Cycle 3: The Sound Station
Posted: December 11, 2023 Filed under: Arvcuken Noquisi, Final Project, Isadora | Tags: Au23, Cycle 3 Leave a comment »Hello again. My work culminates into cycle 3 as The Sound Station:
The MaxMSP granular synthesis patch runs on my laptop, while the Isadora video response runs on the ACCAD desktop – the MaxMSP patch sends OSC over to Isadora via Alex’s router (it took some finagling to get around the ACCAD desktop’s firewall, with some help from IT folks).
I used the Mira app on my iPad to create an interface to interact with the MaxMSP patch. This meant that I had the chance make the digital aspect of my work seem more inviting and encourage more experimentation. I faced a bit of a challenge, though, because some important MaxMSP objects do not actually appear on the Mira app on the iPad. I spent a lot of time rearranging and rewording parts of the Mira interface to avoid confusion from the user. Additionally I wrote out a little guide page to set on the table, in case people needed additional information to understand the interface and what they were “allowed” to do with it.
Video 1:
The Isadora video is responsive to the both the microphone input and the granular synthesis output. The microphone input alters the colors of the stylized webcam feed to parallel the loudness of the sound, going from red to green to blue with especially loud sounds. This helps the audience mentally connect the video feed to the sounds they are making. The granular synthesis output appears as the floating line in the middle of the screen: it elongates into a circle/oval with the loudness of the granular synthesis output, creating a dancing inversion of the webcam colors. I also threw a little slider in the iPad interface to change the color of the non mic-responsive half of the video, to direct audience focus toward the computer screen so that they recognize the relationship between the screen and the sounds they were making.
The video aspect of this project does personally feel a little arbitrary – I would definitely focus more on it for a potential cycle 4. I would need to make the video feed larger (on a bigger screen) and more responsive for it to actually have any impact on the audience. I feel like the audience focuses so much more on the instruments, microphone, and iPad interface to really necessitate the addition of the video feed, but I wanted to keep it as an aspect of my project just to illustrate the capacity MaxMSP and Isadora have to work together on separate devices.
Video 2:
Overall I wanted my project to incite playfulness and experimentation in its audience. I brought my flat guitar (“skinned” guitar), a kazoo, a can full of bottlecaps, a deck of cards, and miraculously found a rubber chicken in the classroom to contribute to the array of instruments I offered at The Sound Station. The curiosity and novelty of the objects serves the playfulness of the space.
Before our group critique we had one visitor go around for essentially one-on-one project presentations. I took a hands-off approach with this individual, partially because I didn’t want to be watching over their shoulder and telling them how to use my project correctly. While they found some entertainment engaging with my work, I felt like they were missing essential context that would have enabled more interaction with the granular synthesis and the instruments. In stark contrast, I tried to be very active in presenting my project to the larger group. I lead them to The Sound Station and showed them how to use the flat guitar, and joined in making sounds and moving the iPad controls with the whole group. This was a fascinating exploration of how group dynamics and human presence within a media system can enable greater activity. I served as an example for the audience to mirror, my actions and presence served as permission for everyone else to become more involved with the project. This definitely made me think more about what direction I would take this project in future cycles, if it were for group use versus personal use (since I plan on using the maxMSP patch for a solo musical performance). I wonder how I would have started this project differently if I did not think of it as a personal tool and instead as directly intended for group/cooperative play. I probably would have taken much more time to work on the user interface and removed the video feed entirely!