swimming-bird » composition

Air-Teapot

stephenbarrass — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:53:47 +0000

The Air-Teapot challenges our reliance on sight to understand the world we live in and rebels against the visual dominance of computer interfaces. By tapping with the teaspoon, we can feel and hear a teapot in the space in front of us, but there is nothing to be seen but a teapot stand. This is a teapot with character that convinces you there’s more to the world than meets the eye.
Where better to foment a revolution in a teapot than Boston!

Here it is on show in the Teapot Exhibition at Siggraph 2006.

Barrass, Stephen (2006). Haptic-Audio Narrative: From Physical Simulation to Imaginative Stimulation. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 4129, 157-165.

Cocktail Party Effect

stephenbarrass — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:48:49 +0000

An Experimenta Media Arts Commission

Experimenta Vanishing Point

They say that seeing is believing but this invisible installation has us questioning whether we can trust our eyes. Picking up the swizzle stick in The Cocktail Party Effect, we can feel both a cocktail glass and hear the tinkling of the ice cubes in what appears to be an empty space. Barrass and collaborator Chris Gunn have used state of the art haptic (touch) technology to create a sense-bending work that confuses visual orientation and challenges our reliance upon sight to understand the world we live in. Revealing secrets and sharing memories from its juicy past, this is a cocktail glass with character that convinces you there’s more to the world than meets the eye.

This paper describes the design and development of an interactive narrative for the ‘Experimenta Vanishing Point’ media arts exhibition in 2005. The Cocktail Party Effect tells the story of the imminent extinction of Great Apes in the wild using touch and sound in the absence of visual elements. The narrative is driven by haptic-audio exploration of a virtual cocktail glass which functions as a heterodiegetic narrator, and the traversal of cut-up conversations that make up the story within. The interface was developed through a series of prototypes that explored the perception and mental imagery of a haptic-audio simulation of the invisible glass. These experiments also developed narrative functions of the haptic-audio interface beyond conventional iconic metonyms to include grammatical and dramatic special effects. Observations during the exhibition show promising narrative engagement with the piece but identify problems with the clarity of the sounds, and a conflict between the narrator and the story content.

Barrass S (2006) Haptic-Audio Narrative: From Physical Simulation to Imaginative Stimulation, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4129, pp. 157-165, Springer, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-540-37595-1

Mark in the Bathroom

stephenbarrass — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:56:54 +0000

Mark in the Bathroom is a transformation of Anny in the Kitchen that shows the plasticity of meaning in sound, and an extension of asynchronous and contrapuntal film sound to theatre performance.
Anny in the Kitchen was an audio sketch for a female actor playing sounds with kitchen implements composed for the COST-SID Workshop on Theatre and Sonic Interaction Design. On the day before the workshop we faced the situation that 1) the audio sketch was to be used directly as a soundtrack for the theatre performance, and 2) that the only available actor was male. This led to a round of brainstorming in which the actions of a man in the bathroom in the morning were substituted for the original sounds designed to be produced by the actions of a woman in the kitchen in the evening.

Pauletto S. Hug D. Barrass S. and Luckhurst M. (2009) Integrating Theatrical Strategies into Sonic Interaction Design, in the Proceedings of the AudioMostly Conference on Interaction with Sound, September 2-3, Glasgow Caledonian University.

YeastLur

stephenbarrass — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:54:43 +0000

Statue of Lur players in the main square of Copenhagen

This sonification was designed for the Sonification contest at ICAD 2009 in Copenhagen.

Here is a 3 minute excerpt from the 20 minute piece generated from a Yeast gene. This excerpt contains a segment of junk followed by non-junk.

This sonification explores the intersection of functional and aesthetic aspects of sonification. The functional design uses an emergent motif to signify the start codon. The aesthetic design includes the choice of the Lur (a Viking instrument), and the introduction of pauses for musical effect modelled on a piece of Lur music composed and played by Odd Sylvarnes Lund.

The Lur is a large curved horn the size and shape of a mammoth’s tusk. As you can see from the famous statue in the main square in Copenhagen, the Vikings played two together in left and right pairs.

Non-junk (intron) regions of DNA start with the sequence ATG (start codon), and end with one of TAG, TAA, or TGA (stop codons). The notes for each DNA element were chosen so that the sequence ATG is a downward fanfare. This fanfare is played 3 times at the start so you can listen for it in the rest of the piece. However you must pay attention because it only occurs once on the bondary between the extron and the intron. As C does not appear in start or stop codons it has been given a very low note that falls outside the motifs formed by the other elements.

Made with samples from the Lur composition, Python for data processing, csound for audio rendering, and Audacity for post-production.

Secret Men’s Music

stephenbarrass — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:34:27 +0000

Secret Men’s Musik! was composed for The Door Project concert at ICMC 2001 in Havannah, Cuba.

The rhythm is an Abakua played at Secret Men’s Society meetings in Africa/Cuba. The samples come from recordings of a door in the Men’s toilets during the ICMC conference in Berlin the previous year.

Anny in the Kitchen

stephenbarrass — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:32:43 +0000

Anny in the Kitchen

This Sound Track was designed for a scene from “The New Anny” by Martin Crimp (Crimp, M., Martin Crimp: Plays, Faber and Faber, p. 234). It was composed for the COST-SID Workshop on Sonic Interaction Design and Theatre in York in May 2009. The design for the piece was inspired by the French poetic techniques of Oulipo and Ourapo which employ constraints as generative processes.

Sound Design Approach
—————————–
This piece was originally an auditory sketch of a piece to be performed by a female actor using kitchen implements and appliances to produce the sound effects live on stage, in parallel with a radio that appears to be playing the music and verbal script as part of a domestic scene.

The play describes Anny through 20 scenes which include her friends and lovers, but Anny herself is never seen. The scene is a spoof car advertisement that describes Anny in the exotic/erotic marketing terms.

The literal audio imagery in the script was translated into the sounds of domestic activity in a kitchen. This is an asynchronous diegetic device that makes Annies audio world the world of the story, whilst the narrators non-diegetic voice is on the radio and tangentially connected through syntagmatic ‘coincidences’, puns, similarities and contrasts.

This asynchronous approach was inspired by Rene Clair’s manifesto on film sound which states that all sound in the cinema should be from objects and elements that are not visible on the screen. Likewise all the sounds in this piece are coming from a place that is parallel to the script.

The design also draws on the Ourapo movement in which constraints or rules become generative devices for radio based sound works http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ourapo.

In this case the rule was to identify verb/noun pairs, and then replace the noun with a kitchen implement, whilst using the verb to modify the sound.

—————————–
Technical Production

The script was converted by Text to Speech using the Apple-Vikki voice.
The music was then generated from the spoken version using Microsoft Songsmith on the Techno setting.
All verbs in the script were coloured orange and all nouns were coloured green.
The kitchen sounds were labelled as verb-nouns.
The verbs in the script were then matched against verbs in the kitchen sound samples.
The piece was then composed using Audacity free and open sound editor.

Sound Script Ourapo

Rule:
Substitute
adver-verb / adjective-noun

label pairs in text.
name soundfiles as verb-nouns.

use the verb in the text to select the verb in the soundfile.
apply adverbs to create scales.

- The car twists along the Mediterranean road
twist-cork.mp3
- it hugs the bends between the picturesque hillside villages
pour-soda
- the sun gleams and the wind whistles on the aerodynamic body.
gleam/fizz-soda
- The aerodynamic body of the new Anny.
aero/bubbles
- We see the new Anny snake (change of gear) along between the red-tiled Mediterranean rooftops.
clink-ice
- fast
clink-ice
- sleek
stir-ice
- free
stir-ice
- we now understand that the new Anny comes with electric windows as standard
slow-blender
- we now understand that the Anny comes with driver’s and passanger’s airbag as standard
speed1-blender
- we now understand that the Anny comes with incredibly secure seat belts
speed2-blender
- we now understand that the Anny comes with fine windscreen wipers
speed3-blender
- we now understand that all the things other manufacturers offer as extras…
speed4-blender
- …are offered on the Anny as standard
speed5-blender
- Air-conditioning
max-blender
- Interactive video games
beep-phone
- And a mobile phone
beep-phone
- We understand that our children will be safe and happy in the back seat of the Anny
off-blender
- just as the adults will be relaxed and confident at the wheel
pickup-phone
- Happy
slow-chop-celery
- Secure
med-chop-celery
- In control
- The Anny skims the white beaches of the world
skim-pan
- as easily as she parks outside the halogen-lit shoe shops of the great cities
light-gas
- When we arrive at our destination in the Anny…
finish-chopping
- …we will always be embraced by good-looking men and good-looking women
light-cigarette, light cigarette
- we will not be betrayed
open-door
- tortured
crush-can
- or shot
bang-door
- the two-litre Anny achieves excellent mileage in the simulated urban cycle…
perk-coffee
- … and is also available in disel
more-perk-coffee
- As a testimony to our ongoing concern for a cleaner, greener, environment…
wash-hands
- …there are no filthy people in the Anny
drain-sink
- not in Anny nor in the sun-filled landscapes through which the Anny drives.
perk-coffee
- No one in the Anny lies cheats or steals
spray-cleaner
- Dirty bastards
spray-pests
- Gangsters
spray-pests
- Motherfuckers
spray-pests
- We understand that zero percent finance is available
- But hurry
sweep-floor
- Since this is a limited offer
slow-sweep-floor
- The Anny cross the Brooklin Bridge
- the claxon making everybody happy
- The Anny crosses the Sahara
- The Anny streaks with the hood down through the vineyeards of Bordeaux
pop-cork
- The Anny streaks at dawn through North African villages…
- Fast
pour-soda
- Sleek
fizz-soda
- Free
bubble-soda
- …where the veiled women can only gaze with wonder at the immaculate rustprotected paintwork with its five year warranty
- no one ever packs the Anny with explosives to achieve a political objective
program-microwave, close door
- no one is ever dragged from the Anny by an enraged mob
small print
- on the road price includes VAT, number plates, delivery and six months’ road
fund licence
- financial packages subject to status
- smoking can harm your unborn child
- your house is at risk if you do not keep up the repayments on the loan
beep-microwave