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[Real Time Visuals] Workshop 2: Process-based Sound/Image Linkages

Today I attended Real Time Visuals Process-based Sound/Image Linkages, comprising of a daytime workshop, and evening concert. The workshop started with a keynote by Naut Humon, founded and artistic director of Recombinant Medial Labs, who spoke about their CineChamber space. Artists such as Pansonic, Ryoji Ikeda, Alvo Noto and Blixa Bargeld etc. have conducted residencies at the CineChamber, and then presented new works there. Recently they have developed a mobile version of the space, which has been on tour in America and Europe. This was presented at Transmediale 2011, and featured a performance by Signal (Alva Noto, Frank Bretschneider, and Byetone).

Here Naut noticed that people weren’t watching the performers as much as compared to the screens. In fact Transmediale wanted to determine if removing the performer would have an effect upon the audience.

Up next was Mick Grierson, who briefly mentioned his progression from sound to experimental cinema, and projects which investigate how to make music with deaf people. He worked with Roll7 and Neurosky to create a Wipeout-style AV game in which the tunnel is rendered different depending on the spectral of the song.

Then was Nuno Correia (presentation here) who discussed his collaboration Video Jack, and also custom AV software AVOL, AV Clash, and AVVX, all of which are web-based, and built in Flash. Nuno wishes for the audience to see what he sees, and thus his software (and performance) can be seen as a form of live coding. In AV Clash, he incorporated the freesound API such that any audio file can be dynamically loaded (or cached) into the performance, while with AVVX, he wishes to create a freesound.org-style library for visuals (written in vector graphics). He has recently finished a PhD, which was released as a book, and can be downloaded for free here.

Next was Anna Weisling who presented A Case for a Notation System, for Live Visual Performance, a discussion on her own visual notation system, which can be found in her Master’s dissertation. After lunch, was Toby Heys discussing a future piece, AUDINT (with Steve Goodman), based upon sonic deception by the US Military. Then Freida Abtan gave a discussion on surround video composition and multimedia performance, with reference to her work Flight of Birds.

Next Joseph Hyde spoke about The Seeing Sound research network, and that they’ll be shortly releasing a call for submissions for their 2013 conference (tentative dates 30th Nov - 1st Dec). He also mentioned Sound in Z, a book by Andrei Smirnoff on experimental music in Russian in the early twentieth century. After a short break, Ryo Ikshiro discussed his live audiovisualisation method in Construction in Kneading. Although Alvo Noto and Ryoji Ikeda work with similar ideas, he proposes audiovisualisation in which data (ie the output of a Mandelbox equation) is being both sonified and visualized at the same time.

Then Ireti Olowe discussed her recently-started PhD, focused on the sound visualization of multi-track electronic music. Finally was Toby Harris of D-Fuse who discussed the LIVE is Live Cinema. Toby’s argument is that once anything is practiced and tightly follows a score, it looses its ‘liveness’. He mentioned major pop performances, for instance Madonna and Deadmau5, which although are performing on the stage, aren’t live in the moment as they must get everything right and not make a mistake.

He thus prefers a definition of Live Cinema as one in which improvisation and performance are inevitably intertwined, and mentioned Lev Manovich’s discussion on soft cinema, before ending with

Cinema has always been live. Its a critical fiction.

                                                      -Martin Welton

The concert followed on from the workshops by featuring videos and performances by these presenters. I quite liked End Transmission by Joseph Hyde, however wished that it would have been live, and not an edited video. Ryo’s Construction in Kneading was very impressive, especially the rendering of the fractal itself, while Nuno Correia’s AV Clash is one of the most successful Live Coding pieces I have seen in a while. The concert ended with Mick’s aptly named Delusions of Alien Control pt. 4!

Church Visit + BA Show 2013

Today I visited the church to become re-acquainted with the space, and see any changes from last September. Presently there is the BA Fine Art show, which was so impressive that it convinced me to return later in the evening to explore further and witness the live performances!

The first performance was Yujin Jung with a live performance featuring laptop, printers, shredders, performers, and audio equipment. From what I gathered, Arduino was controlling a matrix of printers, printing pages which the performers (dressed in white lab jumpsuits) collected and shredded. The audio of the shredded was then processed through guitar pedals.

Next up was a performance All Our Beasts by Soft as Snow (Oda Egjar Starheim), who performed guitar and vocals and keys and electronics respectively in Room 8 (high ceiling to left of main entrance). The space was completely dark, with a smoke machine and projector projecting simple shapes in blue and green onto the adjacent wall just above the keyboardist. Although the audience could only see this projection if they stood behind the keyboardist, due to the smoke standing in front of the singer one could see the 3d structure created by the smoke. It was quite an interesting performance, however perhaps too long and non-evolving.

What I found most interesting was the space itself which I hadn’t considered for my performance. Today I submitted a brief description of my project

My piece will be an audiovisual performance featuring front and rear projection and audience participation (via internet). It will be a solo performance, so the performance stage (i.e. table) will only need to be a length of 2.5m or less. This stage will be covered at the front and rear with suspended material which will be projected on. I do not need any space behind the performance stage as this rear projection is merely to layer with the front projection. At the front of the performance stage, there’ll need to be room for people to stand and observe the show. I imagine this space will need to be relatively dark, as otherwise the impact of the visuals will be lost. Technically, I’ve probably need at least two plugs to run extension cables from, and obviously two projectors, two speakers, and a sub-bass. Outside of performance times, I haven’t decided weather I’ll show a video of a performance, or in fact use the space as an installation via a DVD player.

which I feel will need to be its own space, as opposed to a general performance area. This will need to be a dark space, and having an installation outside of performance times seems to make the most sense. I want people to experience the performance in front of the main screen, so I don’t need a lot of space behind, but some space in front, hence Room 8 seems like a perfect spot. However, like Room 14 it is very reverberant. Perhaps Room 23 would be better in terms of reverberation.

Squarepusher + Southbank Sinfonia

Today I attended Listen to This at Fairfield Halls, Croydon, featuring the world premier of an orchestral reimagined Ufabulum, facilitated by Southbank Sinfonia. The performance was split into two intervals - the first interval featured performances and tape pieces from prominent avant guard composers last century with a view to ‘opening the ears’ of the audience for Squarepusher’s second interval.

1. György Ligeti - Ramifications
2. George Benjamin - Panorama (tape piece)
3. Iannis Xenakis - Anaktoria
4. György Ligeti - Artikulation (tape piece)
5. Prière du Christ from L’Ascension

After the interval, Tom Jenkinson (aka Squarepusher) performed Ufabulum.

1. 4001
2. Stadium Ice ?
3. Energy Wizard ?
4. Red in Blue
5. The Metallurgist ?
6. Dark Steering
7. Ecstatic Shock ——Encore——
8. 303 Scopem Hard

Although I haven’t seen his Ufabulum live show, it seems as if this performance was most of the album’s tracks in order, with the same visuals, augmented with an orchestra. The visual setup was one large panel over head the orchestra, with two skinnier but of the same height on the left and right, and a final panel on the front of Tom’s performance table.

The ensemble consisted of Strings (Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello, Contrabass), Woodwinds (Flute, Oboe, Calarinet, Basson), Brass (Horn, Trumpet), and Percussion. The score was orchestrated by Peter Riley, and although the first interval was meant to accustom the audience to extended and 20th century techniques (beatings via tuning, sul ponticello, inverted chords), I honestly struggled to hear such timbres doing the show.

Squarepusher seemed to perform as he normally would, with a MIDI controller and Laptop determining levels and effects, and a gap between each track as if he was loading the next set. One thing I found strange was that some (or all) of the synth leads seemed to remain in place in his stems, although these were being orchestrated. I do think he was also manipulating their feed in realtime (as during Red in Blue, there was an incredible bass), however the orchestra could merely have been amplified throughout.

My biggest critique of the show would be the level ratio of Squarepusher versus the orchestra. The shows premise was avoiding

[T]he pop star strutting around at the front of the stage looking smug and the poor old orchestra at the back playing a succession of very long chords, and that to me is not a celebration of two forums [pop and classical], its a poor mirage or a bad shadow.

however as I felt Squarepusher’s volume level dominated the orchestra’s, to me at least what invariably was presented was in fact an orchestration of Squarepusher’s synth lines. Perhaps not a succession of ‘very long chords’, but undoubtately not the avant guard techniques presented in interval 1. I’m sure this existed throughout the score, however it just wasn’t perceivable in the performance (see here, here, and here for rehearsal clips). Or perhaps I fixated too much upon Squarepusher’s beats and bass lines.

With regard to the visuals, they were white on the black panel throughout (except Red in Blue), and were invariably really simple, audio reactive, and split across the multiple panels. One that quite stands out (perhaps as I’m a musician) was the visualized soundwaves in Ecstatic Shock. Some examples I found from twitter are:

Overall I really enjoyed the concert, and in relation to my critical essay last year, I feel the show was much more of a successful audio-visual piece than Music for Solaris, but sonically overall much weaker than either Music for Computers or utp_. However as the orchestration was a sercondary addon, this makes sense. Arranger Peter Riley at least did do a much better job than Jeff Mills and the Montpelier Philharmonic Orchestra!

The applause throughout was ear piercing, on a similar level to Amon Tobin last year, however I cannot state that I was blown away by either visually. I feel that visually I will take a lot from this performance, not just the ultra-fast black and white flashes ala Ryoji Ikeda, but more the use of more simplified visuals. Perhaps one of my main stumbling blocks throughout the last year in generating computerized visuals has been too sophisticated ideas, while instead maybe audio reactive motion etc. is a better route to investigate.

Today I did a little quick investigation into multiple monitors for my final performance. I’ll be using a 13” Macbook Pro 2012 model for the performance which only features ONE Mini-Display output (compared to two thunderbolt and a HDMI on the equivalent retina model), so for a multi monitor setup, I’d need two video outputs. One projector (say the front one) can be ran off the Mini-Display port, while the rear projection could be ran from a USB Multi-Display Adapter. Stargate, for instance, manufacture such a device which is available for £55.

This, however, will then limit me to only one available USB ports, with my soundcard needing one, and MIDI controller and keyboard vying for one also. Firewire and USB are two different protocols so there is no (reliable) adapter to convert between them. Although running a MIDI controller and Keyboard via a USB hub is fine, I’m skeptical about running the soundcard through the hub also. If I was only using the Lauchpad, then a Bluetooth Keyboard Adapter could be used instead of the hub.

Of course my other option is using two laptops, one dedicated to the audio, and the other to the video, which may be necessary depending on the complexity of the real-time processing for the audio and visuals. If I end up having an installation outside of performance time, a mac mini could be an idea as it contains both HDMI and thunderbolt, or simply two DVD players played in sync.

Inter-App Audio + Emika

Although everyone seems to be raving about the newly revamped iOS from yesterday’s WWDC, or how it seemingly copied Windows and Android, what struck me most (from the basic recap I read) was Inter-App Audio.

Now your apps can make beautiful music together. With Inter-App Audio, apps can register their audio streams to share with other apps. For example, a series of apps could publish audio streams of instrument tracks while another uses the combination of these streams to compose a song. Inter-App Audio also provides for MIDI control of audio rendering, remotely launching other registered Inter-App Audio apps and more.

Although this is something previously achievable with the Audiobus SDK, I assume as it’ll now be implemented within Core Audio, this could potentially be easily (I’ve never tried it with Audiobus), and maybe even future oF releases could implement it also - this would make for fantastic prototyping of iOS applications! Either way, this won’t be something I’ll be looking at until after my Masters.

In the evening I attended Emika’s performance at Birthday’s, Dalston where she was supported by Deafkid, an indie-electronic duo on drums and guitar. They used an electric drum kit (which potentially could have been sending MIDI), and the drummer’s laptop which acted as the backing track for every song. The guitar also used a laptop to control the effects of his guitar (potentially MIDI foot controller), and keys on the last track. It was interesting to see an act which is very dependent upon a backing track, as my performances (Gray Dawn, Вавилон, Батьківщина).

I think Emika’s had a really good performance, however I’m not sure how I feel. Yes, the experience and atmosphere of the concert was great, the theatricals and LED lighting also, however ultimately she performed just vocals to continuous backing tracks, ala karaoke or a traditional pop singer. To compensate for this lack of instrumental performance, she danced throughout the show, continuously engaging the audience. For someone who created their own niche in the post-dubstep scene, it is quite funny that her performance is rooted within the pop scene.

Yesterday Emika released her second album Dva, much more of a mixture of her background in classical music and inclination towards pop music than her dark, dub self-titled album. Performance wise, she used a laptop as the backing tracks (broken into layers), with an AKAI controller to control cut-off frequencies and track levels. She also used a keyboard occasionally for interludes between tracks. Ultimately, she sung and danced on stage, looking much less awkward than before, and in fact much sexier.

There was also visual accompaniment, which manipulated live feed of a camera pointed at the stage projected on the left and right side of the stage, and numerous LED sticks arranged in a 180 degrees arc behind her (which didn’t seem to be in sync with the music, perhaps controlled by the venue’s light engineer).

So overall I think everyone had a good time at the performance, however being a performer myself clearly I’m critical of the performance element. As an encore she played Sing to Me again which I found quite strange, and although a crowd-pleaser (and potential next single), left me with a uneasy feeling. Nevertheless, she remains one of my favorite female electronic musicians, and a very large influence upon my music.

‘New’ Direction

Today I started messing about with different synths and effects with a view to creating ideas for my next piece. As mentioned in a previous post, I want this piece to be completely electronic, or electronic with a limited number of live instruments.

Over the last few days I’ve been listening to Paul Morgan’s Dredd soundtrack, and also NIN new track Came Back Haunted, along with some of their earlier stuff. I really want this new piece to be synth driven, using 80’s synths and sine tones driven through effects. Sonically, I’m really inspired by industrial sounds at the moment, along with low bass as in Vex’d and Emika.

I feel as if this project would be a combination of various interests I have explored through the Masters. For instance, the music will be industrial and glitch as mentioned, while the visual will be audio reactive. These visuals, although potentially computer generated, would be broken down into scenes, following my exposure with editing film. Moreover, these visuals would hopefully facilitate audience participation via a web app.

The visuals themselves would be front and rear projected onto a see-through material surrounding the performance stage. Such projections is something I need to start testing as soon as possible. Following on from П, I expect that the audio will be mainly pre-rendered and triggered using the launchpad, with some live bass lines or leads via a MIDI keyboard. The audio reactivity will build upon LiAlg, LiVid, and П.

Simple Processing.js + Webpd Tutorial

For ages now I’ve been meaning to investigate the combination of Processing.js and WebPd. Processing.js is a Javascript port of Processing, while WebPd is a Javascript port of Pure Data. So surely they can be combined to create some awesome web apps no?!

Firstly, download processing-1.4.1-min.js, jquery-1.9.1.min.js, and webpd-latest.js by right-clicking on these links and saving them to /ProcessingJSWebpdTest/js/ (or where ever you prefer). Next we create a very simple Pd patch in which (x, y) coordinates can be used to control pitch and amplitude.

Now create index.html (in the same directory as test.pd, and also containing the folder /js with the files processing-1.4.1-min.js, jquery-1.9.1.min.js, and webpd-latest.js).

The first few lines are pretty straight forward. Firstly we load processing.js, WebPd, and jQuery, and set the style such that there is no padding or margins. Then we start a script, and determine the document’s width and height (remember I said we’d do it the proper way?!), and try to load the Pd patch. The next script is some simple Processing code.

One issue (when trying to refer to the Pd patch variable in the Processing sketch - i.e. when send variables between both of them) is that the sketch must initially be set to noLoop() mode, and then after the patch is loaded, we turn Processing’s loop mode back on. Perhaps there is a better way, but so far this is what has worked for me, and what is also done in Sébastien’s demo.

Now lets run this. If you double click on index.html you’ll more than likely be greeted with a black screen and red circle in the corner not doing anything. This is because the processing script has failed as the browser blocked Ajax’s request to load the patch. The easiest way to get around this is to start a local HTTP server. As long as you have Python installed, go to the root directory of your project (where index.html is located) and run

python -m SimpleHTTPServer

in the terminal, and finally load http://localhost:8000/index.html in your browser. You should then be greeted with the following:

As you can see from Firefox’s console, there are some buffer underflow errors, however WebPd is a great start in implementing Pd in js, and a potentially a go-to library for Web developers with a background in Max or Pd. To see what has been implemented in WebPd, go to the Web GUI page, where in fact you can live code Pd web objects! The source code can be downloaded here.

Tension 2013

Still to this day, the most important moment in my life was probably the final set of the Lollapalooza music festival, Chicago 2008. Only two days since witnessing Radiohead first hand, then and probably still now the most influenced act on my indie project Gray Dawn, I lined up for a few hours through support bands to grab a front spot for Nine Inch Nails, not prepared for what was to come.

Although frequently incorporating visuals elements into their shows, their Lights in the Sky Tour was the most ambitious yet, featuring front and rear stealth screens, enveloping the band in a dazzling world of interactivity, static, and computer generated art. From that moment I knew I wanted to, at some stage, work within audio-visual performance.

Since LPM 2013, I’ve been thinking a lot about Nobu_Lab’s In-Structure performance, and a front and rear projection combination for live performance. I think that it would be really interesting to perform inside material which is being projected on in such a fashion.

Along with developing П and FYiLBW, I want to work on a new AV piece which potentially could be my main exhibition. This piece would harken back to my earlier ideas of abstract geometry and computer art with minimalist glitch electronica, so very Alvo Noto and Ryoji Ikeda influenced.

However, today I watched Dredd (2012), and was very impressed with Paul Leonard-Morgan’s industrial soundtrack. Apparently Paul wished to create a soundtrack which would still be relevant in 100 years, so he original chose a band over an orchestra, before finally setting on vintage 80’s synths and countless distortion pedals. He also used Paulstretch for the slow-mo scenes. After listening to this score, I really want to go a more fully-electronic direction, compared to П, or at least limit the orchestration in favor of real instruments, i.e. mandolin as in Ватьківщина.

Also today, Nine Inch Nails announced their new album Hesitation Marks, and released a song from this forthcoming album

however, most importantly perhaps, they announced Tension 2013, a new AV show which will “pick up from where Lights in the Sky left off”. Exciting times.