1x1/Bugs scored()
(An electro-acoustic composition for live-audio-stream and two loudspeaker-orchestras.)
“The first step is an intuition and it comes with a burst, then difficulties arise – this thing gives out and then that - 'Bugs' - as such little faults and difficulties are called – show themselves, and months of intense watching, study and labor are requisite....” T.A. €dison
Philosophy
The term „Bug“ was already used in the 19th century for little faults in mechanical/electrical components. Later crackling noises on the phone were perceived as little animals, nibbling on the line. Computer pioneer Grace Hopper possibly used the word first for errors related to computers, as she publized the story, how a moth in a relay caused a malfunction of the computer Mark II, on 9th of september 1947. The moth was removed and taped to the journal, next to the entry „First actual case of bug being found“.
Today, bugs are omnipresent, considering humankind and technology. For software and hardware, total absence of errors is neither possible nor provable. Even expensive, manifold tested programs contain errors inevitably. So soft- and hardware, and even humans are at best considered stable or robust, when occurring errors are seldom and/or their aftereffects are rather harmless.
In our work „Bugs scored“, the metaphorical, technological bug meets its natural equivalent.
Basic Idea
We have a box filled with beetles here, and we want to do some tracking stuff with them to generate useful musical data. All sounds and structure should be derived from these beetles, an interaction between spaces (Weimar - SanDiego) and technical „bugs“ (like delay, dropouts, feedback etc).
If we had a second trackable population on your side we could do a lot of interesting stuff, by exchanging/combining/mixing data for realtime-composition etc. But of course, this could be a little hard considering the time that is left for this semester.
Furthermore it would be somewhat exciting to derive pitch (and time) data from the beetles here and send it in realtime to SanDiego, for musicians to play it on instruments, which would then be sent back to Weimar for modulation etc. Mixed with the orginal/modulated beetle-sounds there are many possibilities.
Because we´re also not sure, if the part with the instruments is managable for now, we´re thinking about it in a more general way. What the actual project will be, depends on who will colaborate and what the implied possibilities are. So the result could be something like an audio-sculpture (a self-organizing sound system), a realtime-composition/improvisation (maybe with instrumentalists), or something in between. But we´re open and interested in your thoughts on what could be done with this setting.
Setting
So far, we have a box filled with beetles. There are several microphones and cameras built into it , so we have multiple audio-signals to playback/process/analyze and derive control-data from, and video-streams, which provide us with position/movement-data and thereby much more. In addition we have an Arduino for further sensoring and experimentation. Pd is our tool of choice.
Links
Literature
- KybernEthik, Merve, Berlin 1993,Heinz von Foerster
- Wahrheit ist die Erfindung eines Lügners. Gespräche für Skeptiker. (Heinz . Foerster mit Bernhard Pörksen) Carl-Auer-Systeme Verlag
- Insect Media - An Archaeology of Animals and Technology, 2010, Jussi Parikka
- Insekten in der bildenden Kunst im Wandel der Zeiten in psychogenetischer Sicht, 1977Erwin Schimitschek
Audio
- DRadioWissen - Klang der Tiere [1] - Ein kurzer Beitrag über Derek Salomon.
- Macaulay Library der Cornell Universität New York. Tonaufnahmen von verschiedenen Tieren, viele Aufnahmen von Derek Salomon.