tom ainslie

i’ve got a nice big box of things to use for the interface. i’m thinking the interface will resemble a dashboard to a certain degree. i have the hood of a tractor (Charger 2.2) that will be the face of the interface.

i’m going to try and shy away from using analog controls just because my Pcomp skills are amateurish at best, and digital switches will be a lot easier to deal with. this will probably mean that loop points will need to be pre-programmed into the max patch.

i think this is the best idea for the first iteration of the project… keep it simple and make it work, and then if i have time i can maybe mess with some analog controls and possibly be able to dynamically create looppoints within the clips.

i’ll be spending a nice chunk of the next two days cleaning the dirt off the objects i collected. while i’m doing this i’ll be able to examine them more closely and see what could be useful for my interface.

already i’m liking:
the ignition component of a motorboat (two way push-button)
seatbelts (switches, click shut and open)
blowtorch flint (squeeze)
keyboard part of the typewriter
rearview mirror (aesthetically pleasing)

i need a timeline. gotta budget the precious hours between now and the end of the semester. list of things to do:

clean off junk
decide which junk to use
begin working on patch
figure out how to incorporate high res video into Jitter
tighten up sequences that will serve as mixing material.
WRITE SOMETHING OF SUBSTANCE!
i think i’ll break the paper up into chapters. that’ll make it easier for me to think about what to write.

the results are pretty nice, and the goods will arrive in NYC by the end of the weekend.

On Monday I couldn’t find anyone to go explore the Packard Plant with me, so I decided to suck it up and go by myself. I’d only seen two people in there before, and they didn’t seem to be looking for any trouble, so I told my nerves to shut up and drove down to east Detroit. The ground was covered with snow and there were no footprints leading into the window I had designated as the entry point, so I went in this way once again. I donned my headlamp and moseyed nervously into the darkness, ultra sensitive to every noise I heard. I walked up a darkened staircase to the 2nd floor, through a few corridors, and then over the catwalk that bridges the north and south sections of the factory. Once on the north side I found a staircase and went up to the 4th floor, where I remembered the abandoned piano to be. Before I reached the piano I noticed one of the side areas had a number of huge icicles hanging from the ceiling. It looked real purty. I came across the truck we had found in December and I tried to pry the heating console out of the dashboard, but I was making a ridiculous amount of noise that echoed up and down the passageways. Paranoia set in, and I decided that making lots of noise was a bad idea. I then found the piano and encountered the same problem: every time I tried to remove the keys from it, the noise would reverberate up and down the length of the corridor I was in. I decided to leave the piano for later and venture a little further. I found some more trucks in an area not too far away. One dump truck and one icecream van looking thing offered up some nice plundering possibilities. But once again I couldn’t deal with making a lot of noise, and decided to collect what I could in a quiet manner and take it back to the car.

I came out of there with an electric typewriter, a rotary phone, some cord handles for lawnmower ignitions, rubber cords, eyeglasses, blowtorch flint, a little rubber tire, and some other stuff. Two guys in a Detroit Water Dept. truck had a good laugh at me when I threw all this shit out the window and climbed out right in front of them. Then I drove back to my parents’ house and made plans for the next day.

Tuesday I enlisted the help of Lasse. He was a busy man, so we arrived at the Packard Plant at about 8:15am. We climbed in my favorite window and ventured up to the same area of the 4th floor on the north side of the factory. Along with my other tools, I also brought a sledgehammer which proved to come in quite handy. I was able to remove a number of dashboard components to both trucks and boats with buttons and knobs that could be used for the interface. I also removed several square feet of semi-clear construction tarps that I thought might be useful as projection material, as well as some seatbelts, some toys, a hubcap, and other things that I can’t remember at the moment.

Overall it was a productive few days in Detroit, and as long as I force myself to think resourcefully, I’ll have all the makings of a good interface.

this list will be added to as i think of things. all items are to be searched for while home in detroit.

1. piano components —–> lasse and i found an old busted up piano on the third floor of the packard plant. we will return, and we will plunder.

2. foot pedal type things —-> possible from the piano. otherwise search elsewhere.

3. curtain or other suitable projection material.

4. picture frames

5. record player —–> there was one in an old pawn shop in Highland Park

6. knobby things

7. button things

8. old radio or television (probably not gonna happen)

matthew herbert’s PCCOM manifesto is very interesting. he has built a framework of self-imposed rules within which he composes his music, and as a result of these limitations he feels (and so do i) that his end products are more original.

so i’m gonna write up a manifesto with regards to my thesis/NIME project.

1. all surface level interface components will be salvaged from abandoned spaces.
2. all sounds will be samples from the actual environments. no extra sounds will be added.
3. maybe this manifesto will be shorter than i thought

to help build a solid presentation (thanks sita):

1. what got you started? ( inspiration, problem, opportunity)
the theme of the detroit landscape as a creative influence has been brewing in my mind since high school when i would journey into the city on weekends to go to underground electronic music parties (often held in abandoned factories and warehouses). blah blah blah this part’s already been written to death. the concept of building a live performance out of documentary video footage has been in my mind longer than i’ve given it credit for. i recently read through some of my old papers from undergrad where i’m speculating about a future medium in which the (musical) artist gives much of the control to the listener through a new format that allows the listener to assemble the musical elements on the fly, effectively creating a new experience through each listening. i had this idea in late 2001, and here’s 2005 and i’m applying the concept to video documentary.

2. what hurdles are you facing? (what you need to get done by your presentation)

the biggest hurdle at the moment is that i don’t know what my interface is going to look like. i know that i’m going to embed sensors in found objects from abandoned locations, but i don’t know what these objects will be yet, or how they will relate to one another in a gestural/musical fashion. at the moment i’m imagining a somewhat smallish cabinet that will house the items and still afford enough space to hide all the circuitry somewhere. i suppose this is sort of a pipe dream if i stick to my rule of using only found/abandoned objects.

3. what class of problem is it?
i don’t know. i guess i don’t really understand what this question means, but i guess i’ll write something…. the problem i’m trying to deal with is that of making a dynamic experience out of viewing documentary. in the current methods of display, the documentary is what it is each and every time it is viewed, and as a result the viewer has little incentive to watch it more than once. however, if the documentary varies every time, the user will have more incentive to return to it, and as a result he or she will engage with the subject matter that much more.

4. What else is out there? How is yours different?
there are a lot of vj’s performing these days, mixing visuals to an audio cue. but so far i haven’t come across anything too similar to what i’m envisioning, both in terms of interface and the idea of creating a documentary experience in a live context. or maybe i’m just a lazy, narcissistic researcher.

5. Statement “I think its possible to [x]“
I think it’s possible to create a documentary experience with variations unique to each specific instance of viewing. The challenge of something like this is to stay true to the thematic elements of the content, and not to let the subject matter be lost to the form in which it is presented. Technically, I don’t think it will be overwhelmingly difficult to build a system that allows a user to build visual compositions based on a concept of musical inputs. I do, however, think it will be difficult to keep a steady theme when the user is given the power of assembly.

6. Extensibility – future //specific examples
In the future I’m seeing this project as an exhibit/installation. I’m currently keeping my eyes open for museums and galleries in the Detroit area that might be interested in this. Also, I plan to research for grants and funders and see who might like to pay some cash to help me continue with this project or another similar idea. Also, it would be nice to apply this framework to other subjects if it works out well.

i bought a plane ticket back to detroit for part of the spring break. i’ll explore some abandoned buildings yet again, this time with an eye open for interface components.

the more i think about my interface with the found objects, the more i feel like i’m ripping off Cassandra’s idea. i’m not down with ripping people off, but at the same time i feel the concept of using found objects is very thematically strong in the context of my project. so i think i’ll try to chat with her a bit and also see what i can do to make mine a little more unique. the tabletop approach to laying the objects out is what’s bothering me most as far as similarities between our ideas go….. anyways, just want to make sure i don’t thieve the ideas that her cerebrum cultivates and creates (that last sentence ripped off a song by Latyrx.)

the purpose of this assignment was to learn After Effects. i utilized some scanned doodles from last semester that i had originally intended to incorporate into my Dynamic Web Development final.

overall, this ain’t the best, but i got better at After Effects (i still need to mess around with the 3D layering though.)

check it

the footage has it, and so should the interface.
something to keep in mind…

the interface has been an ongoing brain fart, but the one idea that i’ve kept returning to has been that of using the physical objects found while exploring detroit. this idea seems to work best thematically in relation to the video footage, and while it might not be a universal interface/controller, it will be a useful experiment and hopefully add to the strength of the documentary.

some of the objects include:
baby doll (plastic)—–> check out the animation i made with it
afro pick w. black power fist and peace sign
many photographs (put some of them in frames, which will allow for embedded sensors)
silver ring/bracelet thing
food stamps
old cassette tapes (tony toni tone, stevie wonder)
old VHS tape
old 16mm film reel

object i found in nyc: old answering machine

i’m thinking that these objects could be layed out on a table in a sort of exhibit fashion. the objects could be attached to certain sensors that will trigger audio/visual reactions.

heather made a good point about the interface with regards to users understanding it. since most of these objects aren’t conventional controllers, it will likely be the case that many people wouldn’t consider trying to manipulate them. she suggested that maybe some more conventional knobs and buttons be included in the interface design. perhaps an old radio or something like that.

right now i’m imagining it as a hybrid residential/industrial table setting.

heather also stressed that i consider how the video is going to be shown in relation to the interface. i tossed out the idea of an old television, and she wasn’t too hot on that because she’s seen it done before, which is true. texture came up and we discussed a presentation method that would be on top of a textured material…. maybe cinder blocks or something similar. hopefully something equally cool and not as heavy.

last friday i ventured down to canal street to check out some of the hardware stores, electronics shops, and plastics stores. there was a lot of interesting stuff, and i remembered the locations of a few of the stores, but there wasn’t really anything that jumped out and grabbed me as the ultimate interace. however, there were numerous lighted buttons and that kind of thing that i might go back and pick up.

stop watching television
only dvd’s

director’s series, res supplements, liquid television for starters

television remote
light switches
light dimmers
television dials

to do: go to Canal St and scrounge around

that’s where i’m at… can’t seem to figure out what i should be doing now.

over the weekend i’ve been going through the many many many gigs of detroit footage and logging all the video and sound information. this’ll help me to get reorganized and also i’ll be able to refamiliarize myself with the content.

at a point where thinking about the thesis has hit an impasse, so i take that as a sign to just start making things for a little bit. hopefully this will serve to stimulate my creativity a little bit.

also, i need to get back into the world of jitter and start thinking about how i’d like patches to work. and another key issue for me is that of image and sound quality, and this is not on of jitter’s strong points. i know that you can cheat the processor a little bit by rendering the video through OpenGL, but i haven’t actually done this yet and i’ll need to spend time figuring it out.

i’m tired.

http://www.massmoca.org/

gideon stressed that it is probably a good idea to keep the audio married to the image it comes with in the video footage. he then said that the interesting part of performing with this would be to figure out a way to shuffle and skip to the desired areas of sound.

i’m liking this idea, and it’s making me think that i should create some montages with this in mind. so i’ll put together a few strings of video clips that have the most interesting sounds, and these can serve as compositional fodder.

So I proposed my NIME idea in class today, and a few interesting ideas for an interface came out of it.

Idea #1 (sponsored by Lasse Bergfeld): use the physical found items from the locations as musical controllers. I guess this would entail having the assortment of items set up on a table, and each one possessing a different musical value. Interesting idea, although it would probably mean I would need to return to Detroit some time during the semester.

Idea #2 (sponsored by Gideon D’Arcangelo): take an old linear video editing board complete with the shuttle wheels and all those fun analog buttons, and try to make a composition with that.

A general consensus was that I should avoid manipulating the sounds from the locations as much as possible, since I’m trying to stay true to the spirit of exploring the abandoned structures in the first place.

Week 3 and 4 assignment. Made with Mel Camero.
check it

i’m sorry i haven’t written, but i swear i’ve been thinking about you a lot. it’s just that i’m at a point where i’m afraid to commit. it’s not your fault, it’s mine.

so i’m getting back into a slightly older idea that kind of involved my obsession with a choose-your-own-adventure horror movie. the roots of my project will definitely be industrial decay in detroit. however, i’d like it to be presented in a way that will allow for variations from one viewing to the next.

this idea, along with the idea of sampling video footage from the locations i visited, has led me to explore the possibility of combining my thesis project with my New Interfaces For Musical Expression class.

so idea: create an exhibit/installation/thing that a user can approach and play with. it’ll be an instrument of sorts, so playing with the interface will yield immediate aural results. and the music will decide the video.

basically at this point i’m thinking it’ll work by having different elements of the video coincide with different audio tracks.

the drum beat is the structure of the song, so empty corridors and other images of the buildings (physical structures) themselves will react to the drums.

the bass is more often than not another component of the rhythm section, filling out the foundation of a song. so visually, the left-behind items and artifacts from the buildings can coincide with the bass.

i associate melody with the emotion of a song, and visually the melody will be associated with the found video and film footage, the memories of the inhabitants.

i know i’m not explaining this too clearly at the moment, but that’s about the clarity with which i’m currently looking at it.

full interview here

Shadow: Yea I mean I am interested in sample culture as well. Sample culture is an extension of vinyl culture. I should say sample music really. My instrument of choice is a sampler. When I bought it it was brand new and its sort of a standart now. I have allways used instruments that are simple I`m not a technologically orientated person. I like to keep the musicmaking process very simple so its more grassroots. The technical stuff I save for the mixdown, but the actual creating process should be very simple. And I just want to be progessing with my instrument. There is no excuse to loop a four to four beat. Thats why I like on the album, and thats one of the things im proudest about, the experimentation with the timesignature. Taking 4/4 beats and putting them in a 3, 4, 5, 7. That takes a little bit more thought then just the press play. Hiphop has so much more to offer than its offering now. Whatever people call it I am just going to keep on doing it anyway.