Month: November 2023

“Visual music can be defined as time-based visual imagery that. establishes a temporal architecture in a way similar to absolute music.”

It฀is฀commonly฀assumed฀that฀each฀sense฀has฀its฀proper฀sphere฀(e.g.฀sight฀is฀concerned฀with฀color,฀ hearing฀ with฀ sound฀ and฀ taste฀ with฀ flavour). in฀ noisy฀ surroundings,฀ speakers฀ can฀ be฀ understood฀ more฀ easily฀ if฀ they฀can฀be฀seen฀as฀well฀as฀heard

https://www.ninelyraeproductions.com

Nine Lyrae is a synaesthesia exhibition at the Oxo Tower. It showcases over 20 different artists in partnership with Brunel University London. I looked into the work of Ninghui Xiong who is a visual artist and researcher based in Beijing, China. His case study on Music Visualization & Emotion Expression on BACH’s Face made me think about how I should be using colour in my piece and made me think about the different colours that represent different emotions and feelings for people that are hard of hearing. For my piece it would be a good idea to use red’s and blue’s when the sound is intense and threatens and using yellows and greens when the sound is calming.

Weirdcore is an anonymous audio visual artist who has worked with Aphex Twin, Arca, Tame Impala, M.I.A, CHARLI XCX and many more current artists. Their art is really unique and inspiring to me on this project, in particular the music video they made for APHEX TWIN for his song T69 Collapse, the video merges animation and real life scanning of buildings (maybe through google maps) to create something hallucinatory and beautiful. The live face mapping that they did at Aphex’s 2017 Field Day set was something that I could try to implement into my final piece as it would be interesting to merge that with puredata gem’s functions.

Weirdcore does live “sound-reactive visuals, some react to the bass, some the mids, others the highs, and so on,” this is what I have been experimenting with in puredata so it’s cool to see how complex and intricate I could make the Audio Visual piece.

The other thing I find inspiring about weirdcore is the implimentation of popular cultural icons and celebrities that make the work more relatable and nostalgic. In my piece it would be good to include imagery that the audience can relate to and find nostalgic.

Today I learnt how to load pictures and videos into puredata with the pix command. This experimentation has completely changed the way I can use Gem as I can now overlap shapes and pictures and modulate them with puredata commands.

For my final piece I want to mix real photos I have taken with gems shapes and use randomised sequencers with samples to create an AV generative video.

I have been experimenting with the Puredata plugin Gem to create visuals that react with audio. At first I found it really hard to get the hang of and was on the verge of giving up all together, I couldn’t seem to get any sound and the Gem plugin wasn’t showing visuals, after a night of downloading different versions of both puredate and Gem I finally got it to work. To begin with I just started with simple objects such as spheres cubes.

After experimenting for a while and from the help of YouTube I managed to start experimenting with flashing lines and adding objects onto of this.

Now I had found objects and a colour scheme that I thought looked good together I began to experiment with adding sound. I created an 8 step sequencer that played a kick drum every 1st and 3rd step with a different percentage of playing for the other 6 steps. When. the kick drum was played it changed the size of. the outer cube. I also added hi-hats on every step that rotated. the inner cube on its X axis.

For my fictional live performance I will be playing at Peckham Audio as it is available for private hire with 80 people seated and the rest standing. For the live show rider I will require a projector and I will also use strobe lighting.

Venue – Peckham Audio

Artist Name – The Sentinel

The Sentinel is an audio visual artist who uses coding to create a mix of photography, videography and coded shapes. They create generative audio which the visuals react to, producing an immersive and unique experience.  Join us for a night of immersive generative audio visual work from the artist The Sentinel.

This event will contain flashing images.

Exhibition Name – 010101

What’s the aim of a sound art performance?

Create a memorable experience?

Taking risks, creating experiences, vulnerability, 

Create awareness about a social or political situation?

Virtuosity exposure?

Improvisation, feedback,

What makes a good performance?

Suddeninfant 

Ryoji Ikeda – use of visuals

What makes a good sound art performance?

Flow state, confidence, 

How should we choose our artist identity and show concept?

Why do we want to perform? Performance is a form of escapism

Why do we love sound art?

What do we want to give our audience? An experience and emotions

Today I went to see Ryoji Ikeda at the Barbican. The night started off with the artist Rachika Nayar who performed a beautiful ambient set without visuals, the set consisted of beautiful evolving pads and progressive chords that filled the room. For most of the set I kept my eyes closed and the music took me to another place. Whereas for Ryoji Ikeda’s set I had my eyes wide open staring at the screen and couldn’t take my eyes away even if I tried. Ryoji Ikea played his album Ultratronics in full, it blew me away. I had never been to an audio visual performance before but now my interest in the form of art had peaked. The visuals completely captured the essence of the music and made me interested in how I could replicate this myself. I did some research and found that he uses puredata, I had used this last year but only for audio. My favourite part of the experience was the ending when he added colourful imagery of the sun, planets and molecules combined with glitchy code and ambient audio to create a breathtaking scene.

Carrie’s lecture made me think about how I can use film to display emotion without using sound. The Charlie Chaplin videos she showed us and elaborated felt very relevant to the video I want to make for my piece and had me thinking about how I can convey emotion using shapes and pictures without using audio.