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gloop
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Date completed:
May 1994
Media/tools:
muslin, rebar, lumber, flood lights, photocells, paper mache, Macintosh PowerBook 165c, Yamaha SY22 synthesizer, Nerf
Images:
(click to view)
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Not too fond of this thing, but I'm showing it here for historical reasons. This was the first sculpture in which I incorporated interactive elements through the use of sensors and computer control.
If this piece smells like a first year art student's end-of-term project, that's because it was. In addition to the sculpture class, I was taking a course on artificial intelligence in which I was developing an algorithmic music program. I was allowed to combine the final projects for both courses, and the result is what you see here. The ball on the pedestal in the center was actually a large trackball made out of a Nerf soccer ball covered in paper mache, and there were light sensors embedded in the base of the pedestal pointing at the three spotlights. The whole thing was hooked up to a computer, which then played music through a MIDI synthesizer, changing the music based on how the viewer interacted with the installation.
The music itself was based on three different types of noise: white, brownian, and 1/f. 1/f noise is interesting in that it has been shown to bear a statistical resemblance to most music created by humans, and can be used to create musical patterns that are not unpleasant to listen to for short periods of time. The four structures in the sculpture were also built to reflect (to some degree) the kind of shapes one gets from 1/f noise.
The interactive element worked as follows: if nobody was moving around the sculpture, it would play white noise music softly in the background. When a viewer started to wander around the pedestal (thus changing the readings from the three photocells) it would play brownian music altered by the speed of the viewer's motion. When the trackball was manipulated, it would layer 1/f music on top, coupled with direct translation of the ball's motion to notes on a scale.
The overall effect was kind of neat, but not all that spectacular considering the amount of time and effort I put into this thing. Still, it was a milestone for me, and I learned object-oriented programming in the process. Yay me. |
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