Pressure Project 2
Posted: March 5, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »For pressure project two, I took my main inspiration from “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design” by Bret Victor. I was drawn to the call for tactile user interfaces and the lamentation of a lack of sensation when using our hands and fingers on touch screen “images below glass.” I wanted to create something that not only avoided the traditional user interface, but also avoided the use of screens all together. For this reason, I choose to focus on sound as the main medium and created the experience around the auditory sensation.
Having seen the Makey Makey’s around the Motion Lab for over a year, I was excited to finally use one and see what all the fuss was about. I was immediately inspired by the many options that became available to be used as a means of interacting with the computer. Anything that had even the slightest ability to exchange electrical charges could be used to trigger events on the computer.
Knowing that I wanted to focus on sound, I started off this exploration by recreating the popular Makey Makey example of the banana keyboard. Since I didn’t want to ruin multiple bananas for an experiment, I decided to use grapes instead. I was able to map the grapes to the tone generator actor in isadora and then it was just a matter for figuring out the frequencies of each note, which it turns out is quite specific and requires hard coding each note as a separate actor.
Since I considered this a simple proof of concept, I didn’t bother to create the whole keyboard and was satisfied with being able to play “hot cross buns” using the three notes I had programmed. When I finally had the patch working well, I quickly realized that the tone generator in Isadora was very one dimensional. It produced a pleasant sine wave but the result was something that sounded very robotic and computational. This was one component that I knew would need further refinement. While enjoyed the grapes as an instrument (and a snack) I knew I wanted something a bit more meaningful. I had considered using brail to spell out the notes, but I ended up deciding I would like to deviate further from the “keyboard” example and instead trigger sounds in a more abstract way.
Having successfully complete the basic outline of a patch, I took a few days to think about the different ways I could modify and expand the concept so that it no longer resembled a piano. I was encouraged to explore the “AU” actors in Isadora to expand the functionality of the audio handling in Isadora. I found these actors to be useful, but also a bit mysterious since I could not find any help documentation readily accessible. Through a process of trial and error, I found the actors that worked for my purposes and was able to have the control needed to complete the patch.
For the tactile inputs I was reminded of some basic 3 dimensional shapes that have been laying around in the Motion Lab. I don’t know their exact origin, but I liked the simple sphere, cube, cone and cylinder’s size and overall appearance, so I decided to use them as the human facing element of the project. The shapes simple form reminded me of some ancient truths as if they were the basic elements of the universe. When these basic building blocks are combined, the mystery will be revealed. At last, I found a way to fulfill the overarching requirement of pressure project 2.
Since I choose to make this a sound centric project, deciding on the sound effects that would be played was one of the most important aspects. I wanted something booth soothing and mysterious and was reminded of the souvenir “Tibetan singing bowls” that I had seen in the Christmas Markets of Europe. When the rim of the bowl is rubbed with a stick, the bowl starts to resonate like a bell and reverberates loudly in a very calming tone.
I downloaded some pre-recorded singing bowls from freesounds.org and after a bit of research, decided to cover the “singing shapes” in gold foil so that they resembled the metal bowls, but also so they would conduct electricity for the Makey Makey. Wiring everything up was a breeze and the basic patch I had made before only needed a few tweaks. The most difficult part was revealing the final “mystery” when all four shapes were activated at the same time, a 5th sound of a choir singing was activated.
Finally, for the actual project presentation, I found myself with an extra hour to spare and an empty Motion Lab, so I decided to take the project to the next level and present a polished version to the class. I had this larger vision ahead of time, but was not planning on implementing it since I didn’t think I would have the opportunity, but I’m glad I did. A few mirrors that I found in the same box as the shapes, and an fortuitously focused lighting special added the finishing touch.
I was happy to watch the class interact with the singing shapes and it quickly became clear they were putting a lot more thought into the “mystery” than I did. There were a few theories about which shape did what function and if what order you pressed them in mattered, in reality they played the exact same sound every time and the order made no difference. Eventually they all were activated the same time and the choir began to sing. I don’t think it was obvious enough, because it was noticed, but there was no “ah ha” moment and I think people were expecting a bit more of a pay off. Either way, I had fun making it, and I think others had fun experiencing it, so overall I think it turned out well.
