Jeffrey Brown wrote:
"Few of the people on a dancefloor want to be reading text; they want a
mood, a beat, and colors and flashing lights that speak the same message as
the music. Ideally, I think, the same network of data and instructions
that generates audio would generate visuals, so that changes in one domain
would map naturally to the other."
Yeah, the sticky debate on the desirability of audiovisual mapping has been
going on since at least the 1940s, when experimental animators often
animated to sound - either voluntarily or reluctantly because of contract.
Live visualists and audiovisualists have been both doing and avoiding
automated sound/image correlations since there were automated
correlations. There's quite a bit of research been done on the history of
audiovisual correlations (going back to 1800's panoramas, etc.) And some
musical and visual instruments and performance have been designed
specifically to address the digital performer/performance disconnect in
meaningful ways - which is of course also what livecoding is about.
The interesting thing about livecoding is it addresses it from the POV of
mind->performance rather than body->performance. I have always felt the
latter has an ableist bias, even as I've advocated the approach. So
highlighting mind->performance would seem to have potential in that regard.
Anyway, some links to 1930's automated audiovisual systems (non realtime).
Len Lye's Colour Box: (The optical sound track was pre-laid on the film,
and he scratched the emulsion to animate in synchronization):
https://vimeo.com/71860799
Oskar Fischinger's Ornament Sound Experiments:
"Odd Designs on Film Turn Sound to Music."
https://books.google.com/books?id=oygDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=odd+designs+on+film+turn+to+music+popular+science&source=bl&ots=Z34Gzw0wcN&sig=PGqdpfjszlZH5nXs8y7LqkwlQPc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Pw-OVKmlOtPsoASxt4D4Bw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
(A historical synopsis
http://www.see-this-sound.at/works/296/asset/51 )
And here's some real-time analog video synthesis from the 70's generated
using audio synthesizers as input (you could take CV out of the analog
synths and input to your video synth):
https://vimeo.com/7517418
(source material by woody vasulka)
http://www.vdb.org/titles/illuminatin-sweeney
(skip sweeney)
Happy happy,
-Amy
On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 6:58 PM, Charlie Roberts <bigbadotis_at_gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> >
> > Few of the people on a dancefloor want to be reading text; they want a
> > mood, a beat, and colors and flashing lights that speak the same message
> as
> > the music
>
>
> I've been doing some experiments with flashing lights, and also borrowing
> from Thor's ixi lang work to reveal changes to state using the source code.
>
> https://vimeo.com/114404376
>
> Sorry if this is trite, but I think a lot depends on the audience and the
> performer in any particular performance. If the audience is at an Algorave,
> for example, it's probable that people on the floor want to be reading text
> at least some of the time. And that's great! We should show it to them. On
> the flip side, are there performers on the list who regularly live code at
> "normal" dance events, where the audience has no idea that live coding is
> even taking place? I think it's an interesting goal to pull off such a
> performance (using live coding to keep people dancing who potentially don't
> care about means of production), but only one of many interesting goals.
>
> - Charlie
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 4:33 PM, Gavin Starks <gavin_at_dgen.net> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all
> >
> > I love this discussion.
> >
> > To expand a bit on what I wrote in the FB post, with some extra emphasis:
> >
> > For me, seeing the code creates *the* essential *causal* visual reference
> > that
> > was missing from human-computer-based *performances*.
> >
> > We don't need to watch a saxophone player play to embrace their
> > performance, but to know that we can if we want to seems fundamental to
> the
> > live, and personal, nature of it. We can watch them breathe.
> >
> > It was a continuous frustration of mine that "laptop with a person
> sitting
> > at it"-based music was effectively the same audience-experience as
> > tape-based or computer-rendered music: the causal link was broken, yet in
> > this case the ghostly faces of the performer indicated that "something
> > might be happening" to which I was excluded (like the violinist playing
> > behind a curtain). Tape-based music has its own aesthetic and context,
> but
> > this half-way house felt almost literally like a "ghost performance". I'd
> > sooner the "performer" sat in the audience.
> >
> > Equally, when people have added a physical control element, it can often
> > seem forced or trite, and overly dissonant with the sounds involved -
> > instrument development is hard.
> >
> > The development of an editable visual language for use in live
> performance
> > is a remarkable thing in itself. Projecting it, to me, recreates the
> magic
> > of performance in computer-music: the causal link is re-established - it
> > doesn't matter if the audience has no idea what the causality is, but it
> > does matter that they can see it exists. It rematerialises the
> disembodied.
> >
> > From that point other emotive, visual and sonic bonds can be formed. And
> > then the ability to for me to link what I am hearing directly with the
> > actual code feels *authentic *to the origins of not only the sounds, but
> > how they are being played (I can see the typing, its speed, hesitations,
> > lots of performative cues). It seems to me that these ideas of
> > authenticity, causality and re-materialisation in computer-based
> > performance are really fascinating areas to explore.
> >
> > Best
> > Gavin
> >
> > --
> >
> > Read the whole topic here: livecode:
> > http://lurk.org/r/topic/5dVXhIWtQFk6wSrEeGi3O4
> >
> > To leave livecode, email livecode_at_group.lurk.org with the following
> email
> > subject: unsubscribe
> >
>
> --
>
> Read the whole topic here: livecode:
> http://lurk.org/r/topic/4IxdKUFwwpCGZ52Sk3SkyO
>
> To leave livecode, email livecode_at_group.lurk.org with the following email
> subject: unsubscribe
>
--
Read the whole topic here: livecode:
http://lurk.org/r/topic/dZXGl42yH66abz1o8jQYD
To leave livecode, email livecode_at_group.lurk.org with the following email subject: unsubscribe
Received on Sun Dec 14 2014 - 22:48:08 GMT