software

Still Life in Real Time

dfodel — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 07:53:45 -0700

Still Life In Real Time

The traditional still life has been examined for the nature of its surface, and its symbolic content. In a highly technologized and mediated culture, how has our relationship to stillness changed? Has this change informed our relationships to things and to each other?

This interactive audiovisual performance presents 3 vignettes, each utilizing custom technological configurations, and incorporating live embodied interaction with the assistance of dancers from 3rd Law Dance/Theater Company.

1. Still Life And Zoom

Things “out there” are not always what they seem. Our brains construct boundaries between inside and outside, objects and their edges, sounds and their causes, movements and their natural consequences. The closer we look, our probing technologies reveal a dynamic surface upon which we perform everyday life.
Technologically, the piece used the physical objects of the Still Life arrangement as wireless controllers, manipulated in a real-time improvisation by dancers.

2. Still Life In PVS

A permanent vegetative state is a syndrome that is related to a coma. Misdiagnosis of PVS occurs on a disturbingly regular basis, leaving many “trapped inside” a seemingly still body, while continuing to experience a rich inner world of dislocated consciousness. Memory and imagination blur, distort, and drift into a remix of experience and fancy.
The interface for this piece consisted of an augmented graphics tablet and pen, and a live camera, which became a live "instrument" for manipulating sound and image in real-time.

3. Still Life With Solar Wind

We are continually bathed in shifting, invisible currents of subtle forces, even as we contemplate the possible meanings of a seemingly static object. The interference patterns that emerge in this dance of forces create a rich, dynamically
intertwined tapestry of call and response: communications that succeed and fail, connections made and missed.
In this piece, ultrasonic proximity sensors were embedded in the flower arrangement, which mimics Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Dancers move around the flowers which translates position into controller data for the audio. Real time visuals are controlled via wireless joystick, and are generated using the UniView platform's model of the magnetosphere.

Stills from the show:

Following the performance there was a reception at Object+Thought, located at 1430 Delgany (across the parking lot from the MCA). A series of mixed media monoprints titled "Stills", was generated from project studies and documentation, and were on display, courtesy of a collaboration with artist Paco Proano.

The show was free and open to the public.

STEIM

dfodel — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:27:08 -0800

I came to the STEIM orientation with the expectation of gaining deeper understanding of the commercial software they have developed, and to present to the staff several artistic projects I currently have in development.

I have used JunXion in the past, but only for basic operations in mapping HID hardware. During my stay I was able to create several new patches for use in an upcoming performance titled "Still Life in Real Time", which will premiere at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in April of 2010. For this project, I am tracking position and 3-axis orientation of several objects, which constitute a "Still Life" composition, both visually, and sonically.

David Fodel - Still Life with Guitar

The aim of the project itself is to interrogate the possibilities of real-time, structured improvisational, audio-visual composition, while incorporating the symbolic potential of the interface. The traditional Still Life, and in particular Dutch Golden Age Still Life paintings, provided me with an art historical locus and context for referencing this potentially symbolic quality of objects.

The technical aspects of the project are driven by this concept of "interface as content" and the ways in which the tangible interface and the embodied activities of the performer come to convey meaning. That being said, the technical problems then become those of creating tangible relationships between the objects, which are projected through sound and image, by selective mappings.

Screen cap of JunXion patch used for Still Life project

JunXion provides a way to create these mappings in a manner that allows for rapid prototyping. So that's what I did during my time at STEIM. I learned some of the deeper capabilities of the tool, which allowed me to explore some functionality that is key to the success of the project. I will outline these briefly below:

Creating switches without "buttons". I need to be able to tell the system to enable or disable certain functions or actions without clicking buttons, because that feels like it is an "un-natural" movement in the set-up. I was able to track large differences in accelerometer data, and turn that into a kind of switch, by storing, checking and updating a variable that denotes when the switch is on or off.
The individual object orientations, as tracked by the 3-axis accel data transmitted from each object wirelessly. Using JunXion, I map each axis to one or more MIDI CC's, and scale the data using the Tables in JunXion. This data is then forwarded on to audio and video parameters that respond to the movement of the objects.
Relative positions of each object while they are situated on the plinth or pedestal. I was able to do some quick testing using JunXion's built-in Object tracking, but it seems like I may have to use something else for the production version. I set-up a quick sketch that was able to detect blobs using Processing, but found that the actual "tracking" of the blobs is more complex. I need to be able to manage the blobs more precisely so the systems can determine how the blobs are related to each other spatially on a 2D surface. I am using a simple set-up of a frosted glass, with a camera underneath to let the system know when the objects are sitting on top of the glass, and where they are in relation to one another — the composition.

So this is mostly what I worked on but I also did some playful "what-if" scenarios with the other Orientation attendees, namely Berit Greinke, and Jeffrey Roberts. Berit was working on translating color to sound for her textile installation / performances, and Jeffrey was working with augmenting his live performance with a traditional Chinese string instrument called a Gu-Chin.

David Fodel working with Berit Greinke on color-to-sound conversions

Jeffrey Roberts playing Gu-Chin and WiiMote, David Fodel augmenting sound.

The discussions I had with Kristina and Robert were very helpful in giving me some perspective on my current work. This includes the Still Life compositions as well as my work with the Solar Wind Harp, a software (hardware under development) instrument that can "play" the solar wind in real-time via the NASA ACE satellite. I hope to be able to construct a large installation/performance version of the Solar Wind Harp with the assistance of STEIM staff in the future.

Testing Blob Detection patch in Studio 3

Most important to me was the interaction with the other orientation attendees. Hearing about the work they are doing, and the contexts within which they are working, provided a breath of fresh air, and a breadth of fresh ale to wash down some hard to swallow pills which seemed to be blurring my vision.

I have included links to brief videos of one of the experiments with Jeffrey Roberts playing Gu Chin, with one of my WiiMotes attached to his arm. The WiiMote is sending controller data via junXion to a patch in Ableton that is manipulating his live sound through various frequency domain dynamics effects processors. The other link is to a video of Jeffrey and Robert van Heumen playing together in the STEIM Studio 3.

Jeffrey Roberts and David Fodel

Jeffrey Roberts and Robert vanHeumen

Where is Love? Finalist for Future Places Festival 2009 in Porto, Portugal

dfodel — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:03:44 -0800

Where is Love? is a playful locative media project that utilizes digital mapping technologies and psychogeographical strategies to encourage participants to explore their local environment, emotionally and physically.

Participants engage with the work using a standard web-browser, to input brief stories and to upload photos of someplace where they have experienced “love”; physical, emotional or otherwise.

The active project website is located here.

The artwork employs special software to collect and store this basic information, and to help guide participants through actual physical locations, via the emotional overlay created by their input and the input of other users.

Using a web-enabled cell phone, or any standard laptop computer users can plot personal trajectories through the “love-density” of the city. Users become physically aware of intimate encounters that others have experienced in their immediate physical surroundings. It becomes yet another layer of engagement in the topology of urban space.

The project playfully conjures memory, as it is embedded in physical space, using digital technology as social lubricant. The anonymous nature of the participation works to distance the acts, even as it renews the latent emotional content of the memory.

The physical acts recalled by users are less important than the emotional state. What is important is that we all contribute to an emotional map of our physical territory, and this project creates tangible traces of something always already there.

We all understand how vulnerable using these technologies makes us, and yet we share our most intimate stories and secrets using various social networking sites and photo-sharing sites. This project bridges the idea of intimacy, with this notion of technological vulnerability, using shared emotions as social currency.

To reinforce the playful nature of the project, specially packaged condoms with the project URL printed on them will be distributed at bars, nightclubs, and other festival locations around the local area. The condom serves to signify the physical act of love, connecting the ephemeral, emotional nature of internal experience to that of the external experience of the body navigating physical space.

Technoetic Rainforest -Gallery 023, Denver

dfodel — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:13:34 -0700

An interactive installation work by David Fodel and Sarah Soriano at Gallery 023, University of Denver, Denver, USA on May 9th, 2009.

The title of the work is taken from two previous ideas.
Technoetic is a word coined by Roy Ascott in 2003 and meant to denote a path by which we might understand the effects of technology on consciousness.
Rainforest is a work created by David Tudor which dates back to about 1965. In Tudors work physical objects and sculptural forms are activated using audio transducers, causing those objects to resonate. The objects themselves modulated the incoming audio, transforming the sound, based on the material.

In the Technoetic Rainforest, we introduce human consciousness into the feedback loop that is created between materials and electronic signal.
A system is constructed which exhibits certain sonic and visual behavior in its undisturbed state. The system consists of cameras, computer vision software, and a multichannel sound creation and distribution matrix.
Simple tones create vibrations and modulations by exciting audio transducers, attached to large sheets of plate steel.
A small vessel, filled with water, is also activated by an audio transducer. This causes the water in the vessel to create patterns and distortions in the waters surface. These patterns are analyzed using a camera and blob detection software.
Blob detection is typically used for extracting usable information from image data, normally object recognition and object tracking. The association of this technology and its visible activity on the projected screen serve to foreground an implied "intelligence" within the system.
The intelligence gathered on the incoming image is further used to modulate the audio signals, creating a subtle yet sophisticated, ecologically balanced feedback loop.
Once a person enters the room, their presence begins to intercede into the variations in the audible sounds, their bodies serving to absorb or reflect certain frequencies within the space. Their shadows in the space, or the interruption of the camera's view of the vibrating water further disturb the modulating steady state of the system.
These subtle interactions and their results become part of the feedback system which drives yet further variations into the system. In this way the system becomes an analog for basic consciousness, in that it is self-reflective.
In decoding the phenomenal world through technological apparatus, we externalize the process of modeling experience, of our own construction of consciousness. As the system evolves, our impact, understanding and actions evolve with it.

jamBox: Audio Sculpture at the FAC Modern Gallery

dfodel — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:54:14 -0700

In the jamBox I wanted to explore the idea of an expressive audio instrument in a sculptural form, that uses spatiallity as a key component in its operation. The jamBox responds to the physically enclosing space to set its initial "sound floor" and is then modulated by one or many participants or viewers.

An array of sensors detect proximity in several directions and the mutiple voices of the audio are changed by the activities surrounding the enclosing space of the installation.

The materials used in the physical sculpture have a crafty sensibility, utilizing bamboo, and hand-sewn felt and are designed to visually invite closer inspection. The sounds on the other hand increase in volume as participants move closer, creating tension in the surrounding space.

The work is playful and encourages group participation and interaction while deciphering its puzzle-like quality.

The jamBox has been shown at the FAC Modern Gallery in Colorado Springs Colorado

Solar Wind Harp Live at Anderson Ranch

dfodel — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:30:44 -0700

A live presentation / experiment with the Solar Wind Harp I built. Projected onto the Aspen trees at Anderson Ranch, in Aspen Colorado, in August of 2009. The software is a custom Max patch which reads solar wind data from the NASA ACE satellite in real-time, subsequently sonifying that data. I was attending a workshop led by Andrea Polli, called Sound Space and the Environment. Performance and documentation assistance by Sal D'Angio, and Yoon Chung Han. The harp was developed in conjunction with Dr. George Millward of LASP in Boulder, CO.
More info about the Solar Wind Harp here.

Aurora's Aeolian Harp

dfodel — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:03:12 -0700

Overview
Aurora’s Aeolian Harp is named for Aeolus, an ancient god of the wind, and Aurora, a goddess of the dawn.
An Aeolian Harp (or wind harp) is a musical instrument that is "played" by the wind. This hardware/software “instrument” is an Aeolian Harp that is played by the solar wind.
In the software version, the "strings" of the harp are digitally synthesized using physical modeling techniques, and the "wind" is real-time solar wind data streamed from the NASA ACE satellite. Science consultant for the project is Dr. George Millward of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) / CU.
The hardware is based primarily on the Arduino platform. The physicalized output hardware is currently under development (see videos). This hardware controls the tensioning of multiple strings, attached to lengths of sheet metal, for pitch adjustment, using small motors. An audio transducer is used for controlling the excitation of the assembly. All of the electro-mechanical activity is controlled through Max / Arduino software. The instrument runs in conjunction with a simultaneous live performance, or as a stand-alone installation. The software version is built with Max/MSP and the base version will be available for free download and use.

Concept
By re-framing natural phenomenon as communication processes we can re-contextualize our place in the world in an effort to formulate appropriate design strategies. Re-engaging these processes as nodes in the living social network establishes those processes as contributing elements in the dialog with our past and future. By giving voice to these processes, a sonic voice, this dialog can be imagined.
Recognizing these natural phenomena, listening to the sonic fingerprints, and immersing ourselves in this aural architecture, connects us to the natural world in unexpected, subtle and sometimes spectacular ways.
Connecting a living process, by transposing its activity into an accessible perceptual realm, allows this voice to sing, and helps to tell a story, a story of our relationship to our own perceptions, and to the natural world.
Our engagement with the invisible forces around us radically affects our relationship with the culturally and historically constructed world. By framing these processes within a communications context we situate our humanity within a more inclusive sphere.

Deployment
The platform is meant to be extensible and already consists of several iterations. One iteration will be installed at the Denver Art Museum in November 2009 as part of the EMBRACE show, in collaboration with Timothy Weaver, Brigid Mcauliffe, Josh Fishburn and Nick Meyers. Another iteration will be performed as part of the Communikey Festival of Electronic Arts in Boulder, Colorado in April 2009. This will be a mobile audiovisual performance utilizing a custom mobile hardware platform (see images).
The Harp has also been informally performed at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in August of 2009.

Residency at Experimental Televsion Center

dfodel — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 11:38:49 -0800

In December of 2008 I did a residency at the Experimental Television Center in Owego, New York. I invited artist and long-time collaborator and friend Brian Kane to explore the center's vast collection of vintage analog video gear. The video below is a quick attempt at documenting the experience. Excerpts of some of the raw material are included. Some of the resulting material is included in a 5 DVD boxed set which chronicles the activities of the ETC from 1969 to 2008 and includes the work of 75 artists. The documentary footage will also be archived at the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media at Cornell University. Special thanks to Hank Rudolph and Sherry Miller Hocking.

The "full project" doesn't really exist in any substantial form. The project WAS the residency I guess, which according to their guidelines merely consists of creating raw material, which may or may not get used in a finished "piece". The ETC intends the space and equipment to be used in that way, as opposed to a place to come and fine-tune/edit/finalize work.

That being said, what we were aiming for was raw material that was improvised live performance, which in some cases is finished as soon as it hits the eyeballs, eardrums and hard drive. So we have a bunch of that in the can, so to speak.

What I put together for the "documentary" is intended to describe the whole experience to put it into context for someone who might be interested in showing the work. It also seems to work to highlight the history and operation of the ETC itself. Which is really great.

As for the technical interactions occurring in the audio, video and control paths:

The center is almost entirely control voltage based. By using envelope followers one can feed audio in to a module and "extract' a CV signal, which then can be used for manipulating pretty much any aspect of the video gear. We worked primarily with the Dave Jones 6 channel colorizer, and also the Nam June Paik built "Wobulator" which is basically a huge electromagnet wrapped around a CRT and controlled by varying the voltage along several axis of the magnet(s). So that was one way of "syncing" the signals. Since we are using the envelope follower method, the signals fed into it tend to need to be relatively simple... tones or simple beats. We also managed to get the MIDI to CV module running which allowed for a simple way to get note on and off, and a single CC out to the CV stuff. It's a frikkin patchers heaven, if you have patience, and a lot of coffee. The cool thing is that in essence, the audio IS the video and vice-versa. The original practitioners and designers of the center's equipment (and I would encourage anyone interested to explore these folks) were basically just fascinated with the formal aspects of the electronic signal, and were the (dare I say) original transmedial artists. They were patching audio into video and extracting signals in both directions, deconstructing the television into its constituent elements and then rebuilding signals from the ground up.

The 3-screen work I include in the video doc is all raw captures from the center, with some augmentation to the audio. There are digital oscillators feeding the analog controls on the Dave Jones Colorizer, through the MIDI to CV module, as well as similar control running the analog Proc Amp. This is where one can control the final pedestal, chroma, gain and clipping of the video signal before digital capture. I also was doing some stuff feeding the centers signal into my laptop running VDMX, and then feeding that back into the centers system, with some gorgeous results. We also did a lot of weird stuff with live YouTube feeds etc to get that real vintage vs. contemporary thing going on. I was most fascinated with the things that were happening in these loops, the evolving pattern and color, that responded over time to subtle manipulation. That level of performative engagement in a real-time unpredictable environment is to me just irreproducible in the digital realm, but I don't want to start any arguments on that. Something about those soft analog edges and rich colors. Clearly, a lot of what VJ software does is based on how this early analog processing works, so you see a lot of familiar motifs emerging from the gear. Which is really cool to me... like a flash-back of a beautiful moment in ones past.

Anyway, enough of the prosaic rambling. The "studio time" was approx. 4 and a half solid days on site in the studio... sleeping there, eating there, drinking there etc. Immersive for sure. The 6 hours is raw... very. I am hoping to get 4 of what I think are pretty solid installation works out of the material. Slowly evolving large scale "immersive" audio-video works. There might be more in there... Not sure yet :)

Home; Away from Home: Installation at Denver International Airport

dfodel — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:40:05 -0800

Home; Away from Home is a time-based visual exploration of movement, pattern, trajectory, transition and migration. Video imagery based on simulation and mimicry of natural patterns of organic movement, such as flocking, schooling and migration are layered with simple marks reminiscent of flight patterns and topographical surveys. These lines on paper could be directions home, or routes yet to be explored; trajectories that navigate through layers of emotion and memory; connections made and missed; always already arriving, and constantly coming home.

Portions of the piece are realized using modified versions of Andy Polaine's 2000 Particles, a piece of open source code written in Processing, that utilizes the Traer Physics library, created by Jeffrey Traer.

Recent press in USA Today here.

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November 2008 - February 2009

DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT | GALLERIES OF DENVER
Terminal East | Sixth Level

http://www.co-lab.info/noplacelikehome

NO PLACE LIKE HOME an art exhibition exploring memories of transition, comfort, farewells and returns

Featured Artists: David Fodel Brigid McAuliffe Allie Pohl Sarah Soriano

NO PLACE LIKE HOME is a multi-faceted art installation that explores memories of transition, migration, journey, comfort, farewells and returns. Four individual artists intertwine their experiences, thoughts, concerns, and reflections about traveling to and from home. Layers of imagery, maps, movement, and playful objects illustrate the transition from one home to the next, the illusion of home, and various notions of what home is, was, or will be. Each artist explores these notions in unique ways with individual attention to media, materials, and their own specific approach to the theme. A cohesive whole emerges from these disparate elements in much the same way that our memories of home blur, soften, expand and remix themselves over time.

This exhibition is the result of a collaborative project between Denver International Airport and the graduate Installation Art course in Electronic Media Arts Design, led by Professor Laleh Mehran at the University of Denver, School of Art and Art History.

Wind on Wind / Water on Water - Denver Botanic Gardens: Digital Nature

dfodel — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:39:27 -0700

The Digital Nature show sought to showcase the work of artists working in digital media, incorporating elements from the natural world via process, subject, aesthetics, or interactivity. Curated by Rachel Murray of the Denver Botanic Gardens and housed in the York Street Pavillion, the show incorporated interactive installation art, and live performances.
I had two interactive works selected, Wind on Wind and Water on Water. Each of the pieces were explorations of the metaphor of natural movement as subtle form of interspecies communication.
Sensors were suspended from tree branches and submerged under a waterfall, translating the motion of wind and water into malleable data which served to modulate video imagery projected in real time back onto the tree branches and waterfall.
More photos here. Wind on Wind statement here. Water on Water statement here.