This easter I got the opportunity to work in a large theaterspace (BIT Teatergarasjen) to continue my work on relief projection (or masked projection).
I made 9 plywood boxes to use as my projection objects, and worked with two projectors, having a total of 16 projection surfaces.
One of the aims for this session was to also work with sound (each object would double as a speaker), and to create a depth in the placement of the objects.
I implemented my nodio system into the projection patch, which made it possible for me to create sequences of movement.
There are plenty of images from the session here.
I collected a library of field recordings I have made over the years. I set up an internet radio station for the project (using Nicecast), and played with different configurations mixing music and the field recordings, but ended up just using my own recordings.
I thought it could be interesting to stream internet radio, a global media, to very specific local areas. I found three locations in Oslo which would serve as the local radio stations. They were somehow connected to a clear visible cue in that location: A huge oak tree, a small sculpture, and a small pound in the roundabout. The range of the local stations would more or less correspond to these visual cues: If you saw them you would be able to pick up the signal from the radio stations. In numbers this would mean a range of 30-100 meters.
My original plan was to use the fm-senders for mp3 players which are mostly meant to be used to listen to the mp3 player through the car radio. This was partly because I was experimenting with solar energy as energy source, and because they were cheap. The range and quality of the signal wasnt good enough though, so I ended up getting the more powerful aareff fm transmitters .
The senders were placed with friendly hosts, letting me use their internet connection to pick up the internet radio stream.
The result was three very local radio stations sending out a continous soundtrack from other locations, so somehow these recorded locations came in dialogue with the physical locations of the radio stations.
The listening involved active participation from the public as you would need to tune in on your own radio to pick up the broadcast.
Soundpockets is a series of projects of intimate sound interventions in public spaces. By using fm radiowaves, soundbeams and miniature speakers to create local pockets of sound, the different projects have different scope and focus: creating private listening rooms, changing soundtracks of a location, displacement of time/or space and a bit of general disruption of everyday life.
I have been very busy preparing and giving a 2 week physical computing workshop at The Academy of Fine Arts in Bergen, “Connect the dots”. It has its own blog, with lots of useful info related to arduino, mice etc. (look for resources category). There are also images available from the workshop.
The aim was to introduce to a mixed group of students the basic concepts of physical computing, and how to to create relations between objects,spaces,actions and people, so it was both a hands on workshop with arduino (analog in/out, digital in/out, serial communication with computer), different sensors, transistors and relays controlling 12 and 220 volt appliances, discussion and presentation of other artists´ work, and the production of a one day exhibition including a listening post, a mouse radio, a paper burning machine, a weather machine and a callstation (where the arduino picks up the phone when you called a specific number ++). Read all about it in the connect the dots blog!
The Aleph installation reminded me of the installation Cloud that David Rokeby recently completed.
“Cloud is a monumental kinetic installation hanging suspended in the Great Hall at the Ontario Science Centre. One hundred identical sculptural elements, arranged in ten by ten grid, are rotated at slightly differing speeds by computer-controlled motors. The elements slowly shift in and out of synchronization. When the motors are just out of sync, huge waves ripple across the space. When completely in sync, the work appears almost solid then suddenly almost invisible. When far out of sync, the sculptural elements float in apparent chaos. “
(Slideshow of more images from the projection sketches here)
The second focus in this lab session was to work with video projections, and masking them to create several projection surfaces from one projector, and to be able to relate to physical shapes in the room, like my projection on a sphere in Iball, or the masking of video to fit the gallery spaces in one of the sleepers installation:
The simplest way to do it is to work with a 2 dimensional mask. I also wanted to try to work with 3D masks: projecting a virtual 3D version of an object back onto itself. In this way I managed to cover 4 sides of a cube with 2 projectors. Another thing I did was to link the individual projection surfaces (from one projector) so focus could move from one area to another, quite like how the nodes in nodio operate.
Finally, I did some simple tests using the projector as a light beam.
In january 2007 I got the first opportunity to work two intense weeks in a project space, enabling me to test out some new elements in the nodio system.
I set up 9 nodes (macminis+monitors) in a local network, and expanded my nodio composer tool to work with the 9 channel setup. A continuous discussion I have with myself is where to put the control: on the individual nodes or on a master computer talking to the nodes. Usually I end up with a combination, that one of the nodes does slightly more work than the others. I managed in this work period to sync the nodes with an audiosignal, making it easier to put more control on each node.
The results of this period resulted in a more refined way of moving elements between the sources:
I also played with using the soundtrack on videoclips (instead of generating sound from the video which is usually the case), and moving clips between the different nodes:
In general I was able to improve the sequencer aspects of the system a lot, making it possible for more complex patterns and rhythms:
nodio composer is a composer/sequencer for realtime multichannel video and audio, developed in maxmsp and jitter.
The nodio composer system consists of 4 modules:
The client is installed on each node, and does realtime processing of image and sound.
The motor talks to the clients and coordinates them, and it sets an saves the state of the whole system, and plays back sequences.
The composer is the gui for the motor, so it allows the user to set and save the state of the system and to program and play sequences. the motor sends feedback to the composer about the current state of the system and the sequencer.
The simulator is a fully working simulation of the system. It contains the three clients, and shows the three screens and pans the sound according to which client generate the sound. It is a slight modification of the node clients, but is made to be easy to replace with updates of the clients. As with the node
clients, simulator communicates with the motor.
The system is intended to be operated in 4 different modes:
composer, standalone, performer and composer_offline.
composer:
each node has a client application, one of the nodes contains the motor, the
composer is on another computer.
standalone installation:
each node has a client application, one of the nodes contains the motor.
performer: each node has a client application. The motor and the composer is on another computer.
performer: each node has a client application. The motor and the composer is on another computer.
composer offline:
When the network or individual nodes are not available, it is possible to run the composer and motor together with a simulator on the same computer.
Here is a video with documentation from one composition and a brief description of how it works:
Drifter is a 12 channel audiovisual installation: 12 nodes, each with a computer,flatscreen and speakers, are placed in a circle. The nodes are connected over a wireless network, but each node only relate to its neighbour: It knows when a image is coming and knows where to pass it on to. Images travel clockwise across the network. The images leave traces. The image and traces are processed in realtime individually on each node and a sound is generated from the video, based on a given frequency. There are 4 base frequencies for the sound distributed among the different nodes, creating chords.
Each node has the same set of rules for how to behave, but they make individual choices (using the dice analogy, all the nodes follow the same rules for what happens if they get a 1 or a 6, but they throw their own dice, which will get different results on the different nodes).
There are also a few states or moods which change on a global level: the change happens on all the nodes simultaneously, switching between nervous, relaxed or more intense behaviour.
The overall result is an everchanging surrounding audiovisual landscape.
The first version of drifter was developed for my solo show at Trøndelag Senter for Samtidskunst in march 2006, and then in april at Rom for kunst+arkitektur.
A documention video from TSSK:
A video explaining the principles of the installation:
The series of experiments which I have called nodio (nodes of video and audio) started in the spring of 2005 when I got a short residency at BEK and an opportunity to show it at prøverommet BETA.
nodio is a networked multichannel audiovisual system, where each node in the system is a source both for video and audio. The nodes are linked either by a LAN or WLAN network.
So far the nodio project has resulted in the installations dense and drift, and the system was also used on the last kreutzerkompani performance irre.
My interest is to explore what happens when combining several audiovisual sources, where maybe the most interesting things happens in between the screens: the development of patterns and rhythms, and of audiovisual “powerchords”, but also to look at the spatial aspect of having several sources in a physical space that you can move around in, and where the image and sound changes the space.
Each node can operate individually or as part of a bigger setup. One image can be split up to the different nodes, or each node can have a separate image. Images can freely move between the different nodes, to create a distinct experience of movement in a physical space. Image transformations
and fades can be triggered individually or globally.
Sound is created by image analysis of the current video being played. this creates a very tight relation between the image and sound, and when images are moved around to the different nodes in a space, the sound moves with them.
The software is made using maxmsp and jitter, and the hardware is a macmini for each node.
The following video shows some of the possibillities in the first generation of nodio during a residency at BEK in Bergen (spring 2005) and Tesla in Berlin (autumn 2005).
