My device for the instigation of change finds the inherent sonority of objects. It’s housed in a collectible Rambo lunch box, and the circuit takes a 9 volt battery. The signal is first sent through a 4093 nand gate oscillator chip connected to a 100k pot and a 1 megaOhm pot. The signal is then sent into a 4049 pre-amp/fuzz circuit, then into an lm386 op-amp, and then the signal’s voltage is kicked up by a radioshack audio output transformer. The signal is then sent out to two piezo discs/drivers. The piezos can be attached to other objects, and then used to resonate those objects.

The idea behind this is that the device is a hacked object that hacks other objects by turning them into mediums of sound/resonant bodies, supplanting their intended use-value in the process. Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s musings on “the collector”, I decided to use a collectible object to house the circuit in because I feel like collecting objects can be understood as a precursor to hacking objects in that collecting, like hacking, is an attempt at replace commodity value for values outside of the “cycle of exchange”. In the case of collecting, these values are personal and aesthetic, as for the collector the collected object is an art object to be displayed and embedded with the personal meanings (where i got the object, that time in my life, why i choose this object and not others). The object’s use-value and exchange-value are null and frozen within the collection.

The hacked object, though, is given different values. Its use-value is not null but transformed into other use-values and functions as determined by the hacker. New personal values arise as well, as the hacker feels a degree of control and closeness to this “new” object s/he has created, as opposed to the alienation (ala Marx) and distance between the consumer and commodity.

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So there’s been some changes to the overall project, once again, but these are pretty much final and many of the performance’s conceptual gaps have been filled. The performance in general can be understood as a kind of spiritual cleansing or reclaiming of the land (Cuba) after the exodus of the entertainment firms. Framing the performance like this gives support for narrative functions of the objects themselves, as detailed below.

First, the nature of Zoraida’s objects have changed. Nancy and I were having trouble deciding how to integrate/translate the break-beam sensors into movement and sound. We decided to re-think about the objects, and focused on the idea that these things are going to serve as Zoraida’s “backing band” as well devices used for movement and performance.

So, we decided to give each object its own functionality, like a member of a band, so each object will be different from one another. We’ve decided on three objects:

1) An object for voice that will be built using a large elephant statue I purchased. I’ve ordered 20 Panasonic WM61A condensor mics that I will wrap around this elephant. The elephant will be Zoraida’s vocal microphone, will be placed upon a podium like structure (alluding to political speech), and connected to a potentiometer so that rotating the elephant will send data into max (probably for panning/spatializing the voice).

2) An object for rhythm, composed of a conga drum and piezo pickups. The piezo will be attached beneath the drum head, and, as I play the drum, the piezo signal will be (pre)-amp’d and sent into a jitter patch. I’m not so much concerned with the quality of the sound as much as I’m concerned with just getting data into max/jitter to use for controlling visuals. Once in, I think things can be scaled and worked out with a little programming.

The objects are conceptually channeling Santeria practices and the belief in orishas. Ana (Anya, Ayan) is the orisha of drums and rhythm, as well as an entity which is supposed to live inside sacred drums (particularly the bata). I plan for the drum playing in the piece to work with this idea, so that playing the drum will “conjure” images of Cuba which we’ve accumulated in the past few months signifying the spiritual rebirth of the land. Also, this address one of the piece’s main ideas, the which is exploring technology via spirituality and ritual. In a sense, the electronics embedded in these objects can be understood as the physical manifestation of orishas.

3) An object for movement, which will consist of a wireless accelerometer attached to a machete. This is inspired by Afro-Cuban, and these dances (watch, watch) usually invoke Ogun, the orisha of technology and war (“he is the force inside your computer” according to this site). His main symbol is the machete which he uses for clearing roads, woods, and forging “the path of life”.

Ogun is always portrayed as a man, and only men are allowed to do his dance. In Zoraida’s world, however, these rules no longer apply and she must take on this role. I’ve ordered a wireless accelerometer from sparkfun (sensor wiki info) that will be attached to our machete so Zoraida can dance with the object while controlling the sound of the performance.

Big Issues

Lots have been solved now. I just have to get these parts and start testing. Seriously. Big time. Right now.

Positive things

I’m much happier with the relationship between the narrative, the objects and the performance. I was freaked out for a while because I felt that not everything was adding up and the outcome was going to be fractured and weak in general. Now I have a lot more confidence about what’s happening aesthetically. So even if the objects aren’t exactly wonders of technology, they’ll makes sense in a larger scheme, which is way more important for me.

Negative things
Well, I’d like to be farther along in building these things, that’s for sure.

Much, much work ahead.

For Meditation 3 (patch), I modified an algorithmic drawing machine so that it draws arcs whose values are based on the golden ratio of phi (1.61803399). The arcs drawn by the algorithm have a nice symmetry to them, and create some pretty, undulating circular patterns.

Here’s some video footage of the patch’s output:

Click To Play

For Meditation number 2, I made a jitter patch that calculates the compound interest of my ITP (principal + interest), and uses that data to modify the brightness, color, and saturation of a photo of a handful of money. The higher the loan value gets, the more “aflame” the photo appears. You can download the patch here.

This week I bought some necessary parts for the project, namely a few Radio Shack phototransistors and infrared emitters, as well as a few condenser mics. I think built an preamp/opamp circuit using an 4049 IC and an LM386 chip to test out the mics (we might use these on our elephant objects) and see what kind of sound values they put out.

I then built a basic audio-in max patch to play with the sound:

The 4049 got the signal nice and crunchy, but the overall output left much to be desired. We are still deliberating as to whether or not we will use this circuit.

We also ordered a statue of three elephants on a wooden board, which might serve as the main object/instrument with each elephant trunk housing a sensor (mic, beam-break emitter, ultrasonic?).

We plan to set it up on a podium-like board, so that interacting with the object evokes giving a formal speech, and hopefully we will be able to rotate it 360 degrees so that we can choose with which sensor to interact. This is better said than done.

Also last week, we recorded footage of Nancy dancing and experimenting movement that will be worked into the piece’s choreography.

This week I need to order some robust 360/infinte/endless pots, figure out a way (prism?) to focus the beam-break emitter (whether IR or superbright LED), and get other elephant statues to modify. Then I need to test, test, test so we can start putting these things together.

Tomorrow, Nancy and I are playing a show at West Nile in Brooklyn under the alias Zoraida. It’s gonna be mostly improv, but it will our first experiment in public with some material related to the project we’ve been working on.

My biggest block right now is finding a prism to focus a superbright LED or IR emitter onto my phototransistors. If this can’t be done quickly, I may buy some laser pointers and crack them open instead (as suggested on the pcomp wiki). Jamie also suggested getting a rotary coupler for each elephant so that they can rotate without getting any wires tangled. So I need to find one of these that is cheap and easy-to-use.

Nime Proposal

My NIME “instrument”/ LIPP performance will consist of a set of electronically augmented objects to be included in a dance/sound/performance project I’m working on with Nancy Garcia. We’ve come up with a narrative about a performer who lives in a post-Castro Cuba 10-20 or so years in the future. A large number of multinational entertainment firms have just evacuated Cuba after a failed attempt at turning the island into a entertainment playground for wealthy tourists, leaving the island with few inhabitants and in a state of technological decay. Our performer, Zoraida, is a one-woman performance act who roams the post-abandonment countryside performing with a set of custom “instrument objects”. These objects are modified heirlooms and trinkets that have been passed down through her family for generations, like these below:

Growing up she learned that the way the objects were arranged and placed inside her house brought about different sorts of fortune and charm to the family and their living space. Now, she incorporates the objects into her performance and music through augmenting them electronically. These objects are, in a sense, her backing band now that Cuba is virtually uninhabited.

I plan to turn these objects into instruments by attaching xbees to them and having their location values sent into Max to control/manipulate an MSP/Jitter patch. Moving an object around will affect the qualities of the sound ascribed to it in the patch (frequency shifting, filtering, scrubbing, etc), as well as affecting a visual backdrop programmed in Jitter. Thus, these “object instruments” will be played by being moved around and relocated. Thus, for each song or section of movement, the objects will be placed a unique location determining the sound enveloping the performer and the space around her.

These objects will be kept inside a briefcase-style container, which will also house the main zigbee receiver circuit as well.

First, I have to figure out how to work/program a zigbee (which won’t be hard since everyone at ITP uses them all the time) and figure out what kind of data the devices send so I can determine how the MSP/Jitter portion of the patch words.

Second, I need to know if Zigbees themselves can transmit locational data so that the objects can let each other know where they are. Then as the objects are moved around, their position can be tracked and fed into max so that data can be used to do something in MSP/Jitter.

If not, I’ll have to hook up some sort of distance sensor that tells the distance of an object in front of one of the zigbee augmented “object instruments,” then send that data to the main zigbee receiver. That would turn these instruments into motion detector type object that are affected by the performer’s movement.

*****UPDATE*********
We won’t be using xbees, as hardwiring these things seems the better option. Right now, we plan to have a stand for each elephant (3 altogether), and each stand will be connected to a potentiometer and a beam-break sensor. These sensors will divide the stage up into 3 spaces, in which we will assign each movements and sounds. There is still much to be worked out.