Archive for October, 2006
“Details X.0″ Performance
A video of the first part of the “Details” performance for Application class. I composed a six-movement soundscaped to be performed by the audience on laptop computers loaded with an increasingly varied set of MP3s, ranging from rocks falling in water to a busy night club. People in the audience described the experience as being very immersive. “X.0″ refers to a surround sound setup with a potentially infinite number of satellites. Special thanks to ITP’s Minsoo for image and video. Watch video here.
No comments“Details” 3D Photographs
These 3D photos were created by taking two adjacent shots 1-5″ apart–depending on distance to the subject. The digital shots were then filtered and rendered into an anaglyph using Anabuilder software. For viewing, Red/Cyan 3D glasses work best, though the subjects below have an interesting hallucinogenic or ghost-like quality on their own. These photos and numerous others are featured in a 20 minute presentation addressing different ways of achieving detail in media, that go beyond simply increasing resolution within media capturing devices. Detail is achieved through 3D images, 360 degree stop-motion photos, perspective-challenging photo motages, and finally through audience-controlled multi-channel soundscapes via built-in laptop computer speakers. “Details” was created by ITP students Vaibhav Bhawsar, Matt Fargo, Ana Gutierrez, Hye Ki Min, and Tim Stutts. The piece is commentary on the methods of technologist / artist, Clifford Ross, creator of a high-resolution still camera, as well as a 360 degree video camera.
Cubism Kite
An early project that I wrote in Java-based Processing using eight moving points connected by transluscent vects. Fly the kite here.
“La Jetée”: A Sci-Fi Documentary of the Human Condition and Impossible Romance
“La Jetée” is a narrative photography piece set to film by French director Chris Marker in 1962. All but one scene in the film is composed of still images, giving the piece a feel and pacing similar to that of a documentary, which conditions the viewer into believing the story is true or plausible.
The appearance of the photographs range from grainy, high-contrast photographs of the faces in the post-World War III underground, to the bleak urban landscapes at the surface. The low electrical pulsing we hear in the corridor establishes the element of danger found in a ward in which scientists conduct time travel experiments on patients. The semi-cloaked faces have an almost photojournalistic quality, and in successive images, we experience a passing in time and evolution of character that is difficult to accomplish in the still image. The narration clarifies the events pictured not only in its direct description, but also in the softness and pacing of the dialog, which serves as an emotional undertone. The occasional incoherent whisper, adds to the disturbing and secretive environment of this subterranean world. The images at the surface, by contrast, almost always from the past, have a gray-silver quality, and are much more sterile and inaccessible, as if to remind us that the past, even in it’s greatest simulation through psychotherapy, remains frozen. The airport scene and its monotone sky, metal architecture, and unlinked characters are clear examples of this. Aside from the climactic scene of the patient’s own self-witnessed death, there is little sign of emotion in these images. At that instant, the shocked face of the woman requires an airport sound element to establish an emotional response.
The content and physical objects found within the images of “La Jetée”, range from psychotherapeutic instruments, fantastical places of past and future, and expressions deep in thought, suggest elements of science fiction. The film was on obvious influence on films such as, “Twelve Monkeys” by Terry Gilliam, where a similar storyline of a man entering his own past and future, and witnessing his own death, is played out in moving image. Undoubtedly the film has also influenced at entire genre of Sci-Fi as well; “La Cité des enfants perdus” (1995) by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet and even “The Matrix” Trilogy (1999 – 2003) by the Wachowski brothers bare striking similarities, not just in the idea of time of travel ( or in the case of the Matrix, travel into a synthetic network ), but also in the costume design.
The only soothing images are those of the woman half asleep on the bed.
No commentsEmbedded Bouncies
As an excercize within Computational Media was making a ball bounce within a square. Here I have taken this a step further and programmed a square bouncing within a square, bouncing within a square, bouncing a within square…
M5 Bus Ride Blog and Video
Watch the video:
After checking out a video camera and tripod from the ER, I make my way down to the La Guardia. It’s overcast. When I get to Houston, I turn east and walk a couple blocks before I realize that La Guardia is in the other direction.
I board the M5 and quickly set up the camera, lodging the tripod between the seats, careful to twist the jib around an angle to steady the cam against the window ledge. Positioning the camera at around 11 o’ clock, I notice the heavy dust in the windows. We’re off. I hit record, and the lense auto-focuses past the dust, just in time to reveal the first of five McDonalds that I will pass on my trip.
I lean back in the adjacent seat, get as comfortable as one can on a bus. The view out the window is similar to one I see frequently, but the display view holds my unbroken attention for nearly forty-five minutes. I am fascinated by the way it frames everything the bus passes, and draws my attention to amount of text on buildings and signs, which could in this short trip surely fill up a novella. “Bank of America…No Parking Tuesday…Burlington Coat Factory…One Way.” My video is unintentional product placement, an endless conveyer belt of purchased items at check out. I begin to wonder if I could accurately tally up the total net worth of everything that passes and have a number feed out along the bottom like a stock readout. Overwhelmed by this thought, I close my eyes, fall into a sort of stasis.
Towards the middle of my trip, a man boards the bus. He is the first person who seems curious about the operation I have set up. “It’s brilliant,” he softly exclaims. “Where did you start?” “First street. I’m going up to 157th.” The man is black and appears to be in his late 50’s. Our conversation shifts to ITP and his part-time job as a photographer. It ends at Julliard. “That’s my stop. Good luck.” The bus pneumatics swing open to the pleasant sound of live jazz. It begins to rain.
In the hundreds an overweight Hispanic woman sits in the seat in front of me. It takes me a few minutes to notice the toddler who is hidden behind an arm. The girl stares at me then at the camera. She takes the dangling lense cap into her hand, and scolded by her mother. When she cries, mom pulls out her cell phone and takes a camera phone picture. This holds the child’s interest for all of a couple seconds. She is perplexed by the video camera display. I imagine that she is also experiencing this familiar route in a new context.
At 157th, I’m scrambling to disassemble my rig. I am last one off the bus, and the driver start complaining to me about how I’m on his dime, and I need to get off so he can go home.
2pm, Saturday 10/14, The Apple Store
On a break I ingest the footage into Final Cut on my laptop. I can’t figure out a way to make to mute the internal speaker on the Camera while this is happening. My manager insists that it doesn’t bother him, and that the footage is actually, “soothing in a way.” I agree.
Watching the video for the first time, I become aware of the constant reflection of my own face in the window! At some point I see myself nodding off a bit, and the midtown buildings passing by. I begin to think of the video as a real-time self-portrait—my face centered in the image and responding the passing cityscape. My relaxed face appears to be a frown most of the time. I remember hearing that smiling involves more energy the frowning; more muscle movement. Are half the sad looking faces I come across along Fifth Avenue simply content?
Capture complete, I realize 80+ minutes of DV tape is a lot to watch. I wanted to create media outlining my journey, but it felt unjust to cut it up, say take the 20 best blocks or the interesting segments. I made the decision to speed it up 1000%, dropping 9 frames for every 10. This resulted in the frantic 8-minute piece, and audio that sounds like a trip to the dentist. Note to self: scrap the audio; come up with a better solution. A solution to what? At this point the project leaves the realm of surveillance and enters the conceptual.
11pm, Saturday 10/14, Party on 157th St.
Is it coincidental that on this night I am invited to a party that is two blocks away from the end point of my M5 journey? Exiting the 157th St. station on the 1 line, I emerge onto the street. It’s different at night. The working class people have left, and the street becomes home to a new gentrified middle-class.
I’m meeting Tamara Olson at her old roommate’s birthday party. After finding the place, and mingling a bit, I pop out the laptop and place it on a bookshelf off to side. Some of the guests make there way over to the machine—a set designer from Minneapolis, a film composer from Columbia University, a graphic artist from the West Village. All are eager to offer up insight, particularly on what to do about the absent sound track. The consensus is that it should be slow and somber to contrast the visuals.
12pm, Sunday 10/15, My room
Today I cut the sound into place. The audio is pitched down two octaves from the original field recording and processed through a cathedral-sized reverb, creating a low ambient bed of sound resonates down the side streets of Manhattan. If you do the math, the audio is actually 40 times slower than the video! As cars zoom past the camera, transients assign themselves where sync was never intentional; a chance operations of sound design. Car horns are transformed into dissonant subsonic brass. Bus breaks become the ghosts of prehistoric eagles. In the part where I begin to nod off I found, I fade out the city track and attempt to lull the viewer into a restful dream state; a Novocain to the visual mayhem. For this, I have created a piece of music using virtual synthesizers within Nuendo. Afterwards the city ambience returns, accompanied by a sample library sound of wind, and eventually rain. I have not pitched this material. By leaving the sound of nature intact, I maintain an association of tranquility, brought on by a history of filmsound. I have temporarily made peace with the city.
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