Author: Debbie Agboola

Prior to this reading, I had never considered how meditation could be linked to activism. I found it very interesting how Pauline Oliveros considered her Sonic Meditations ‘humanitarian’, and initially, I was confused by this idea. But towards the end of the reading, the author mentioned how Oliveros participated in second-wave feminism’s idea that ‘the personal is political’. This reminded me of a Transnational Feminisms class that I took a year ago, where I learnt that the world treats women’s bodies as the vessels upon which nations are built. What a women can and cannot do with her body is what defines each country’s national identity.

With this in mind, Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations has a powerful goal and a lasting message, which is to help women become more in tune with their bodies and to use it to listen to the world around them. I particularly found the following quote interesting: “Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears”. It challenges us to change the way we use our bodies on a daily basis, and to be more sensitive to the things happening around us, which could manifest from merely being personal to being political. Oliveros also challenges the restrictions that society puts on the ways we are allowed to move our bodies, which I find especially powerful.

This reading discusses how boundaries between different art forms being broken down in the 1960s allowed artists to create art that had a wider reach. Musicians were also picking up the paintbrush and vice versa. However, it did not stop at people becoming interdisciplinary. Artist-musicians were combining sounds and visuals in one performance, much like we do in our Live Coding class. The reading uses the word ‘synesthesia’ to describe this phenomenon. Synesthesia refers to when you experience one sense through another, for example, hearing shapes or tasting sound. It really is a beautiful way to create art. Rather than just painting a picture, why not combine visuals with sounds and paint what you see? In a way, I believe that human beings have been a little bit Synesthetic (is that a word?) since the beginning of time. What I mean by this is, when we hear music, we have certain colours we associate with the type of sounds we are listening to. For instance, when I listen to an upbeat pop song, I might envision bright colours alongside it such as pink, yellow, orange etc. If I go to a heavy metal concert, I will expect to see darker visuals.

Synesthesia is an important thing to consider when I create my Live Coding projects, such as what visuals best complement the sounds I am creating. The music and the visuals should not be treated as separate things, but as one new art form.

Idea

For my composition, I decided to compose a piece inspired by Rick and Morty (because I’ve been watching it a lot lately). I wanted the visuals to be very colourful (primarily green and blue because these are the colours that stick out the most to me in the show), and I wanted to make the sounds be reminiscent of the theme song as well as the overall hectic vibe of the show.

Sounds

I included two different types of sounds for my composition: a harsher, more chaotic compilation of sounds that are inspired by the first few seconds of the Rick and Morty theme song.

After the beat drop, I included a more musical composition that reminds me of the chorus of the theme song.

I was also inspired by Professor’s washing machine composition, so I chopped up a sound bite from the show and tried to make a beat from it.

Visuals

The visuals are a combination of colourful patterns and images of Rick embedded into the shaders. I’ve added an example below:

Evaluation

Overall, I had a lot of fun completing this project, despite the fact that I found it quite challenging creating a cohesive composition. If I had more time to work on this project, I would try to make the composition resemble a full Rick and Morty episode, such as including a conflict/fight scene and a resolution at the end.

Here is the link to watch my composition: https://youtu.be/m9Rry4Msyqk

Tidal

-- start
-- portal

d1 $ loopAt 4 $ qtrigger 3 $ slow 2 $ s "superpiano" <| n "g@3 as a c f ds d@3 ~@5 g@3 as a c6 f6 ds6 d6@3 ~@5" # room 10 # krush 30 # legato 2
d2 $ loopAt 4 $ qtrigger 4 $ slow 2 $ s "superpiano" <| n "g3@3 as3 a3 c3 f3 ds3 d3@3 ~@5 g3@3 as3 a3 c4 f4 ds4 d4@3 ~@5" # room 10 # krush 30 # legato 2
d3 $ loopAt 4 $ qtrigger 5 $ slow 2 $ s "superpiano" <| n "g6@3 as6 a6 c6 f6 ds6 d6@3 ~@5 g6@3 as6 a6 c7 f7 ds7 d7@3 ~@5" # room 10 # krush 30 # legato 3

-- FIRST AND SECOND VISUAL SOUNDS
d9 $ qtrigger 9 $ fast 2 $ "<lt:2,lt:1 lt:8> lt:4 lt:10 ~" <| n "<c d a b> g as f" # gain 2 # room 10
-- first visual
d4 $ ccv (segment 68 (range 127 60 saw)) # ccn "0" # s "midi"
-- second visual
d5 $ ccv "2 10 50 100" # ccn "1" # s "midi"

-- THIRD VISUAL SOUNDS

d3 $ qtrigger 3 $ stack [
s "~ cp" # room 0.5,
fast 8 $ slice 16 "15" $ s "riggity*2 riggity*2 riggity*2 <hh*6 [hh*2]!3>" # room 0.7 # gain (range 1 1.2 rand)
] # speed (slow 2 (range 1 2 saw)) # room 5

d5 $ ccv "~ 0 <1 2 1.5?> 0" # ccn "2" # s "midi"

--Build (third visual)

do{
d1 silence;
d2 silence;
d3 silence;
d4 silence;
d5 silence;
d2 $ qtrigger 2 $ seqP[
(0, 1, s "mash2*2"),
(1, 2, s "mash2*4"),
(2, 3, s "mash2*8"),
(3, 4, s "mash2"),
(3, 4, s "riggity" # speed 1.5)
] # room 10 # gain 5}

-- change colour of rick (third visual)
d4 $ ccv "1 0" # ccn "3" # s "midi"

-- end
d7 $ qtrigger 2 $ slow 2 $ s "hit" <| n "g ~ as a c f ds d" # room 2
d8 $ qtrigger 1 $ slow 2 $ s "hoover" <| n "g ~ as a c6 f6 ds6 d6" # room 2
d9 $ slice 16 "15 1 5 6" $ slow 2 $ s "riggity" # room 2 # krush 5
d6 $ fast 2 $ "<juno:11, juno:10, invaders>"

-- finale
d3 $ s "show ~" # room 4

d9 silence
d2 silence
d1 silence
d3 silence
hush

Hydra

osc(10,()=>cc[0]/10000)
.color(2, 255, 0)
.posterize( [1, 5, 15, 100] , 0.5)
.colorama(0.005,0.33,0.66,1.0)
.layer(src(s1).rotate(1).scale( ()=>Math.sin(time/6.2)*.12+.15 ))
.layer(osc(15).rotate( ({time}) => time%360 ).luma(0.7,0.7).color(0,0,10))
// .add(osc(200))
// .luma(.99)
// .modulateRotate(voronoi(()=>cc[0], 1, 100))
.out()

osc((()=>cc[1]*500), 0, 10)
// .layer(src(s1).rotate(1).scale( ()=>Math.sin(time/6.2)*.12+.15 ))
// .layer(src(s0).scale(0.2).rotate(1))
// .colorama( ({time})=> Math.sin(time/5) )
// .colorama( ({time})=> Math.sin(time/5) )
.repeat(()=>cc[0],0.5)
.color(2, 255, 0)
.rotate(0, -0.08)
.modulateRotate(o1, 0.4).out(o0)
osc(33).rotate(2, 0.8)
.modulateRotate(o0, () => (a.fft[0]*2))
.add(osc(200)
.luma(.99)
.color(1, 0, 1)
.modulateRotate(voronoi(400, 1, 10)))
.out(o1)

//LOAD IMAGE
basePath1 = “/Users/debbie/Desktop/CompositionPics/rick2.png”
basePath2 = “/Users/debbie/Desktop/CompositionPics/rick.png”
s1.initImage(basePath1)
s2.initImage(basePath2)

shape(5,0.1,1)
.rotate( ({time}) => time%360 * 2 )
.posterize( [10, 15, 30] , 0.5 )
.invert(()=>ccActual[3])
.repeat(10.0, 10.0, 0.5, 0.0)
.color(1,0,3)
.mult(src(s1).thresh(0.3).rotate(()=>ccActual[2]))
.invert(()=>ccActual[3])
// .scale( ()=>Math.sin(time/6.2)*.12+.15 )
.add(osc(200)
.luma(.99)
.color(1, 0, 1)
.modulateRotate(voronoi(400, 1, 10)))
.out(o0)

hush()

Screen Recording 2022-09-19 at 10.05.52 Screen Recording 2022-09-19 at 09.54.29

Praxis Live is a hybrid live visual programming platform that uses both Java and Processing to code visuals and audio. It is node-based so that users have easy access to important pieces of code, and it also has real-time processing.

To get started with using Praxis Live, I downloaded example projects. I experimented with ‘Funky Origami’, ‘Smoky 3D’, ‘Circles’ and ‘Mouse Drawing’. One good thing about this platform is that you can make changes to the project in real-time once you save. The node-based system also allows you to easily make changes without changing code. Though, you can edit the code for more detailed changes.

Praxis Live would be a very good choice for a live coding performance, due to the easily accessible code through the nodes, which also makes everything much easier for the audience to understand.

“I consider randomness a relativistic phenomenon: any signal, no matter how internally consistent or meaningful it is within its own context, may be perceived as random noise relative to some other coherent signal.”

In this reading, the author delves into the topic of music composition and randomness, and makes us question whether musical composition even exists. The author argues that randomness is relative, and that any sound, if placed in a different context, can be considered random sound. I am not convinced by this argument. Firstly, I do not believe that random, unpredictable sounds make a ‘composition’ more musical. I believe that all music has meaning, and if a series of random sounds are arranged together, there is no meaning behind it and therefore it is not music.

“Live coding has a reputation for being cerebral and over technical, but in reality, at least when compared to other software based approaches, the immediacy of results fosters spontaneous thought”

This particular quote from the reading stood out to me. I believe that the art of live coding lies in its unpredictable and dynamic nature. The performer writes a line of code which produces a result, and builds upon this result to produce sounds and visuals that are constantly changing. The performer can go into the live coding performance with a goal in mind, but there is no guaranteeing that everything will go perfectly as planned. This is a huge contrast to other forms of coding where the most important part is the final result, as opposed to live coding, where the process is just as important.

“There is no such confusion with live coding, there is a human clearly visible, making all the creative decisions and using source code as an artistic medium”

The author also touches on the idea of human live coders being replaced by software creative agents. I believe the most important part of live coding is the human aspect – the possibility of making mistakes, dynamic thought, personalised workspaces and so on all contribute to the artistic nature of live coding. Without the human, live coding ceases being creative. The process no longer matters and only the end result is judged.