Category: Portfolio Element 1

Researching for this project I’ve found a huge amount of documentation in physical books and also in digital format like e-books, journals and other kinds of scholarly articles. When I started to research about the topic of interactivity I was really happy to discover that most of the writings about the subject fall into the fields of digital art, coding and technology; and these are areas in which I’ve been interested in during this course. Finding different books about the subject has driven me to really interesting contemporary artworks, practitioners and theories; inspiring me to develop my project and my knowledge in the field.

The book “A Touch of Code: Interactive Installations and Experiences” was a great introduction to find a good amount of artists in the field of interactive installations, some of them in the range of sound art too. Observing these artworks in pictures allowed me to find new ideas for my project and also to make further research about these artists and techniques, allowing me to direct my research further in this subject.

One of the artists that kept my attention for being featured in the majority of books within this field is the Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. This Mexican-Canadian artist is one of the most influent contemporary electronic artists when talking about digital interactive installations, having exhibited his artworks all around the world. In these works he encourage the audience to participate in the installation with the use of sensors, positional sound and projections. But not only his actual artistic work is influential, he is also relevant for his theories in the field, giving revolutionary and controversial statements in conferences and interviews about technology, art and society. I would like to quote the following sentence, as it relates to the Technology and Nature issues of my project:

“I think it’s complete nonsense to pretend we could back to being outside of technology. We need to intensify our use of technology, because technology is part of ourselves”.

• Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Langey 2018)

Technology as part of our nature is one of the topics that I would like to research more in depth in the future, and this has brought me into finding more interesting theories and theorists.

But I didn’t just found contemporary work in my research, the previous more traditional and analog work of artists like Roy Ascott or Liz Phillips pioneered the way into these fields. These artists contributed to interactive sound installations and computer art during the end of the 20th century; in his book Sound Art Revisited, Adam Licht analyses Liz Phillips 1970’s works, stating that:

“Phillips also used sound as a perceptual tool, but in a more interactive way, to spotlight people’s movement within a space. A sculptor with no musical background, in the 1970s and 1980s she made many installations using radio frequency capacitance fields”.

Roy Ascott’s work was also innovative and revolutionary for his discoveries in computer art and in the field of cybernetics; in his book Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness we can find a collection of his best articles, speaking about art, early coding and interactive issues in the 20th century.

My most recent research has driven me to find interesting and intricate theories about the relation of technology and nature. Biophilic design and more in particular “Biophilia” is one of the aspects that keeps my interest at this point. In his essay The Human Relation With Nature and Technological Nature, Peter H. Kahn wrote that the the term was coined in 1984 by E.O. Wilson to refer to the mental, genetically based human need and propensity to affiliate with “life and lifelike processes”. Other related theories like Techno-Nature and the Anthropocene are also interesting in this aspect, these are concepts that rely in the relationship between humans, technology and the ecosystem and I will develop these theories more in detail during the rest of this project.

This was just a summary of the research side of my project, there is much more information that would need to be disclosed from all these books and articles, but we will leave it here for the blog work. These ideas are going to be explained and further explored in my Research Project and Portfolio during the rest of the course.

References:

Ascott, R. (2003). Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness. United Kingdom: University of California Press.

Feireiss, L.(ed.)(2011) A Touch of Code: Interactive Installations and Experiences. Germany: Prestel Publishing.

Kahn, P. H., Severson, R. L., & Ruckert, J. H. (2009). The Human Relation With Nature and Technological Nature. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(1), 37–42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20695991 Accessed: 13-10-2024

Langley, H. (2018) Rafael Lozano-Hemmer explores human identity in our hyper-connected world. Available at: https://www.documentjournal.com/2018/12/rafael-lozano-hemmer-explores-human-identity-in-our-hyper-connected-world/

Licht, A. (2019) Sound Art Revisited. New York, NY: Bloomsbury

This academic year so far the Sound Arts Guest Lecture Series have been really inspiring, my favourite in particular and the one that related the most to my current portfolio project was the lecture by Helen Anahita Wilson. She is a researcher at SOAS University of London and has also won the Oram Award to the innovation of sound and music. She has also been working in improving hospital radio specially since she was sadly diagnosed with cancer and during her recovery.

Her work creating music with plants was the most interesting for me in relation with my project, as in my interactive installation I will be using plants as sensors to play sounds. I found interesting her explanations about biomusic, where she talked about working with plants as gathering the data that they generate, and she was very clear stating that plants doesn’t generate music themselves but the manipulation of different reactions like slight cracks in the wood of trees or electrical conductivity can be used to create patterns, and with the artist’s help using these sequences to drive electronic instruments the music can be created. In my case I will be using the electromagnetic field of the plant, as I mentioned before, making use of Biotron, and translating it to MIDI data.

Working with plants, trees and acoustic ecology in general is inspiring and fun, and having a related artist in this field was really interesting.

Personal Creative Practice: 

1) Reflect in a blogpost on your existing ways of working, and what these practices produce for you in terms of both opportunities and dilemmas in reference to your own portfolio project work-in-progress.

In terms of the first project for the portfolio project I have mentally divided different aspects of the creation of this artwork in different groups, these groups could be aesthetics, programming, hardware and sculpture. This way I can focus on specific tasks separately and each of this groups will finally become the whole project. These same tasks are also divided in different stages like for example research, realisation and documentation, and these form a timeline that draws the development of the project.

I find this way a well organised way to work and allows me to focus on different parts of the installation without being too overwhelming. In the other hand, I find that seeing these groups too independently may affect the cohesion of the whole artwork. At the end of the day this is an academic exercise which means that everything has to be documented in order to be assessed, that makes even more important to divide the project and the different tasks into different stages.

Personal Creative Practice: 

1)    Design a fictional live performance and showcase it in your blog. This project should include a technical rider, promotional flyer, artist bio, and venue details. You aim to create an appealing and original performance concept, even though it won’t be executed. Conduct thorough research to attract a specific audience, demonstrating your creativity and event-planning abilities.

The way that I would perform at this point will be include a 104 hp 3u portable modular rig. This is a commonly used format for small Eurorack setups and have used it before to perform live. In this case I would include mainly VCO, Reverb and utility modules like mixers and VCA’s to create drones and atmospheres. This is an example of an empty rack of these characteristics:

This would be probably accompanied by one or two more portable devices like my Teenage Engineering OP-1 or Yamaha Seqtrak. These kinds of devices include built-in synthesisers, sampler and sequencers and will allow us to run a wide variety of sounds in a reduced space; they are also battery or usb powered which make the setup an easier task. This gear would be then connected to a mixer that would be provided by venue.

The perfect location and time frame for me to organise an event would be a quiet cafe or bar, where the audience had space to sit and lay down near the performances but also a space to chat, eat and drink. This would be an evening event, starting at 7pm and finishing at midnight, and the music policy would be ambient and experimental.

Flyer

Artist Bio

Daniel is a sonic artist and experimental electronic musician based in London. He likes to play with electronic devices and experiment through different genres of music and forms of art, always trying to go a little bit further and finding new fields and techniques which are innovative. Currently focused in composing electronica and ambient pieces, he has been involved in diverse projects in sound art and sound design with different organisations from around the globe. The sound emerging from the modular synths and tape recorders he uses, brings us tracks full of immersive atmospheres and rich textures, creating an abstract world to submerge in.

Technical Rider

Item	Description	Amount
Audio Mixer	A studio mixer to connectinstruments and gear	1
Sound system	A set of speakers able to deliver a good volume throughout the venue	6
Performing Desk	A sturdy table for the artists to perform	1
Cables and sockets	A selection of sockets and audio cables necessary to setup all the gear	8

In order to get some inspiration about other similar installations and contemporary work happening in London, I have attended to two exhibitions; The River by Jana Winderen at the National History Museum and On Being by Max Cooper at W1 Curates.

The River

This installation features field recordings from the river Thames recorded completely underwater and this soundscape is played through a wide array of speakers. The space invites you to chill, lay down in the carpet and listen to the greatly recorded sounds. Jana Winderen is a Norwegian sound artist specialised in recording deep sea sounds, sounds in ice and other sonic environments which are barely accessible from humans.

This is a fantastic work in acoustic ecology and it directly relates to my interactive installation, where I will also create a soundscape which will be played continuously through the speakers. The world of nature field recording is captivating and in this installation can be appreciated at its best. My project will also have visual representations, which is something that The River didn’t include but in terms of soundscapes, this visit was really inspiring and will help me developing these environmental sounds that I want to include in my installation.

This is an audio clip with some the sounds that I recorded closer to the speaker. I really love the water sounds and the high pitched buzzing from insects and fish, these are the kinds of sounds that I’d like to achieve for my work.

On Being

This was a purely audiovisual installation, which didn’t have any interactive element or nature/technology elements but it was very interesting to see as a visual work. The gallery was fully covered by led screens showing generative visuals and playing electronic music. Max Cooper is a London-based music producer who has been recently involved with different project in digital art and immersive experiences.

Although this can’t be an example for the kind of installation that I want to create, my work will feature two screens with generative digital visuals, and the graphics displayed on these room-sized screens were really inspiring for me. The image was so crisp and colourful and it had a raw digital and generative feel that I would like to achieve for my installation. W1 Curates is a new space for digital art in Oxford Street which is following the style of Outernet and also displays screen-based visuals to the street, I would really recommend it and I will be closely following further events in this gallery.

One of the devices that I’ll be using in order to achieve connectivity with plants in my interactive installation will be Biotron. This tool has been created by the innovative instrument company Playtronica, and although it hasn’t been released yet, they have sent me one of them in a development stage for me to try and create content before it’s finally launched. Playtronica has come up with several instruments of this kind in recent years from which Playtron, and Touch Me have reached a lot of popularity among electronic musicians; these devices allow conductive materials like water, metal or fruits to be used as instruments, when connected via usb to a computer. Even the people’s own body can be used to perform different sequences of notes:

Biotron is Playtronica’s latest product and this time they have focused in the field of biomusic, customising their conductive instruments in order to be used mainly with plants. I will integrate Biotron in my interactive installation, and it’ll be used to control the audio through Pure Data as well as the visuals which will be displayed in the screens. The device is usually connected to the leaves or stems of the plant with alligator clips or patches, using its own conductivity to create a magnetic field which can be used as a theremin or tactile keyboard. This system will allow the audience to touch the plants in the installation and some sounds will respond accordingly; I’ve been doing some early research lately and you’ll be able to see a demonstration in this video:

I have also been updating my Pure Data patch a bit adding ADSR control to the sound and I’m starting to enjoy the sounds coming out from it. Biotron will help me to achieve interaction between the audience and my installation, and will also have a collaborative meaning with Playtronica. Please check their website for more information and I will also leave here an older video collaboration where I used two teacups to control my modular synth with the use of Touch Me.

https://shop.playtronica.com

https://www.youtube.com/@PlayTronica

My installation project will have two interactive elements: ultrasonic sensors and a theremin-like natural plant; these two elements will be controlled by the DSP programming language Pure Data. There will be also two screens showcasing reactive 3d imagery and this images will also be generated by Pure Data with an especial library called Gem. To control the sensors I will use the hardware extension Bela Board, and to achieve the sensory plant I will use a device called Biotron, I will speak a bit more about these in further research.

The sound that these interactive elements will play will be created from scratch in Pure Data, and I want to develop my own sound sources for them. In this case I’ve built a polyphonic synth voice that could establish the foundations of the sound that I want to achieve, it features 8 sine wave oscillators with a slight detune on each of them to make it sound harmonic and 8 sawtooth waves with the same characteristics, they’re also processed with a reverb object. These sounds will be controlled via MIDI with the special hardware but I think that is best to try them first with a traditional MIDI controller and I have been jamming with it and recorded it in this video so we can hear and see the results of this first steps on the sound design of the installation.

In order to have a better idea of how my projects are supposed to look like, I’ve made a sketch for my installation on Project 1 and a storyboard for the documentary movie on Project 2.

Project 1

In this sketch I wanted to show the main elements of the installation and how I want main concept to look like, there is also many notes that explain a little bit the main parts of the work.

Project 2

For this project I have used a storyboard which is a common form of schematic for film making. These ideas and arrangement are very rough yet and the scenes are still subject to changes but I hope that this makes a clearer idea of possible locations and scenes.

Responding to one of a selection of commissions, write a short pitch communicating your ideas.

This is just an imaginary pitch for a museum installation commission that I wrote in class, the topic and the aesthetics of the project would quite apply to my actual project.

– Hello, in the project that I’m presenting today I would like to create an installation about the dangers of the climate change. It will feature different footage across 4 screens and a multi-channel speaker arrangement across the gallery, it will also be accompanied by a big map of the world showcasing different areas of concern where the climate change is happening. We will need audiovisual equipment in order to record the mentioned footage and some specialists in the field to give their impressions about the subject in some interview-like recordings. This installation will be a great source of information and a great attraction to the museum. –

As a first task before starting to sketch and prototype my projects, I think that it would be interesting to find some pictures and other media of my reference artworks so I can get some inspiration. My main project will be an interactive sound installation that will have as a goal to show us the relationships between nature and technology, and how one can complement the other. In the technical aspect, I will be using code to create sound and visuals, and the viewer will be able to interact with the installation through ultrasonic sensors and other devices that will integrate plants as playable devices in the setup.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Rainforest is one of the main references for this work, it is an iconic artwork in Sound Arts history itself as well as interactive art. I also love the metaphorical meaning of it, because despite of being called “Rainforest” there aren’t any trees or plants and it didn’t even sound like a jungle. These are the kind of concepts that I’d like to unveil; why do we tend to associate nature to technology in some way?

Another installation that really inspired me back in 2022 also for its incredible nature and technology combination was Heather Phillipson: Rupture No.1: blowtorching the bitten peach at Tate Britain. This site-specific artwork recreated a whole ecosystem experience featuring dozens of speakers with forest-like field recordings and screens with images of animals.

I really love the lighting and the flat screens and I will take some inspiration from this artwork to display some CGI on my installation that will react to the movement of the gallery visitors, and I also like the idea of the speakers with a soundscape to create that immersive feel.

Biophilic Design

In terms of sculptural and architectural concepts I would like to have as a reference this exotic style of design that tends to merge organic elements such as plants, trees or water within building decorations or artworks.

A great example of this design in building industry can be found in the city of Singapore, where their skyscrapers and airport coexist with a vast amount of natural life. These are good models in which nature and the latest technology are implemented perfectly and I would like to bring these techniques and concepts for my first portfolio project.

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For my second project I will create something in the form of a video, which is one of my preferred formats when I document my practice. This will be a video essay about about the healing properties of ambient music as a mindfulness practice, mindfulness is a meditation technique with a background in Hindu and Buddhist traditions which consists in focusing in the events happening in present moment.

When thinking about meditation and sonic practice the first name to come into mind is Pauline Oliveros and her Sonic Meditations, it is also well known that John Cage was also interested in yoga, meditation and Zen Buddhism, and seem like a recurrent theme within ambient and experimental musicians.

The use of Asian religious techniques and instruments is very present in these kind of practices, especially singing bowls and gongs, being widely used at sound baths, a contemporary ritual for sound healing. Sonic artists like the spiritual leader and content creator Ana Netanel, are truly masters on the field. She organises the Shakti Sound Baths in L.A, California and her videos are a really good example of sound healing practices.