Tim Stutts: ITP Project Blog

I am currently assisting Cory Arcangel on a project where instructional music video for guitar and piano is borken up the into various notes and their accompanying video segments to build a library of MIDI-triggerable pitches that span a chromatic scale over many octaves. Orginally Cory was planning on using a Perl script to generate an EDL that one could be loaded and rendered within Final Cut, but Max/MSP Jitter, with its interactive video capabilities, seems to be a more viable solution. The end result will parse a MIDI file in Max/MSP Jitter to recompose the entire fugue for Goldberg Variations entirely from training footage. Each of four the voices will be given it’s own video projection and sound will probably be quadraphonic.

In the meantime we are working on a monophonic version using Paganini. I wrote the current patch to disect a video of me playing the bass and singing up a two octave chromatic scale. The patch can load type 1 MIDI files, accept user input, or load note values from a step sequencer. Values that are outside the two octave range are transposed, so that everynote falls into range. Here is a video of this in action! Rawk!

We’re into week 4 of the Eyebeam Internship. So far my tasks have ranged from taking measurements in the gallery space, reasearching voice processing techniques, capturing Cory’s Nintendo pieces into video, and installing plastic over a ventilation duct, that had previously been spewing out ice cold air. I enjoy interacting with the other artists residents, including Angie Eng and ITP alum Mouna Andraos. It’s also nice to get over to the Chelsea once a week and explore a new area.

Cory Arcangel is an Artist whose work, among other things, involves hacking and reappropriating video games such as “Super Mario Brothers.” He is also responsible for “8 bit Contruction Kit,” a vinyl disc that contains lofi samples for DJs, and even an entire program, which can be recorded into the Commodore 64 computer. I will be assisting Cory this semester with projects at the Eyebeam Gallery.

www.beigerecords.com/cory/
www.columbia.edu/itc/soa/dmc/cory_arcangel/
http://www.eyebeam.org/