Alex

Final Reflection

Alex studied Electronics and Music at Glasgow University followed by research in the Enactive Interface group based at SARC, Belfast. He is currently a member of the Audisee Group as part of an Msc in Sound Design, Edinburgh University. So far he has been working on the mapping system, spatialisation and a homebrew granular sampler. He further plans to compose samples, incorporate a particle/mass-spring audiovisual controlling layer and to stop talking about himself in the 3rd person.

I am interested in nonrepresentational knowledge embodied within action extant in advance of a contextualizing intellectual framework. This project is an ideal opportunity to explore notions of embodiment and disembodiment within our own physicality and that of the immediate environment, amplifying them into conscious relief for appraisal. The manner of interpretation is where the fun comes in for me, experimenting with audiovisual feedback to create a physically tightly coupled fantastical experience for the performer and audience.

Occasionally I get bored and make silly tunes

Andrea

Final Reflection

What I want to achieve with this project is not becoming and expert, but being capable to design and succeess in the whole process, specificly in one that involves body motion capture. From the birth of the idea till the last step of the process.

What we have reached is experience (doesn´t mean always with success) that gives us a deeper perspective of what designing a digital performance,digital installation involves. It took us time find the way of organizing well.

The goal we traced has a lot of fields to cover. On one hand we have to find the idea-concept of the "research", followed by finding the best way of making/designing it. On the other hand, we have to go by the hand of the technology: learn the software we need for, find the easiest way in terms of time and capabilities, but getting the best result.

The main problem I have faced is trying to understand and get the possibles point of views: Try to face the problem of the body movement: which kind of data should be processed to find interestings paths to work with. Also keeping on mind what kind of data can be interesting for the performer, the spectator, the sound designers, visual artists, to reach a nice global result. Which kind of product do we want to design: a final performance, a final show that will have an ephemeral duration, or do we want to design an instrument, so it can be used as what it is or use it as a tool for reaching the desired results by the different user. Always being aware of the lacks that the system has. Due the cost of it the chances to work with it are few. We needed to work with the body in terms of data. Translate visual movements to particles of x y z axis for points... and try to translate in the data desired: sound, visuals graphics, and other possibles.

My personal achievements with jitter, max-msp library is to find the way of expressing some concepts in this specific medium. Explore the possibilities that max msp offer through a matrix of videos, in where the user can build a narrative story or just investigate the responses of the body motion.

By the way, leaving the first steps and adquiring more agility make us becoming more curious and being aware of being enriched why this exciting process.

Augoustinos

Final Reflection

Avgoustinos studied Multimedia system at the Napier University of Edinburgh. He is currently undertaking an Msc on sound design. Augoustinos is a member of the Audisee project. His research interests are quite broad. He is particularly interested in film sound and the link to audio-vision, cognitive psychology, affects and the notion of space in a film but also in music context.

Augoustinos thinks that the Audisee project is a great opportunity to develop further his skill. He is very happy working on this project because there is scope for exploration of concepts such as human computer interaction, embodiment, sonification and visualization of body movement and sonic composition. So far he has been working on mapping the motion data to sound using two types of granular synthesis, among other things. Moreover he thinks that he was lucky to work on this projects, collaborate with the other member of the team, exchange opinions and skills.

Daphne

Final Reflection

Daphne finished bussiness school only to find out she wasn't that interested in wearing a suit and making money for yappies. She came to Design & Digital Media Msc to find her artistc spirit or what was left of it and to work on web applications, digital design and computing.

The Design Media Studio Project is a great opportunity to challenge skills, function in a team environment and explore new and exciting paths of new media. The Body Centred Interactive Audio-Visual Performances project is an inventive approach in dance, music composition and visual performance that studies the body as a digital interactive tool.

As a visual designer, Daphne is going to investigate the meaning of body tension and release and use the Processing language to create more or less abstract interpretations as a response to the body motion. Daphne sees herself stowing data, messing with Max MSP patches, adding bits of amateurism and hopefully creativing something worth seeing.

Piero

Final Reflection

There’s no doubt that the most amazing feature of Audisee is the team; I’ve been really lucky the day of the draw. Floods of words have been spent during the first unforgettable meetings, we had the impression we could control the world, yet we hadn’t anything in our hands. But we went on and now we have. We have Audisee (wow!!).

Audisee is not just a project, it is a whole experience with an engaging practical aspect. We had the possibility to see and touch sensors, and one member of the team has been so lucky to wear them during a live recording session, so to capture his movements. This allowed us to gather flows of data that became the object of some software manipulations using Max/Msp and Processing.

I’m really excited by this work because it’s giving me the chance to understand a kind of technology that lies behind the design of interactive environments. That is, the reason why I’ve chosen this master. What we have done so far seems to be promising for us and for our plans, next weeks we will study more in depth the technology we are using, so to produce something that could satisfy our desires and, possibly, be nice for the audience. Yes I know, we can fail, it’s a possibility. But it won’t disappoint me because recent rumours within the team say that who is writing could be the Audisee’s performer; well, it makes me speculate an unexpected future… who knows? Just keep an open mind and… look for a fitting tutu!