GMU:Breaking the Timeline/projects

Projects from the course Breaking the Timeline, a Fachmodul by Max Neupert, Gestaltung Medialer Umgebungen Summer Semester 2010:

Kyd Campbell:

Still

concept

I'm interested in exploring time-related breaks between the senses of sight and hearing. I believe there is a sensory gap when one moves in perception between the spaces of micro and macro. In this instance, time and sound are stretched, as the body adjusts to receiving intense macro detail. A journey/passage from one time/space environment to another is an overwhelming experience, a momentary loss of one's self into an aesthetic space, which may be considered cathartic.

In my work I wish to turn this phenomena into a public experience. It is my goal to produce the conditions, in a performance/screening setting for the audience to feel lost in the aesthetic space between micro and macro. I will use HD video images in micro and macro visions and unique techniques for recording motion. In the final work I will move rapidly between different image positions and search to bring and then hold the audience into a hyper-sensory experience. minimal approach to sound, reminiscent of breath and focusing on silence to imply motion and change, remaining abstract.

The imagery will be taken from nature, outdoors and animals in very high resolution.

process

Collaborators please!~~ any feedback is more than welcome!

I must think about the image processing; sound and also the screening format (single channel or multiple monitors; screening/performance setup or installation; large or small)

I'm undecided how I want to proceed technically. As described above, I have the idea to create a certain atmosphere for viewers, to move then into a perception gap. I have some stock footage or HD video, chopped into very small clips and I would like to begin by inserting this into a large amount of different softwares (or hardwares) to see what effects can be achieved.

• if anyone is intested, I would really love to make a workshop session where different epople from the course take this footage and stick it into the different processing or editing tools they are familiar with, to see differents perceptions of the moving images I have.
  
• is this something we could do together in class for an hour or so? Is anyone interested? Should we set-up an additional session for it?
  
• possible tools to check out: different PD patches, different editing softwares and filters, trying to watch it on different projectors, multiple monitors, self-made patches, specialized slow and fast motion HD plugins... I'm really open at this stage to try the footage out in any setting.

Andreas Beyer: Prosody

the keyword for this projekt is "prosody", that means the science about rhythm, stress and intonation of speech. I'll try to manipulate any given speech with a specific overlay to generate a new meaning or a strange combination of content and meaning e.g. reading the telephonbook like a holy speech and so on. The "overlayed" "structure" is given by the performer and the imput will be live. I want to realize this with a pd patch that i have to write or build till the semester. The background is a theorie that any kind of speech independent from the cultural background could be identified by anybody because of the intonation, the speech, the pitch (political, religious, news, sport, and so on) - this instrument could be used as a "translater" of the cultural melody of the voice or just to play with different meaning. It is the other way around how an anchorman works, he is trying to speak any typ of news in any combination more or less neutral - this is more difficult than it sounds.

Dominique Wollniok:

Related: GMU:Sensing video

Hyun Ju Song: a dancing panty hose 'Dancerizer'

A panty hose dances to the music.

For instance, like visualizer. In the visualizer, digital images follow the music. And in the dancerizer, the motions follow the music.

principle : A panty hose has two strings on either side of its upper part. These Strings are connected to the motors. When user selects and starts the music, then software analyzes the music and send the bit's signal to the motors. A panty hose dances some patterns of motion to the music.

Jeffers Egan:

Theory

Viewing Live AV as a platform for experimentation, my live sets explore the inscription of visual culture in time. By utilizing custom algorithms and animation software and without the use of prerecorded video or still footage, these works result in a hyperreal fluidity of visual mutations, ranging from tightly synchronized passages, to moments of free improvisation. Developing the concepts of digital as organism and software as ecosystem, my sets create a focused, personal aesthetic, finding commonalities in tone, texture and movement between audio and visual elements.

Practice

I have been invited to perform Live Visuals with vidderna, at ROJO/NOVA, a multimedia event this July in São Paulo, Brazil. We will play a 1 hour show together at an event alongside other AV acts.

Technically I am building a visual instrument in Touch Designer, . For the performance with vidderna, I plan to add a HD multi-movie stream compositing system(with alpha), a 3D timeline, and build/consolidate some GLSL shaders into 2D filters I can use in the compositing system.

I will also create new artwork specifically for this performance.

Matthias Breuer: Deconstructing the truth

Besides doing some research and experimenting I am trying to do one smaller project.

The project focuses on the truth and reality of the images we see. Taking any kind of video source as input, the stream's audio channel is continously played back. The corresponding frame is calculated from similarity to all previous frames. The most similar frame will be displayed. Each new frame is then placed in a database for comparison with forthcoming frames. This creates a steadily growing and learning mass which—after some time—can replace reality with frames from the past. At that point no clear distinction between reality and fiction can be made anymore.

Similarity between frames depend on an amount of chosen factors. Most commmon are histogram, structure etc. but always depend on the features one sees as important in an image. It's not important to match the look of a frame as close as possible but to match a frame in a given set of interests.

Natercia Chang:

Projection draft

Theme: rwd 1989 / fwd 1989

Background

1989 is a memoriable year for German and Chinese

4 June, 1989 - Tiannmen Square Massacre in China. People in Macau and Hong Kong are still fighting for justice for those who killed, every year after 1989, candle lights memorial ceremonies are hold. While in China, no one is allowed to talk about it.

9 November, 1989 - Fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall was not entirely demolished on that date, so as the system is still remained in some parts of Eastern Germany and no one would talk about it.

Concept

rwd 1989 highlights the regression of democracy and human rights in China, beginning in May that the Chinese students in Beijing started a protest to urge reforms in government and yet turned out to be a massacre. And till now, only Macau and Hong Kong can still have the freedom to fight for justice. After the handovers, however, it becomes obvious that the SARs government are trying to avoid bringing up this issue.

fwd 1989 highlights the progression after the reunion brings social and economic crises to Eastern Germany. The society and the people needed time to adapt to the capitalist West. Such sudden changes made people did not harmonize with the old system that the people got used to.

Execution

4 June massacre images shown in linear direction and 9 November of the fall of Berlin Wall shown backwards, and images stop to the point they meet. Images are projected on the windows of a building

Reference links

• 4 June Massacre: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXBSlmqy2O4&feature=related
• Memorial ceremonies in Macau over the years: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-LUFU3KXck

Sebastian Wolf: VideoFlute

Thoughts

"VideoRecorder"

Those are two rather rough concepts waiting for more detail work.

• a video-controlling musical instrument, a digital flute
• ldrs controlling pitch/color channels or triggering specific scenes (there's an infinite number of possibilities actually)
• a microphone manipulating loudness/brightness/speed of the video or so

I think I will stick with the instrument-idea, starting with some Arduino-/electronics-/sensor- experiments and some research on how a real flute actually works, how the sound is produced and what the possibilities to control those sounds are. The mapping in pd will probably be the most tricky part, so I will just work on that simultaneously.