Wait, hrm. If I’m going to make myself some, why not leave them up for everyone else – just in case? Good idea. So I did, and added a few more. Not all of what I do lends itself to this sort of thing, but I like to think what I put up works well.

You can find the store here on my site: http://jackwhitsitt.com/store/

Or you can go straight to my Zazzle Store (Easier to Use): http://www.zazzle.com/sintixerr

It’s been a fun process making these shirts and other products out of my art. Not only is it actually difficult to figure out which pieces will work on clothing – many of my own favorites do not – but not a single one was “ready to go” out of box to put on a shirt. Each one of them took some editing…many of them some creative editing.

For instance, “Dead Jen” went from an interesting photo to something very graphic:

Before

After

This was also my chance to get a lot of my old doodles and sketches into better shape.  “Strained Peace”, for example, was a very old sketch that I only had a 136×200 pixel scan of. I managed to take it to 2400×3500 pixels. Crazy

You also may notice a lot of what I put on the shirts are faces, portraits, and characters. Well, yeah. It’s what I do.

Anyway, more will be going up. Let me know what you think.

http://jackwhitsitt.com/installation-and-concept-art/#num1

Repost from artdc.org:

I finished yesterday. For once – despite last minute technicaal glitches – I wasn’t there until the last minute of the last day. Just the last day.

The space is clean, cables hung (although, its still pretty ugly…maybe ill cover it with a box friday at noon), the laptop is DUCT TAPED to the projector for lack of a better solution (it is in the cage bag, so if it comes undone, it wont break), and the projection is mostly in-line with the drawings and frames.

I’m still not sure if it will (and this is important) a) turn on when the show starts or (less important) b) play music. I made a last minute decision to use internet radio instead of mp3′s to avoid broadcast rights issues, but there are some technical hangups with that that I wont get into.

This also means I’m typing this from a $300  tiny Eee PC laptop which will be my only personal home computer until AOM is done.

I do count myself lucky, though. Poor idiolect (rebound design’s bf) lost his HD -the last day of install-. It crashed. He weathered through it gracefully and put an “out of order” sign up. Hopefully the AOM gods will let him come in to fix it off-hours – he did everything right and it’s just pure bad luck that the drive crashed.

It’s been lovely getting to know my fellow AOM-ers (mostly, heh) and I regret being so focused on getting my own shit working that I havent been as chatty or social as Id have liked. Trust me, it’s me not you. I think many people have stepped up this year and I really enjoyed walking around and looking at the art yesterday.

I can’t wait for opening night, meet the artists night, and zombie prom and being more focused on having fun and lss narrow mindedly self-centered about gottagetthisdonegottasgetthisdonegottagetthisdone.

I also adore how my wife’s wall came out. I know Im her husband and all, but Im truly a fan of the pictures  she put up from Vietnam and Cambodia. She is two core walls over from my space, so please check her stuff out.
?
Finally, this year I’ve felt like Ive really been able to come into this and use past artomatic and art outlet experience, take a broad vision, execute it, deal with and change my plan as it starts to flesh out into reality, and still come out of it with a piece that im happy with, still has roots in the original vision, and remains a satisfactory  progression of the rest of my art this past year.

I want to make special thanks to: Lexi, Sherill, Sean, Stephanie, Paivi, Barry, Caitlin, Justin, and Tom – all of whom made specific, repeated, concrete contributions to my art, my sanity, and my ability to get it done this year.

(edit: added lexi…she’s been super helpful. i knew i forgot someone important.)

Pics:

Summary:

I’m going to be creating a homemade projection screen out of black out cloth and something called “Screen Goo”. Screen Goo is supposed to be much better than regular paint for projecting things onto and, considering there is a lot of ambient light during the day, I need the best available.  The screen will be roughly 50 sq feet and will -probably- be framed by molding purchased from Home Depot. On either side and above the screen/frame will be black drapery. This is to darken the area around the screen and focus the eye. I could paint, but I really dont want to (I may have to paint beneath it, though).

Onto the screen will be three framed charcoal drawings (possibly with glass).  Those drawings will have been done from photos I’ve taken (right now I think it’ll be three girls from the Landon House Civil War shoot)….and will be slightly different moods than the original photos….but still proportionally accurate in key areas.

The original photos will be projected onto the framed drawings to make it look like they’re glowing, and to provide a conflicting perception of what mood the girls in the pictures are actually in.  Behind the framed drawings, a moving vividly colors abstract projection will provide the background.  The content of the abstraction will be generated by (via Quartz Composer) a webcam pointed at the audience looking at the piece.  The movement, size, speed, and color of the abstraction will be generated in real time based on whatever music is playing on my laptop at the time (youll be able to hear it).

The reason for the Civil war era-looking dress, b&w vs color, and calm expressions in the pictures Im choosing is that they’re intended to contrast so sharply with the ludicrously noisy background that they’ll somehow form a complement.

The neat thing will be that the framed pictures will look like theyre actually in front of the projection, when they’re not really. They effect is striking when done right.

(For those of you keeping score, this is a combination of plans B and C with some extra decisions on how to handle the area not being projected on)

Where am I in this?

1. I finished the moving (some would say seizure-inducing) abstract webcam/audio visualizer background last night. Some of you have seen this projected, but I wasn’t happy with the effect or it’s ability to keep time with the music.  I’ve since dramatically improved the look, feel, and performance of this and I’m happier with it than Ive been in weeks. The two biggest changes were to swap a rotating cube with 2 2D squares which move around the screen, big bigger and smaller, and rotate on the Z axis. This resulted in significant performance and aesthetic improvements
2. I ordered the Screen Goo. I just got a UPS notification that it was on its way 5 minutes ago. When that arrives, I’ll go to Walmart and pick up a huge blackout drape.  I’ll probably paint the drape with the goo (on the rubbery side) in the street near Artomatic after I move this weekend.
3. I’ve also settled on three black and white photos that I’m going use as the framed  focal points / anchors.  I chose the B&W to contrast with the crazy colors in the projection.  Once I move this weekend, I’ll make the drawings of them in the new apartment. Ill use projections of the photos as the stencils for them since they need to be pretty much 100% proportionally accurate.  Each will take about 3 hours to do.
4. I probably still have the same black drapes I used last year (and I actually still have 1 from 2007), but Ill need to check that next week. I also need to go buy the frames and the molding.  If I have to paint under the projection screen, ill probably use someones leftover paint since it’s not a huge area.
5. I still have to set up and test the “recover nicely from the power being cycled every night”
6. Put the projector on its mount, lock it in place, and get measurements.  If I do the drawings after this, Ill do them AT Artomatic…might be interesting.

So….pineapple.

All in all, Im pretty happy with where I am, but there’s still a lot to do.

Originally, I was going to put up my webcam based audio visualizer written with Quartz Composer. I’m still going to be using Quartz, but the content will be completely different.

This year, take a look and you tell me what it’s about. Or not. Or who. I think this year, the name might make the rose. I have some specific points of view I’m coming from, but responsibility for defining other specific parts of the meaning are intentionally being passed on to the viewer.

Look for the video being projected onto a wall near the elevators on the 7th floor:

Floor-7
Area-12
Type-C
Space-1

Artomatic: http://artomatic.org

Also, remember, you can also visit ArtDC.org for current unofficial discussions and updates on Artomatic news, events, participants, etc:

http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?board=37.0

Our slot was 1:30pm Saturday and floors 2,3,8, and 9 had been opened. We decided to take advantage of the fact that spaces could be picked -after- your time slot, but not before and so we waited all day Saturday to see if floor 7 would be open. It never did open Saturday, so we had to come back this (Sunday) morning at 9am.  We ended up getting core walls on 7. Everyone was crazy helpful, nice, cheery, and definitely helped get this kicked off on an exciting gear.

The space I picked is just to the left of the elevators on the side opposite of the bar on the 7th floor. You’ll be able to tell what it is quickly and easily because I’ll be using a projector mounted on Sherill Gross and Stephanie Bonifant ‘s partition (thank you!!!!) to display art on the wall. It should be easily seen from the elevators.

Other cool kids up there include the wonderful: Caitlin Phillips from Rebound Designs, Sean Welker the Secretworm, and Justin Cameron

The wait Saturday wasn’t a waste of productivity, either! Paivi and I put in a lease application at The Onyx on First. It’s an apartment building just over a block from Artomatic and 2 blocks from the Nationals stadium in the Capital Waterfront district. If all goes well, we’ll be moved in before Artomatic even opens! Here come the after parties and extra volunteer hours! Woot.

More on my art later. It’s going to be moving, projected, dada-esque, sarcastic, and inspired by comments from Paivi Salonen, Barry Schmetter, Jesse Cohen, and others.

Everyone, if you’re in DC any time between May 29 and July 5, come on out and check it out! You’ll have a blast with the Art, the performances, the music, the people, da beer and wine.  Artomatic is just above the Navy Yard Green Line Metro station and if you’re coming to/from a Nats game by Metro, you can’t miss it.

For registration questions, e-mail register@artomatic.org. To volunteer, e-mail volunteer@artomatic.org.

You can also visit the forums (which I help moderate) at: http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?board=37.0

I participated as an artist in both 2007:

• http://sintixerr.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/new-artomatic-in-second-life-event-schedule/
• http://sintixerr.wordpress.com/2007/04/04/artomatic-second-life-splattered-paint-oh-my/

and 2008:

• http://sintixerr.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/python-photography-digital-art-artomatic/

Both times were phenomenal experiences as an artist and as a visitor. The art was fun, good, bad, amusing, awful, and totally worth seeing. More than that,  being part of such a huge volunteer-run event outside of the uptight art snootery and commodities market you normally encounter is totally worth it.

The official press release can be found here:

—

Artomatic 2009 to be held in D.C.’s Capitol Riverfront neighborhood

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Artomatic will be bringing its trademark one-of-a-kind
multimedia arts event to Half Street’s 55 M Street, S.E., in Washington, D.C.’s Capitol
Riverfront neighborhood in summer 2009, the arts organization announced today.

In conjunction with the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District (BID) and Monument
Realty, Artomatic will be presenting more than five weeks of art, music, theater, workshops
and more — all of it free for visitors. Located between the U.S. Capitol Building and the
Anacostia River and between Barracks Row Main Street and South Capitol Street, the Capitol
Riverfront is a vibrant new business center, urban neighborhood, entertainment district and
waterfront destination.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Artomatic on this unique arts event. With both Artomatic
and Major League Baseball within blocks of one another, the Capitol Riverfront will be the goto
location for summertime entertainment in 2009,” said Michael Stevens, executive director
of the Capitol Riverfront BID. “Artomatic sets the stage for the type of future festivals and
entertainment that you will see in the Capitol Riverfront at the three new parks — Diamond
Teague, The Yards Park and Canal Park — which begin opening spring 2009 through 2011.”
Artomatic 2009 will be held at 55 M Street, S.E., a new 275,000 square feet LEED Silver Class
A office building developed by Monument Realty. The building, currently under construction, is
located atop the Navy Yard Metro stop and within a block of Nationals Park, home to the
Nationals baseball team.

“We are pleased to be hosting Artomatic at 55 M Street for its 10th anniversary,” said Michael
Darby, principal of Monument Realty. “It is not only a great opportunity to promote the
neighborhood and attract new visitors but also to bring some very talented artists to the
Capitol Riverfront.”

Held regularly since 1999, Artomatic transforms an unfinished indoor space into an exciting
and diverse arts event that is free and open to the public. In addition to displays by hundreds
of artists, the event features free films, educational presentations and children’s activities, as
well as musical, dance, poetry, theater and other performances. Artomatic 2008, held in D.C.’s
NoMa neighborhood, attracted a record-breaking 52,500 visitors and 1,540 participating
artists.

The 2009 Artomatic event promises to be an equally appealing destination for D.C. area arts
fans as well as those looking for summer entertainment, said Artomatic President Veronica
Szalus.

“The D.C. area has a vibrant, energetic arts scene and we are excited to be able to showcase
that talent and share it with the community,” Szalus said.

Artomatic 2009 will be held May 29 to July 5. The event will be open Wednesdays and
Thursdays from noon to 10 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 1 a.m., and Sundays
from noon to 10 p.m. Artomatic will be closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Admission to Artomatic
is always free for visitors.

Registration for participation in Artomatic will open in March and will be open to all artists —
including painters, photographers, sculptors, graphic designers, musicians, poets, actors and
dancers. Artomatic is an unjuried event, so all artists are welcome, from professionals to
beginners. Registration will be on a first-come, first-served basis and will end once space is
filled. To be notified of the date when registration will open or to stay up on other Artomatic
news, sign up to receive ArtoNews, the Artomatic newsletter, on the Artomatic Web site.
Artomatic is run entirely by participating volunteers, and new participants are sought yearround.
To volunteer and help make plans for Artomatic 2009, e-mail volunteer@artomatic.org.
“Artomatic 2009 will fulfill 10 years of commitment to the growth of our cultural community
and help fuel our creative economy,” said Artomatic Chair George C. Koch.

More details on the event will be available on the Artomatic Web site, www.artomatic.org, in
coming weeks.

###

About Artomatic: Artomatic is a creative community that collaborates to produce and
present a free arts spectacular. Participation is open to all, from recognized artists to
undiscovered talents, who work in a variety of arts forms. In partnership with the
development community, Artomatic transforms unused building space into a playground for
expression, serves as a catalyst for community growth in up-and-coming neighborhoods, and
helps to grow the creative economy. The nonprofit Artomatic organization is headed by a
volunteer Board of Directors and is funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and
Humanities, an agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. For more
information, visit www.artomatic.org

About the Capitol Riverfront BID: The Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District
(BID) is dedicated to making the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood clean, safe, friendly and
vibrant; to creating the best quality of life in the neighborhood; and to attracting office
tenants, residents, retailers and visitors. For more information, visit www.capitolriverfront.org
About Monument Realty: Monument Realty is an award-winning full service real estate firm.
The firm’s diverse portfolio includes mixed use, office, residential and hotel properties.
Monument Realty has developed more than 5 million square feet of office space, nearly 5,000
residential units and three hotels valued at more than $5 billion. For more information, visit
www.monumentrealty.com.

First, I grabbed the full text of the bill from HERE. Then, I wrote some (stupidly) simple python (again, I’m never sure if it’s -good- python) to parse the bill and turn it into a new file with five columns: Word Number, Word Length, Line Number, Work Position in Line, and the actual Word itself. This essentially turned the bill into a a text file with every word in the bill on its own line (in the order it showed up), but with  machine readable meta-data I could use to visually represent it.

stimulus = open(‘/Users/sintixerr/Documents/stimulus.txt’, ‘r’)
finalfile = open(‘/Users/sintixerr/Documents/sdump.txt’, ‘w’)
linenum=0
wordnum=0
lineposition=0
gstruct=[]
for line in stimulus:

lineposition=0
linenum+=1
word=line.split(‘ ‘)
word=word[:len(word)-1]
for w in word:

lineposition+=1
wordnum+=1
gstruct=str(wordnum)+’\t’+str(linenum)+’\t’+str(lineposition)+’\t’+w.upper()+’\t’+str(len(w))+’\n’
finalfile.write(gstruct)

stimulus.close()
finalfile.close()

Then, I opened up the new tab delimited bill in my visualizer of choice and ran it through a few different ways of representing the bill.

First, the raw text – without any real manipulation – looked cool in and of itself and I noticed some interesting, if obvious in hindsight, features. (I did clean out some obviously bad data first with a little  sed action, but that mostly just involved removing punctuation that caused the same words to show up as different ones. )

Stimulus Bill Visualized in its Entirety. In this image, the Y axis represents every word (ASCII characters with spaces or carriage returns on either side) in the bill and the X axis represents the Line Numbers those words appeared on.

First, if you look about a fourth of the way from the left, and then again closer to halfway, you see a vertical “break” in the scatterplot where it looks like the density is much lower.  That is probably a major section break in the original document (I honestly haven’t actually read it in english yet).  That possibility is supported by the second observation which is: Even in human written documents, you can still discern protocol visually. (Again, obvious, but it’s neat.).  If you look at the bottom third of the image, it looks nothing like the top 2/3.  Much more curving paths, fewer horizontal lines, less density, etc.  If you look at those “words”, they’re all document structure words (like section numbers, headings, etc.). …and monetary figures.  If you look closely, there appear at first glance to be two or more incompatible or unrelated document content structures there.  Above that section is where the more obvious “free form” english exists in the set.

Moving on from there, I wanted to see if I could get anything intellectually or aesthetically interesting by using a scatterplot to draw out the shape of the bill.  To do that, I plotted “Line Number” on the X axis and “Position of Word in the Line” on the Y axis.  (Actually, originally those two were swapped, but the resulting image “looked better” when I swapped the X and Y).   I colored everything by Word on a categorical scale so things wouldn’t blend together too much and then ratcheted up the size scale to reduce empty space. I was looking for a visual representation of the literal structure of the document, not an analysis tool or I wouldn’t have done that last bit.

The resulting image looks like this:

Shape of the Stimulus Bill on its side. If you were to compress the actual text of the whole bill into one page and rotate it 90 degrees counter-clockwise, it would probably have the same shape as this, only with text.

Finally, I was curious if I could do a little manual clustering work. I tried to narrow down the words into the data set to those that might have some intrinsic meaning in the context of the stimulus bill. This means I got rid of prepositions, repeated filler words, etc.  I did this by knocking out every word under 4 letters and all of those over 17 chars (over 17 were all artifacts of turning the bill into something parsable, not actual real words).  Then I created a bar chart of words and sorted it by how often words appeared in the document and removed about the bottom 70% of words. I made an assumption (which is almost definitely so broad that the data will have to be sliced again a different way for meaningful analysis) that any words that weren’t repeated that often just werent a real “theme” to the people writing the document. Interestingly, things like “security” and “health” and some others were left in the set, but “cyber” was removed. Hmm.   After that, I went manually through the remaining set of words and removed those that seemed to not have any cluster value (both through intuition as well as by visually watching the scatterplot of the whole set while I highlighted individual words t see what lit up.) Finally, and lastly, since I originally wanted to make visually interesting things more than do real analysis, I used some blurring, resharpening, and layering to give a more cloudy, vibrant feeling to it.  Interestingly, that created “clouds” around many of the clusters and made them easier to make out for analysis.  That supports my whole theory that what the eyes and mind like to look at is what the mind and eyes are better able to make intelligent use of.

The final result is here:

Words of substance that might be indicative of topics or subjects within the bill. X axis, like the first picture, is line number and Y axis is Word.

]]> http://jackwhitsitt.com/2009/02/stimulus-bill-visualization-a-precursor-to-analysis-as-art/feed/ 3 http://jackwhitsitt.com/2009/02/quartz-composer-webcam-audio-visualizer-art-tutorial-and-demo/ http://jackwhitsitt.com/2009/02/quartz-composer-webcam-audio-visualizer-art-tutorial-and-demo/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:26:18 +0000 admin http://sintixerr.wordpress.com/?p=312 INTRO

So I’ve been making some new art lately that  I think pretty is cool. Back at Artomatic last year, I wrote code that generated a mosaic of one image out of another and make a 6′x6′ photo and wondered if the code was art, since the only thing it did was generate that one mosaic?

At that point, though, it was still static and the question was (to me) relatively easy to answer.

This time, I wanted something more dynamic and interactive. I wanted to further explore the question of whether  or not something that changes every time you see it and which depends on its environment is still “art”.  What I ended up doing is using Apple’s Quartz Composer – a visual media programming language – to create an  “audio visualizer” (sort of like you see in iTunes, Winamp, etc.).  What’s different about this piece, though is that combines live webcam input with live audio input into a pulsating, moving interpretation of the world around the piece.

In some ways, the work can be considered just a “tool”. But, on the other hand – and more importantly, I think – the fact that the ranges of color, proportion, size, placement, and dimension have all been pre-designed by the artist to work cohesively no matter what the environmental input moves it into the realm of “art”.

In this post, I hope use the piece in a way that will give you an example of what it would look like as part of a real live installation and to help explain the ins and outs of my process.

THE BASICS

An easy example of where this would do really well is at a music concert. The artist would point the camera at the band or the audience, and, as it plays, the piece would morph and transform the camera input in time to the music and a projector would display the resulting visuals onto a screen next to the band (or even onto the band itself).  This is just one suggestion, though.  Interesting static displays could also be recorded based on live input to be replayed later. It’s this latter idea that you’ll see represented below (though you might notice my macbook chugging a little bit on the visuals…slightly offbeat. Thats a slow hardware issue ):

In that clip, I pointed the webcam at myself and a variety of props (masks, dolls, cats, the laptop, etc) as music plays from the laptop speakers. There was a projector connected to the laptop displaying the resulting transformations onto a screen in real time. A video camera was set up to record the projection as it happened.  My setup isn’t much, but it can be confusing, so take a look below. My laptop with the piece on it, webcam connected to the laptop, projector projecting the piece as it happens, and video camera recording the projection:

TUTORIAL/EXPLANATION

As I said earlier, I used Quartz Composer – a free programming language from Apple upon which a lot of Mac OSX depends. Some non-technical artists might be a little bit leery of the term “programming language”, but Quartz is almost designed for artists. It’s drag and drop. Imagine if you could arrange lego’s to make your computer do stuff. Red lego’s did one type of thing, blue did another, green did a third. That’s basically Quartz. There are preset “patches” that do various things: Get input, transform media, output media somehow, etc. You pick your block and it appears on screen. If you want to put webcam input on a sphere, you would: Put a sphere block on the screen, put a video block on the screen, and drag a line from the video to the sphere. It’s as easy as that.  First, I’d suggest you take a look at this short introduction by Apple here:

http://developer.apple.com/graphicsimaging/quartz/quartzcomposer.html

Then take a look at the following clip and I’ll walk you through how it works at a hight level:

The code for this is fairly straightforward:

In the box labeled “1″ on the left, I’ve inserted a “patch” that collects data from a webcam and makes it available to the rest of the “Composition” (as Quartz Programs are called).  On the right side of that patch, you can see a circle labeled “Image”. That means that the patch will send whatever video it gets from the webcam to any other patch that can receive images. (Circles on the right side indicate things that the patch can SEND to others. Circles on the left indicate information that the patch can RECEIVE from others.)

The patch labeled “3″, next to the video patch, is designed to resize any images it receives. I have a slow macbook, but my webcam is high definition so I need to make the resolution of the webcam lower (the pictures smaller) so my laptop can better handle it. It receives the video input from the video patch, resizes it, and then makes the newly resized video available to any patch that needs it.  (You can set the resize values through other patches by connecting them to the “Resize Pixels Wide” and “Resize Pixels High” circles, but in this case they are static – 640×480. To set static values, just double-click the circle you want to set and type in the value you want it to have.)

In the patch labeled “4″, we do something similar, but this time I have it change the contrast of the video feed. I didn’t really need to, but I wanted to see how it looked. The Color Control patch then makes the newly contrasted image available to any other patch that needs it.

On the far right, the webcam output is finally displayed via patch “8″. Here I used a patch that draws a sphere on the screen and textured the sphere (covered the sphere with an image) with the webcam feed after it has been resized and contrast added.

So now we have a sphere with the webcam video on it, but it’s not doing anything “in time” with the music being played.

What I decided to do was to change the diameter of the sphere based on the music as well as the color tint of the sphere.

If you look at patch “2″ on the left, you’ll notice 14 circles on the right side of it. These represent different (frequency) bands of the music coming in from the microphone. This would be the same type of thing if you were to be using an equalizer on your stereo (It’s actually split into 16 bands in Quartz, I just only use 14).  Each of those circles has a constantly changing value (from 0.0000 – 1.0000) based on the microphone input. Music with lots of bass, for example, would have a lot of high numbers in the first few bands and low numbers in the last few bands).  We use these bands to change the sphere diameter and color.

I chose to use a midrange frequency band to control the size of the sphere because that’s constantly changing, no matter whether the music is bass heavy or tinny.  You can see a line going from the 6th circle down in patch “2″ drawn to the “Initial Value” circle of patch “5″.  Patch “5″ is a math patch to perform simple arithmetic operations on values it gets and output the results. All I’m going here is making sure my sphere doesn’t get smaller than a certain size.  Since the audio splitter is sending me values from 0.000 – 1.000, I could conceivably have a diameter of 0. So, I use the math patch to add enough to that value that my sphere will always take up about a 25th of the screen, at its smallest.  Patch “5″ then sends that value to the diameter input of the sphere patch (#8) we discussed earlier.

It’s these kinds of small decisions that, when compounded on one another, add up to visualizations with specific aesthetic feelings and contribute to the ultimate success or failure of the piece.

Another aspect of controlling the feel of your piece is color.  In patch 6, you see three values from the audio splitter go in, but only one come out.  The three values I used as the initial seeds for “Red”, “Green”, and “Blue” values.  Patch “6″ takes those values and converts them into an RGB color value.  However, notice that patch “6″ has three “Color” circles on the right, but only one gets used? That’s because I designed that patch to take in one set of Red, Green, and Blue values based on the music, but mix those values into three -different- colors. So as the music changes, those three colors all change in sync and at the same time and by roughly the same amount, but they’re still different colors. That lets me ad

d variety to the piece and allows me, as the artist, to kind of create a dynamic “palette” to chose from that will always be different, but still keep constant color relationships. This contributes to a cohesive and consistent feel to the piece.  A detailed explanation of how I do that is out of the scope of this post, but you can see the code below and take some guesses if you like:

And that’s pretty much that. We have a sphere that displays webcam input and which changes size and color according to the music playing nearby. But that’s really not all that interesting is it? What if we added a few more spheres? What if we used all three of the colors from patch “6″? What if those spheres all moved in time to DIFFERENT bands of the music?

The code might look something like this:

And the resulting output looks something like this:

Yeah I know the visuals are sortof silly and the song cheesy, but the music’s beat is easy to see and there just isnt that much in my apartment to put on webcam that I havent already.

Also, take a look at 55 seconds through about 1:05. The visualization goes a bit crazy. See the white box on top? You cant see in the video but that box lets me enter input parameters on the fly to affect how the visualization responds. This is the VJ aspect.  For these visualizations, Ive only enabled 2: How fast/big the visual components get and how fast/slow they get small.  In that 10 second segment, Im jacking them up a lot.

What about the original video? What does that code look like? See below.  It’s a litle bit more complicated, but essentially the same thing.  Instead of 16 spheres, I use a rotating 3D cube and a particle fountain (squares spurt out of a specific location like out of a fountain).  In addition to just color and size, the music playing nearby also affects location, rotation, minimum size, speed of the particles, and a number of other visual elements:

At some point (as soon as I figure out the Cocoa), Ill upload the visualizer here as a Mac OSX application for download.

SUMMARY

So, what do you think? Is this art? If not, what is it? Just something that looks cool? In my mind, artistic vision and aesthetics are a huge component of making “multimedia” “new technology” art, no matter how big a component the technology is.  Without some sort of understanding of what you are visually trying to communicate, it’s only by chance that you’ll end up with something that looks good.  But, even beyond that, I found that I had to think pretty far ahead and understand my medium in order to create something that would look consistent AND visually pleasing no matter what environment it was in and no matter what it was reacting to. It was like writing the rules to create an infinite number of abstract paintings that would always look like they were yours.

Also, figuring out what to put in the webcam view when and at what distance is an important part. When Im paying attention (as in the first video), it adds a whole new dimension. When I dont care and point it at anything (as in the demo videos), the whole thing becomes a bit more throwaway.