Category: Fall 22

Group Members: Aalya, Alia, Xinyue, Yeji

Inspiration

Each of us brought a few visuals and sound samples together. Then we tried to adjust the parameters and midi so that the theme of the visuals and sounds matched with each other.
Who did what:

  • Tidal: Aalya and Alia
  • Hydra: Xinyue and Yeji

Project Progress

Tidal Process

  • First, we played around with the different audio samples in the “dirt samples” library and tested out code from the default samples table on the documentation on the official Tidal website.
  • We then mixed and matched several combinations and eliminated everything that didn’t sound as appealing as we wanted it to be.
  • As Yeji and Xinyue were working on the visuals on the same flok, we listened to all of the various soundtracks as we took the visuals into account and were able to narrow down all our ideas into one singular theme.
    We had a lot of samples that we thought worked well together, but we were lacking structure in our track, so that was the next step when working on the project.
  • We broke down the composition into four sections: Intro, Phase 1, Phase 2, and Ending.
  • After that, it was just about layering the audio in a way that sounded appealing and that transitioned smoothly. We were trying to figure out what sounds would be used when transitioning into a new section and what parts would be silenced. It was all about finding the balance and a matter of putting together tracks that worked well with the visuals and complimented them.


Hydra Process

  • We started with a spinning black and white image bounded by a circle shape. Our inspiration comes from the old-fashioned black-and-white movie.
  • We modified the small circle by adding Colorama, which introduces noise
  • .luma() introduced a cartoon effect to the circle, and reduced the airy outlines
  • The three other outputs depended on the o0 as the source.
  • We added an oscillation effect on top of the original source and added cc to create a slowly moving oscillating effect that goes with the music.
  • Then, the scale was minimized for a zoom-out effect as the intensity of the music built up.
  • For the final output, the color was intensified, along with another scale-down effect, before introducing a loophole effect that transitioned back into o0 for the ending scene.

Evaluation and Challenges

  • Some of the challenges that we encountered during the development process of the performance were coordinating a time that worked for everyone and making sure that our ideas were communicated with each other to ensure that everyone was on the same page.
  • Another issue we had was that the cc values were not reflected properly, or in the same way for everyone, which resulted in inconsistent visual outputs that weren’t in sync with the audio.
  • Something that worked very well was the distribution of work. Every part of the project was taken care of so that we had balanced visual and sound elements.

This is the recorded video of our project:

Louis:

  I am basically taking charge of the music part of the drum circle project. Because I knew before that the process of making the drum circle on Garageband is well visualized, which can help the team to make a good beat more easily, I chose to use Garageband. The process was really fun as I also enjoyed listening to my works when making them. 

Eventually, I chose one of the works: 

d2 $ s "hh*8" # gain 1.2

d3 $ fast 2 $ s "feel [~ feel] feel [feel ~]" # gain 1.2

d4 $ fast 4 $ s "~!4 808:3 ~!3"

d5 $ fast 2 $ whenmod 4 2 ( # s "hardcore:11 ~ hardcore:11/2 ~!4") $ fast 4 $ s "[hardcore:11 ~!3]!2" # gain 1.5

  These sounds remind me of the game music in the arcades back in the old days. After letting all of the members in our group listen to the samples, Shengyang and I started to make them in Tidalcycle. Thanks to the visualized beat pattern, it was much easier for us to know how the rhythm is like, which helped us to eventually make the music. 

 

Debbie:

  For the Drum Circle assignment, Louis, Shenyang, and I split the work into three parts: Tidal, Hydra, and P5. I was responsible for creating the P5 visuals, which we decided we would use as the base visual that any other hydra visuals would be added onto.

  I approached this by creating a very simple visual of overlapping circles. Then, I added some noise to each circle so they wouldn’t be static. Finally, in line with the colour scheme (pinks, purples, light greens and blues), I used the ‘random’ function to add variation to the colours of the circle:
  You can find the schematic gif here

  

 

Shengyang:

  Based on the p5 visuals made by Debbie, I made some hydra effects to make the dot matrix flow.

The codes with effects are below:

dot matrix 1

 

//swirls
src(s1).modulate(noise(()=>cc[16]*10,2).luma(0.1)).out()
 
//deeper colour
src(s1).modulate(noise().pixelate()).colorama(1).out()
​
//70s vibe
src(o1).modulatePixelate(noise(()=>cc[17],0.1)).out()
 
//falling circles
src(s1).diff(noise(1, .5).mult(osc(10, 0, 10)).pixelate(.09)).luma(0.9).out()
​
//ending visual
src(s1).blend(src(o0).diff(s0).scale(.99),1.1).modulatePixelate(noise(2,0.01)
    .pixelate(16,16),1024).out()

 

I found this reading very fascinating and relatable. It reminded me of this class I took in New York on Dance, Theatre, and Performance and we practiced a lot of Kinetic Awareness in it. Oliveros’s list reminded me of the lists we had in class:

  1. Feel your breadth. Dance to it. With eyes open and close. 
  2. Humm your name. Make it a ritual. React to it. 
  3. Hear your thoughts. That is the music you will perform to.
  4. Stand in a circle facing outward. Each of you has to sit, but no two together. Listen to each other. No talking. 

The idea of these practices was to “tune our mind and body” as Oliveros says. We learned in class to listen to ourselves and our surroundings, and become more aware and sensitive to the little things that go unnoticed. My teacher said, “You have to listen, listen carefully before you perform; become aware.” It was like practicing mindfulness and it was therapeutic! So yes, I agree with Oliveros’s saying, “Listening is healing.” She also says, “Listening is directing attention to what is heard, gathering meaning, interpreting and deciding on action.” I jumped when I read this. It is so true; I have tried this. This is what we practiced in our class in New York with those small exercises. We not just listened, but heard, gathered meaning, and interpreted our surroundings and ourselves before we performed. 

What I did not realize was how opening the inner body and mind to the outer world could lead to activism. I was really intrigued by the line “personal is political”. Once you know yourself and your surroundings, you can raise a voice for what is right and wrong and take a stand. Reading this article was inspiring!

Sonic meditations seem to have a healing power not just in artistic evidence, but in psychology research, too. I recently read a paper called “Why Robots Can’t Haka” that cites that activities like dancing, playing music, or humming together improve collective well-being, and that it will be difficult — if not impossible — to replicate that with robots and A.I.

Listening as a fully embodied pursuit, sensory awareness, and Tai Chi all made me think of the mindfulness benefits that come with being in nature or exercising. When I meditate, I find I am able to observe the environment more acutely, appreciating what’s happening outside but also within. Taking a pause from everything around me and thus honing my intuition and self-empowerment is perhaps what the author describes as activism.

Kinetic awareness is also something I was taught in a theatre class at NYUAD. We were regularly performing breathing and listening (to body) exercises to release pressure and let go of external thoughts. This sounds rather abstract, but in practice, it made a big difference. 

In terms of arts and interactive media, this made me think of Janet Cardiff and her projects with audio and sound narration. In 2005, she presented an audio walk in Central Park, that takes the listener on a journey in the middle of Manhattan:

Janet Cardiff’s Her Long Black Hair is a 35-minute journey that begins at Central Park South and transforms an everyday stroll in the park into an absorbing psychological and physical experience. Cardiff takes each listener on a winding journey through Central Park’s 19th-century pathways, retracing the footsteps of an enigmatic dark-haired woman.

Listening has great power, and somehow it is difficult to describe that in words. One must feel that first.

I had read some of Oliveros’s Meditations before for a class, however, I really appreciate that the reading gave some context as to how the exercises came to be. I would never have taught of creating music as a way to practice healing and meditation through active listening. For me music usually is the result of some sort of meditative process: the composer goes through some sort of realization or feeling that in turn is used as inspiration for music. But Oliveros saw making music as an inspiration for meditation, which is something that flipped in my head.

It was also interesting to see how this practice of Sonic Meditation created communities. We talked before in class about drum circles and about live coding communities, so music as a means to create community kind of a recurrent theme in our readings. However, this specific method is not only a result of political situations that people wanted to discuss but rather an exercise in learning how to listen to these situations and topics. This act of listening then leads towards a communal healing process which I found fascinating.

Oliveros mentions when talking about accepting others, especially minorities that “Healing can occur… when one’s inner experience is made manifest and accepted by others”. Throughout the reading, we come back to this idea of learning to actively listen to a performance, and this is something very important for the audience to do. Oliveros makes a point of how healing and meditation require an audience. It can be just one individual for the initial stages but then grows into developing an audience that must learn how to listen. Her techniques empower individuals to speak up when they are ready and explain to the audience how to engage with what they are listening to. Her philosophy promotes the type of audience needed for a communal healing process: an audience who actively listens.

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.

“Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.”

I think this is one of the most interesting forms of sonic meditation mentioned in the article. Because sounds are vibrations, that means we can hear them through touch, like feeling a phone vibrate on a table. I imagine that walking (barefoot?) at night, in a quiet neighbourhood, the vibrations from the different sounds can be felt through the feet. These vibrations may even be something that our ears can’t hear which I think is an interesting way to give more perspective of the things happening around us even the things we don’t necessarily hear or see. It is interesting how she combined different senses together in her meditation. I also think this is why there was a blur between her musical work and bodywork and why her meditations were so effective.

 

Oliveros described listening as a necessary pause before thoughtful action. A thoughtful action can only be taken when we fully understand and acknowledge what is happening around us. She thought of taking a moment to listen as more important than simply taking action. Through her mediations, Oliveros was not only able to empower women through music, but she was also able to bring them peace during a difficult time. I found the article to be inspiring in some way as there is still much to learn from her sonic and kinetic meditations.