This was our last project with Zoe and it lasted for two weeks instead of one. We were to make an audio instalation or performance and show case in the audio foundation.
At first it was just going to be me and one other guy, Sam, doing his instalation idea. His idea was to have a room, or corridorr that you would enter from one enterance and excit throuhg another and have lots of rope tied across the room. When someone entered the room they wold have to move the rope to get by it would make a sound.
We then had to others join the group as we thought it would be a lot of effort then went to the audio foundation to see where we could set it up. Unfortunately there wasn't really a good place to put his idea and it wasn't going to as epic if we had to scale it down so we started brainstorming other ideas.
The Audio Foundation itself is in the basement of the building so you have to go down a spriral staircase to get there. It had really bad acustics and gave everything an echo which we liked. When you first come into the Audio Foundation the stairs are right across from the door that have a metal rail. On the top floor there is a section of floor that is roped off by the rail that we thought might be cool to use.
THe end idea for that was to use peizos to pick up the vibrations on the rail and have a speaker either at the end of the stairs or at the top that played it back.
During this brainstroming I got to thinking on motion detecters. My very first idea was to use motin detectors change something about the audio we were makeing, e.g. if someone was at the top of the stairs the motion detector would pick them up and change the pitch of the audio playing.
Then I thought off making invisible instuments. You would move your hands like you were playing an instument, say a piano. When your fingers pushed the invisible button a motion detector would pick up the movement and play a note.
I think back to our original idea and thought of using a motion detector instead of ropes. This idea would also have to be a smaller production than that of his original idea becaue of limitations with the motion detector and cameras. This lent the idea to being more a performance than an instalation. I thought we could do a wordless converstaion. Neither of us know sign language so we would talk through gestures and body language that most everyone could understand. I know for myself I am not good with comucating things and am very shy so being able to comunicate without saying anything really is an interesting idea for me. I also thought we could link it back to Sam's idea about the subconcious making of sounds as we do things, such as having an innocent conversation.
It worked well as I did the patch and he made the sounds, and then the cord to plug my laptop into the PA system in the Audio Foundation.
For the patch I got the original motion detector from the internet. I then edited it so it worked on windows Max instead of the Max for Mac. In the original the screan was separated into fifteen different squares. I then divided those squares up as well. At frst I divided them up into fifteen more screens but we decide that was a little extenssive, and would involve getting 225 sounds. We also would have hade a problem with the sounds as they dont't really play well when you had a lot going at the same time, and you probable would hae noticed.
So we ended up with the original fifteen squares divided into quaters and each of thoe playing a different note.
I also had to edit the output of the screens as originaly they detected everything, even if you were sitting in front of it completely still it would still be picking up movement behind you. The output fromt the screen was a series of numbers, to make the motion detector less sensitive I recorded the output when it detected movement close up and made it so that it only worked when it detected that.
I then added in the sounds that my partner had made. And made each sound play through its own play button, which would also not have been possible with 225 sounds. Giving each its own sound button enabled all the sounds to play at once instead of one at a time.
I then put in the option to choose which webcam you wanted it to use for the motion detector and tidied it all up.
Tuesday 1st - Friday 5th August
This week we made instuments. We had Phil Dadson come in and show us a variety of his own instruments that he'd made, then he showed some videos of other people who had also made their own instuments. We were given a group had the week to make our own instuments before giving a performance with them on Friday.
I was inspired by one of the clips where a woman was playing an strument she'd made out of springs and tin cans. I wanted to use springs in mine but wasn't sure how as I found it hard to understand how the instuments worked. After talking with Zoe I decided I would put the springs on a stainless steel bowl. I found this really cool bowl at look sharp, I wsn't sure if it was actually steel or not but it had this really long and kind of wonky resonance.
When I later talked to Phil Dadson, who was doing this weeks project. He wasn't sure how to stick the springs to the bowl and suggested that I use threaded rods instead. I also liked this idea because out of all his instruments I liked his version of this the best. His was two steel bowls stuck togeather with steel rods, both threaded and untheaded bolted on. In the end I used three threaded rods and three springs, I used washers to hold the springs onto the bowl.
If there was anything I would change it would probable be that in a performance I used a peizo, because my largest spring had this long resonating ding when hit but it was quite quiet and you couldn't hear it over the other instruments. I also might have made the others springs wider, because they were almost the same thickness and sounded most smiler.
I was inspired by one of the clips where a woman was playing an strument she'd made out of springs and tin cans. I wanted to use springs in mine but wasn't sure how as I found it hard to understand how the instuments worked. After talking with Zoe I decided I would put the springs on a stainless steel bowl. I found this really cool bowl at look sharp, I wsn't sure if it was actually steel or not but it had this really long and kind of wonky resonance.
When I later talked to Phil Dadson, who was doing this weeks project. He wasn't sure how to stick the springs to the bowl and suggested that I use threaded rods instead. I also liked this idea because out of all his instruments I liked his version of this the best. His was two steel bowls stuck togeather with steel rods, both threaded and untheaded bolted on. In the end I used three threaded rods and three springs, I used washers to hold the springs onto the bowl.
If there was anything I would change it would probable be that in a performance I used a peizo, because my largest spring had this long resonating ding when hit but it was quite quiet and you couldn't hear it over the other instruments. I also might have made the others springs wider, because they were almost the same thickness and sounded most smiler.
Tuesday 25th - Friday 29th July
On tuesday we made piezo's or surface mics. We were each given a small peizo, one crocodile clip and a 6ml? plug. We were told how to do this by Simon Cumming, who led the workshops that week. I went up to surplus tronics to get another crocodile clip and a bigger piezo which came with its own wires. I didn't get around to making it because I didn't feel so good and was home nd in bed by three.
It didn't matter to much as the next day we learnt about circuit bending and were given our groups for this week. I borrowed a piezo from one of the guys in my group and took it home to record some sounds. I also ended up breaking it, as the wires come of the peizo. I ended up giving him mine.
For the circuit breaking I had a toy that sang the abc's. It had a tiny sound bored so I wasn't sure if i weould be able to get something out of it, but I managed to both speed it up and slow it down. We recorded the sound of it going slowly before the toy broke.
In our performance I used a piezo. at first i just kinda rubbed it against the table for background noise to help buld our performance up then held it against the mints to participate in the 'conversation' we were having with our sounds.
It didn't matter to much as the next day we learnt about circuit bending and were given our groups for this week. I borrowed a piezo from one of the guys in my group and took it home to record some sounds. I also ended up breaking it, as the wires come of the peizo. I ended up giving him mine.
For the circuit breaking I had a toy that sang the abc's. It had a tiny sound bored so I wasn't sure if i weould be able to get something out of it, but I managed to both speed it up and slow it down. We recorded the sound of it going slowly before the toy broke.
In our performance I used a piezo. at first i just kinda rubbed it against the table for background noise to help buld our performance up then held it against the mints to participate in the 'conversation' we were having with our sounds.
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