Squares and Rectangles
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Brief Description
Squares and Rectangles is a "Sound Painting" which lets audience members interact with it by making sounds. People can alter the image and trigger sounds by talking, singing, or making any other sound into a microphone.
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Overview
Squares and Rectangles is interactive inter-media installation in which the audience creates a painting of sound and image with sound.
The visuals for the piece are handled using Graphical Environment for Multimedia (GEM) for Pure Data (PD) and the sound is made using SuperCollider.
Both programs are networked together via OpenSound Control (OSC).
Based around the idea that sound can be used as the basis of control, the audience uses a microphone to interact with the piece.
By using the [fiddle~] object, PD outputs three types of information from the microphone: frequency, amplitude, and attacks. Through various other processes these three pieces of data are
extended to allow tracking changes in pitch and amplitude, counting how many attacks have happened over an amount of time, etc., which allow a wide range of control parameters for manipulating both the visuals and audio.
The piece is divided into different sections. Sections change after a certain amount attacks have been counted which makes the time of the piece follow how
active the user is. There are three types of sections which are semi-randomly sequenced in cycles based on various parameters. The start of each cycle is a "generative" section which is independent of everything
which came before it. Its purpose is to create the primary image which the subsequent sections in the cycle will alter. "Additive" sections work by layering the generated image with other graphics. "Subtractive" sections
mask (add black space to) the generated image. The final image of each section, with the exception of generative sections, is saved and used by the following sections in the cycle.
Sound is generated through synthesis in SuperCollider. Various controls are sent via OSC from PD that trigger and alter the sounds. The sound can be realized in either stereo or quadraphonically.
In installations using four speakers, the speakers are placed at each corner of the projection screen. The sound interacts with the audience by responding to input changes as well as to the graphics by "panning across the screen."
In addition the sound can also drive the piece if the microphone is allowed to pick up sound from the speakers. This is possible since no live sound is coming through the speakers.
Due to the nature of the piece, the sounds made by the audience become part of the work as well and the acoustic properties of the room in which it is installed directly affects
its outcome.
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Technical Requirements
-one projector with minimum 1024x768 resolution
-one projector screen
-one XLR microphone cable at least ten feet long
-two or four quarter inch TRS cables at least ten feet long
-two or four adjustable speaker stands if speakers are not mounted
-one unidirectional microphone
-two or four speakers (can be set up for either stereo or quad)
-minimum one in, two (or four) out audio interface
-computer with PD and SuperCollider
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Pictures
Primere at Signal Flow at Mills College March 6-9 2008. Photo by Paul Naughton.
Photo by Paul Naughton.
An additive section.
End of a subtractive section.
Additive section following a subtractive.
Overview
Technical Requirements
Installation Setup
Video Example
Pictures
