) as I'll have more control of what I'm doing, even though it's very quick and easy to get things done in isadora without having to know the code. still yet to decide on this.
- once I had the processed video clips, I opened them in quicktime again and joined them together - hence the rough edits
- then I made a couple of text tracks in quicktime and added these in. I tried out the eZediaQTI app whilst learning about the text tracks but decided on doing them manually in quicktime and editing the controls with notepad.
- next, I opened the gps data music patch I made in max/msp and ran it with the soundwalk recordings I made the other week whilst at Mission Beach in Auckland. unfortunately, the mic was picking up a lot of noise from the wind blowing past the mic pickup so there's a lot of distortion. I filtered some of this out in audacity and flattened the audio into one track.
- then I added the audio track to the video with text quicktime movie
- then uploaded the finished piece to archive.org using ourmedia and viewed source on the movie's ourmedia page & copied the quicktime player code here

well, I'm sure there's a quicker way of doing it! which requires less processing and time, but this was an exercise in creating an original piece from start to finish. as you can tell, I'm not a designer or very good programmer either, but I'm happy to finish number one. here's hoping the subsequent efforts will improve and be done more efficiently. I could have used the original unprocessed videos but they seemed a little plain. need to find the right balance I guess..

here's a screen shot of the isadora patch:

earlier this year I did a max/msp course at goldsmiths college. the class was taken by the very clever and talented sebastian lexer who puts on the interlace events in london and performs at various events and festivals. if you're looking for a max/msp course, I highly recommend this one - whether you've used max/msp before or not. the projects by the other class members were really cool also!

The TransAcoustic Festival was held in Auckland, New Zealand this weeked, starting on Thursday 8th and finishing up tonight, Sunday 11th December. I missed the Thursday/Friday performances due to a bad memory and thinking the festival was actually on next weekend. I went along to the seminars at the Art Gallery and the Saturday night performances at the Kenneth Myers Centre in central Auckland. Tonight is the closing night, with final video screenings being held at Odeon Lounge in Mt Eden. The festival delved into themes of sound, light and synaesthetic experiences using mediums such as experimental music & film. Artists from Australia (Brisbane & Melbourne) and New Zealand performed. Many of the performers are part of the experimental and new media mail list communities, aus_noise, empyre, audio foundation and ada.

here's an email thread from aus_noise mail list - I posted the photos then a reply to some questions with details about the gigs.

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hey lloyd, yeah the photos are mostly setup and the tables after the performances. it was dark for the actual performances and my cameraphone isn't the best in full light let alone no light so not many crowd shots I'm afraid. I probably should have taken my proper camera or video but am never sure if people allow it or not.

I only made it to the Saturday shows - there were two sessions at the Art Gallery in the afternoon and three performances in the evening.

here's some of the notes I took (apologies if I heard things incorrectly & they're not coherent)
stella brennan spoke about her paper "Visual Musak - from Lava Lamp to Screensaver" - she spoke of some historical experimental cinema performances; some entries in the "Expanded Cinema" book by Gene Youngblood (intro by R.Buckminster Fuller); highlighted some examples of World Fair/Expo art including the "Labyrinth" large scale film projection in 1977 (projecting film vertically rather than horizontally) and the early beginnings of IMAX cinema and the people involved in it; "animated sound" project; telefunken project cd; of "connecting to ideas of all enveloping environments"; chemical brothers film clip "...landscape responding to your emotion"

or, if you have time, take a listen to it via this site:
http://www.archive.org/details-db.php?mediatype=audio&identifier=2005121...
(not the best audio quality either I'm afraid) I believe there'll be a video of the seminars available for better representation of them. (I just record things to listen to them again later, so don't worry about the quality too much I'm afraid)

Robin Fox was really interesting - he spoke about his work with oscilloscopes/cro's (you're probably already familiar with this?) - he feeds the inputs with harsh sounds often using nyquist foldover frequencies & using a library of sounds created in max/msp. I've used cro's before at work measuring tv signals but haven't got them to make beautiful animated images such as he was getting out of it. I heard everyone really enjoyed the performance the night before (I missed it unfortunately). one of the physicists in the class was really animated during the talk and had comments/questions afterwards. he also spoke of John Rose's perspective/observations on laptop performance in relation to virtuosity and limitations of human performers (hopefully I have this correct) - when an audience watches an instrumentalist perform they have certain preconceptions about what sounds should be heard and how good they think they could be, which are then sometimes surpassed, hence the performer becomes a virtuoso. but with a laptop/computer performer, because there are no limitations on the possibilities the computer brings to the equation it is harder for people to relate to the performance as much as watching a traditional imstrumentalist. he also showed the external controllers he uses with max/msp. and spoke of experimental cinema using oscilloscopes in the 1960s (Mary Ellen Bute). experiments of Ron Pellegrino who created still images from an oscilloscope, but who didn't like the sounds used to create them. then he spoke about "sound to shape" and synesthetic relationships of images and music and some of his mother's experiences with synesthesia. and 3d, immersive environments "looking into sounds". and finally he spoke a bit about the lasers he's been working with lately and some of the safety aspects involved.

http://msp.sfsu.edu/Instructors/rey/synesth.html is one site which has more info on some of these things.

in the evening there were performances by The Professionals, Adam Willets and Abject Leader.

The Professionals were up first - they make sounds from photo-sensitive devices. the photos of polystyrene boxes with the breadboards & circuitry are from their performance. they also fed back sound into the video on a couple of monitors, though I wasn't sure if this was part of their performance until towards the end when the constant blue light started getting affected by the sounds into the stripey video similar to Botborg performances I've seen in the past (at electrofringe this year). I couldn't see exactly what they were doing as I was sitting behind the other benches, but I could see a torch being shone onto the boxes and sounds corresponding to the flashing light and then chirpy noises sounding when a lighter was lit. it was good to see they'd gone through the whole creative process and made the devices which they then used to make the sounds.

Adam Willets was up next. he had solar powered (well, desk lamp powered this night) 'robots' housed in clear plastic christmas decoration balls, one of which was resting on a saucer which was in turn sitting on the strings of a guitar (actually, I think it was a guitar - I was too busy looking at the bots to notice the stringed instrument). the other was placed on tinfoil on the bench. there was a camera projected on the screen so we could have a better view of what was going on. the bots twitched and flipped themselves under the light. at first I thought it was due to the sound as well, but I asked him afterwards, and they move due to the light. but the motion of the bot on the saucer made scratchy sounds on the saucer, and vibrated the strings underneath to create the sounds which then went through the pedals etc.

Abject Leader were last up. I really liked the films and watching Sally change the film & filters and feed the film through the reels (sorry if I have her name wrong) was like watching a dance alongside the film as she reached from one to the other to add a filter here or adjust a lens or piece of film there. the music was really nice too - it matched the visuals really well. I wasn't sure if the music and film were interacting with each other, as I couldn't see how they'd done this from my seat if it was, & I always like to know how things work. so I asked but they were two separate parts of the performance, apart from hearing the film projector as a backdrop to the projections, which worked in well with the music.

I couldn't make the sunday night or thurs/friday night performances, so sorry I missed the Botborg/Robin Fox performances, but I met a couple of nice Aucklanders there who made me feel welcome and mentioned they'd enjoyed the previous performances and said that it was cool how many different perspectives had been brought to the festival based on it's theme.

http://www.transacoustic.org.nz/ has the artists bios and programme if u haven't seen it already.

- Hide quoted text -

[original email - email addresses & names removed]

On 12/12/05, lb wrote:

--- Kath wrote:

> hey guys, thanks to those on aus_noise for
> performing at the TransAcoustic
> Festival in Auckland over the weekend. I went along
> last night and really
> enjoyed the performances, as well as the seminars in
> the afternoon. I have
> some photos from the sat night performance uploaded
> - unfortunately I only
> had my cameraphone so the quality isn't that great
> but u get the idea.
>
>
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aliak_com/tags/transacoustic/

Hey Kath,

thanks for the photos - though it looks like a
performance rather empty of perfomers - did you shoot
the setup or were there very few people? Can you
comment on the aussie contigents performances (Abject
Leader, Botborg, Robin Fox)?

chrs
][oyd

aus-------------------------------------
noise-----------------------------------
diary-----------------------------------

++++++++
BRISBANE
++++++++
Thursday 15 December 2005
Judith Wright Centre, Rehearsal Room (level 4)
420 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane
MUJI
Rare solo sets from Scott Sinclair and Joel Stern.
+++++
Saturday 17 December, 8pm
Rob Curvengen
G55
Dada-Meinhof
Hetleveiker
Exploded Cinema
Other Theory @ The Globe
Brunswick St. Fortitude Valley (outside train station)
$7/$5
+++++
Monday 19 December 2005
Judith Wright Centre, Performance Space
420 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane
MUJI2
Trio -
Scott Sinclair (modified guitar, electronics)
Joel Stern (feedback instruments)
Adam Park (prepared tape loops)
+++++
27.01.06 + 28.01.06
OPENFRAME - Room40
Peter Rehberg, Anasten, Michael Rodgers,
abjectleader's 'noh cinema' and much more.
Brisbane Powerhouse's Rooftop Terrace from 8pm.
28.01.06
+++++

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aus_noise/

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links mentioned in this blog entry:

http://www.transacoustic.org.nz/

http://www.vasulka.org/Kitchen/PDF_ExpandedCinema/ExpandedCinema.html

http://www.archive.org/download/20051210_auckland_transacoustic_festival...