Content
Project Task
Final Product
Colour & Sound
Material & Texture
Improvements
Conclusion
References
Critical
Evaluation
Project Task
This project gave the opportunity
to experiment with the interactive possibilities of sound & vision,
including the artist program MaxMSP/Jitter, processing and other hardware or web
based systems.
The task was to develop a project, based on interactivity, nonlinearity, sound and the construction of user-experiences.
The task was to develop a project, based on interactivity, nonlinearity, sound and the construction of user-experiences.
Final Product
The final project is
called Playing Colours. The idea was to play an instrument and colours at the
same time. It is the colour visualisation of music.
To understand the critical evaluation clearly, the project is briefly described.
A Max MSP patch controls colour, saturation and the scale of a graphic through sound. The project was presented with a clarinet performance. Therefore the patch settings are set up for the clarinet, but can easily be changed to suit any sounds.
The graphic that was used, The Catch Nurbs, is from Andrew Bensons book, Jitter Recipes Book 2.
To understand the critical evaluation clearly, the project is briefly described.
A Max MSP patch controls colour, saturation and the scale of a graphic through sound. The project was presented with a clarinet performance. Therefore the patch settings are set up for the clarinet, but can easily be changed to suit any sounds.
The graphic that was used, The Catch Nurbs, is from Andrew Bensons book, Jitter Recipes Book 2.
Colour &
Sound
Having carried out a
presentation about the first project ideas and research, I decided to focus on
colour and sound.
Sound is a type of energy caused by vibration. A vibrating air particle activates another particle next to it and so on. The vibrating movement, called sound waves, keep moving on until the energy power is gone. Eventually the sound wave reaches a listener’s ear, where it vibrates against the eardrums. The frequency, numbers of cycles completed in a second, is measured in Hertz and affects the sound level. A low frequency vibration produces a low pitch note and a high frequency vibration results to a high pitch note.
Sound is a type of energy caused by vibration. A vibrating air particle activates another particle next to it and so on. The vibrating movement, called sound waves, keep moving on until the energy power is gone. Eventually the sound wave reaches a listener’s ear, where it vibrates against the eardrums. The frequency, numbers of cycles completed in a second, is measured in Hertz and affects the sound level. A low frequency vibration produces a low pitch note and a high frequency vibration results to a high pitch note.
Colours have different
frequency and wavelengths too. Every light travels with the same speed but each
colour has a different wavelength and a particular frequency, which are
responsible for different colours. A high-pitched frequency contains a higher
amount of energy.
High frequency colours
are: blue (680 terahertz), violet (730 terahertz) and indigo (780terahertz)
Yellow (520 terahertz), orange (480 terahertz) and red (400 terahertz) are low frequency colours.
Yellow (520 terahertz), orange (480 terahertz) and red (400 terahertz) are low frequency colours.
Isaac Newton (1642-1726) split the colour spectrum into a seven-colour scale according to their frequency and wavelength.
Newton was the first who actually understood the range of rainbow colours. The scientist described light as the source of all colours and the darkness as the absence of light. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832) saw things differently than Newton. He described colours as subjective visual phenomena in general. According to Goethe, the colour we see on an object depends on the lightening, the human prescription and the object itself.
The idea to hear a sound
and see a colour with the same frequency at the same time was influenced by Newton
approach.
Newton’s scale has seven colours and seven notes (one octave) starting with the note A to the note G. The scale shows the frequency of each note and the frequency of each colour. For example, the note A has a frequency of 440 Hz and is visualized with the colour red, which has a frequency of 440 THz.
Newton’s scale has seven colours and seven notes (one octave) starting with the note A to the note G. The scale shows the frequency of each note and the frequency of each colour. For example, the note A has a frequency of 440 Hz and is visualized with the colour red, which has a frequency of 440 THz.
For the project Playing Colour, the frequency pattern is
repeating in every octave. The patch is programmed in such a way that the note
A, played in any octave, turns the graphic into red and so on.
A further important
influence for music and colour is Hanspeter Kruesi, a German artist. He practices
colour therapy with music. In his view, each colour has a particular attribute.
Comparing Kruesi’s colour understanding and Newton’s frequency scale, we can
find an interesting aspect. Colours with a high frequency have a calming and
relaxing effect, frequency colours have an activating and energetic force.
Material &
Texture
Another essential subject
in the project was material and texture. The main influence was Brian O'Reilly.
He is an artist and creator of many moving images, electronic music and
installations. Especially one of his works, Spectral Strands (Saariaho: Vent
nocturne), is very inspiring. The moving images used are extreme close up. I
copied the idea of extreme close up and experimented with the water element. Water
was chosen because of its fluent movements. Both, music and water, has a smooth
movement and can change from a calm and quiet to wild, loud and “dangerous”
condition.
The edited water sequence is placed as background of the Catch Nurbs graphic. I believe the water background makes the whole picture more interesting and supports the visualisation of music.
The edited water sequence is placed as background of the Catch Nurbs graphic. I believe the water background makes the whole picture more interesting and supports the visualisation of music.
Further
elements
Further elements to
support the visualisation of the music are the scale and saturation effect. The
scale object changes the size of the graphic according to the volume (x, y and z-axis).
Increasing the volume triggers the graphic to grow and vice versa.
To make the graphics behave more attractively, the saturation effect was added.
The saturation is controlled by the volume data as well. Loud music makes the colour intensive (high saturation) and vice versa. The saturation can easily be changed with the scale object.
To make the graphics behave more attractively, the saturation effect was added.
The saturation is controlled by the volume data as well. Loud music makes the colour intensive (high saturation) and vice versa. The saturation can easily be changed with the scale object.
An additional idea of the
saturation object was to support the expression. For example, a mystic or sad
song would be expressed better with a low saturated image.
Improvements
The project was presented
with a clarinet performance. Therefore, a standard computer microphone was used
to capture the sound. For future performances, it would be better to use a more
advanced microphone. One of the reasons is that a real microphone looks better
for the performance and secondly, the sound would be captured in a higher
quality. A higher quality sound produces a more precise input data, which
affects the sensitivity of the interactivity.
Conclusion
Overall, I am satisfied with
my project. To connect creative artwork with abstract programming was a
challenge for me and I was not quite sure how to begin working on my project. During
the working progress, the project became an exciting process with many
possibilities. It was an interesting practice, as I have never tried programming
before. Since I was working with maxMSP, I have experienced new and different
options to work with video and audio.
Research
Books
Theory of Colour Johan
Wolfgang von Goethe
Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye Roger Horrocks, Shirley Horrocks
Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye Roger Horrocks, Shirley Horrocks
Internet
Colour www.colourtherapyhealing.com/colour
Sound www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bunce/sound.htm
www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html
Newton / Goethe www.webexhibits.org/colorart/bh.html
Hanspeter Kruesi www.farbmusik.com
Music & Colour www.musicandcolour.net
Oskar Fischinger www.oskarfischinger.org
Sound www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bunce/sound.htm
www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html
Newton / Goethe www.webexhibits.org/colorart/bh.html
Hanspeter Kruesi www.farbmusik.com
Music & Colour www.musicandcolour.net
Oskar Fischinger www.oskarfischinger.org
Films
Dan Owen www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnvpEjV_MKs
Brain O"Reilly http://vimeo.com/7675243
Brain O"Reilly http://vimeo.com/7675243
