PROPOSAL FOR MULTIMEDIA PLAYGROUND
BACKGROUND:
The Philips Pavillion at the World Expo 1958 in Brussels featured a unique multimedia collaboration between three forward thinking artists. Edgar Varese composed a piece based on tape loops, Poeme Electronique, to be played back over 425 loudspeakers. At the same time a video by Le Corbusier was projected on the walls. Le Corbusier used abstract and symbolic images and sequences to illustrate his perspective on the progress of human evolution. It is an early hint at the now familiar arts of collage, remixing and multimedia display.
The building itself is quite remarkable.
Iannis Xenakis used hyperbolic parabola curves in its design as well as in an auditory contribution to the Poeme Electronique called Metastasis.
Xenakis is the man for pointing out the mathematical connections between various art forms. Interchangeability of information! I have also witnessed a similar connection between biology and composition. My college music professor David Cope introduced me to neural nets, Markov chains, recursive searches, and genetic algorithms, which are all artificial intelligence computer programming techniques that he employs to find patterns in classical music scores and to create new symphonies from those patterns. I later found out in my genetics classes that the same types of algorithms are used to find patterns in DNA sequences.
MY PROPOSAL:
I would like to see an update on the public display of music, art, technology and multimedia interactivity. My vision is to have a massive interactive playground in some inspiring public area. For example, Golden Gate park. This is to be a collective mindstorm on the nature of sound, light, space and subjective experience.
Here are some guidelines I've come up with, although I encourage additions, comments, critiques, the whole bit:
-Speakers shall be powered by energy produced locally at the source.
This project should herald the ending of the Oil Age and the birth of a new energy economy. Battery banks, photovoltaic panels, sterling engines powered by solar concentrator dishes, wind turbines, geothermal, cellulosic ethanol from local biomatter, etc.
I have included a basic design for a solar powered wagon that can deliver power on the go for moving displays:
-Different recordings will be played out of each speaker. They shall be collected from many producers from all over the city. Recordings may be looped or not, cover any portion of the auditory spectrum, may be produced from found sounds or synthesized sounds, may have any duration, volume or meter, may be rhythmic or not, may be tonal or atonal. Discretion is advised in the placement of different recordings (i.e. adjoining loops having meters that are an simple ratio of each other and closely related keys, having loops that reflect the area). Spacial placement will determine each visitor's unique experience.
-Interactivity and intelligence is built into the system. For example:
*A pressure-sensitive hopscotch game that produces sound based on how heavy the person is and how long they stay on each pad.
*A person-sized checkers board that lights up or plays notes when stepped on.
*A room that only plays recordings of people that have gone through that room recently (with added effects such as echo/delay, panning, distortion, filters, granular synthesis, chorus, pitch shift, etc.).
*Sound lasers that project sounds only in certain areas. Here is a military example used for inducing compliance:
The basic premise is two hypersonic sounds are projected simultaneously and the difference in frequencies (the beat frequency) falls in the audible range. The higher the frequency of a sound, the more directional it is.
*Interactive light walls where people can draw temporary designs.
*Intelligence algorithms that gauge how many people are present in a given area and plays back music at corresponding volumes or densities.
*Video games that actually control large scale light and sound actions in the environment.
-Sound garden: Speakers made of glass, large scale instruments that can be played by visitors (tuned metal bars, etc.).
*In San Francisco there is a 'wave organ' on the marina that was built from an old cemetery that makes haunting sounds when the tide is high.
*Here is a picture from an instillation by David Byrne of the Talking Heads. He rigged up a warehouse in Sweden to mechanically produce sound. The whole building is controlled by the organ in the middle of the room.
-Guest performances: A gamelan ensemble that has midi triggers under each note of their instruments to control a light array (this was actually done by another professor of mine, Peter Elsea).
*Experimental music groups. Here is a rehersal for Stockhausen's homage to the cosmos, Sternklang.
-Circuit bending should also be included. Manipulating the circuitry of childrens' toys so they make wacky noises.
The Philips Pavillion at the World Expo 1958 in Brussels featured a unique multimedia collaboration between three forward thinking artists. Edgar Varese composed a piece based on tape loops, Poeme Electronique, to be played back over 425 loudspeakers. At the same time a video by Le Corbusier was projected on the walls. Le Corbusier used abstract and symbolic images and sequences to illustrate his perspective on the progress of human evolution. It is an early hint at the now familiar arts of collage, remixing and multimedia display.
The building itself is quite remarkable.
Iannis Xenakis used hyperbolic parabola curves in its design as well as in an auditory contribution to the Poeme Electronique called Metastasis.
Xenakis is the man for pointing out the mathematical connections between various art forms. Interchangeability of information! I have also witnessed a similar connection between biology and composition. My college music professor David Cope introduced me to neural nets, Markov chains, recursive searches, and genetic algorithms, which are all artificial intelligence computer programming techniques that he employs to find patterns in classical music scores and to create new symphonies from those patterns. I later found out in my genetics classes that the same types of algorithms are used to find patterns in DNA sequences.
MY PROPOSAL:
I would like to see an update on the public display of music, art, technology and multimedia interactivity. My vision is to have a massive interactive playground in some inspiring public area. For example, Golden Gate park. This is to be a collective mindstorm on the nature of sound, light, space and subjective experience.
Here are some guidelines I've come up with, although I encourage additions, comments, critiques, the whole bit:
-Speakers shall be powered by energy produced locally at the source.
This project should herald the ending of the Oil Age and the birth of a new energy economy. Battery banks, photovoltaic panels, sterling engines powered by solar concentrator dishes, wind turbines, geothermal, cellulosic ethanol from local biomatter, etc.
I have included a basic design for a solar powered wagon that can deliver power on the go for moving displays:
-Different recordings will be played out of each speaker. They shall be collected from many producers from all over the city. Recordings may be looped or not, cover any portion of the auditory spectrum, may be produced from found sounds or synthesized sounds, may have any duration, volume or meter, may be rhythmic or not, may be tonal or atonal. Discretion is advised in the placement of different recordings (i.e. adjoining loops having meters that are an simple ratio of each other and closely related keys, having loops that reflect the area). Spacial placement will determine each visitor's unique experience.
-Interactivity and intelligence is built into the system. For example:
*A pressure-sensitive hopscotch game that produces sound based on how heavy the person is and how long they stay on each pad.
*A person-sized checkers board that lights up or plays notes when stepped on.
*A room that only plays recordings of people that have gone through that room recently (with added effects such as echo/delay, panning, distortion, filters, granular synthesis, chorus, pitch shift, etc.).
*Sound lasers that project sounds only in certain areas. Here is a military example used for inducing compliance:
The basic premise is two hypersonic sounds are projected simultaneously and the difference in frequencies (the beat frequency) falls in the audible range. The higher the frequency of a sound, the more directional it is.
*Interactive light walls where people can draw temporary designs.
*Intelligence algorithms that gauge how many people are present in a given area and plays back music at corresponding volumes or densities.
*Video games that actually control large scale light and sound actions in the environment.
-Sound garden: Speakers made of glass, large scale instruments that can be played by visitors (tuned metal bars, etc.).
*In San Francisco there is a 'wave organ' on the marina that was built from an old cemetery that makes haunting sounds when the tide is high.
*Here is a picture from an instillation by David Byrne of the Talking Heads. He rigged up a warehouse in Sweden to mechanically produce sound. The whole building is controlled by the organ in the middle of the room.
-Guest performances: A gamelan ensemble that has midi triggers under each note of their instruments to control a light array (this was actually done by another professor of mine, Peter Elsea).
*Experimental music groups. Here is a rehersal for Stockhausen's homage to the cosmos, Sternklang.
-Circuit bending should also be included. Manipulating the circuitry of childrens' toys so they make wacky noises.
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