Narrative Generator
This is a project whereby I created an interface that allowed people to control the narrative of an AV (audio-visual) system. The semi-generative AV system was created and sequenced on MaxMSP, with sounds handled in Ableton Live using predominately FM synthesis. The controller unit consisted of a laser-cut plywood box and an Arduino computer inside.
The idea behind this was that the user, by listening and hearing the output would interact with the interface and define their own bespoke narrative. By playing with the inputs and witnessing their respective outputs, would allow them to have greater understanding and appreciation of the system at play and its generative properties.
The controller unit was inspired by Yoko Ono’s Instructional Art series and the Fluxus art movement, with its process driven works offering many early concepts for generative art. With simple intuitive controls offering immediate visual feedback and some more obscure controls allowing for changes only noticeable over time. The user can pay more attention to either the audio or the visual output allowing for unexpected nuanced outputs from the opposite visual or audio respectively.
The video composition controls with the two dual video sequences, was inspired the remix and sample culture that existed within hip-hop and house music scenes of the late 80s, whereby they would manually manipulate the playback of records in order to re-appropriate them for their current times, while at the same time contextualising and referencing the rich musical African-American heritage that preceded them. The pre-recorded videos of modular building structures that I used are equivalent the samples, containing their own life and groove that the user can restructure with the visual controls.
The sonic system I created did not adhere to a tempo and the pool of notes it drew from was randomised every time they were replayed. This was to give the music ambient nature much that of Brian Eno’s album Discreet Music (1975) where Eno used generative note sequencing to allow for, theoretically, infinite iterations of non-repeating musical patterns.
Upon reflection of this project, I decided it would be interesting if each audio control knob also changed subtle visual aspects of the piece and vice versa. Therefore, any desired change would have ramifications elsewhere in the system allowing it to behave in ways other than just what was intended. This would cause the user to constantly have to react and adapt, giving an overall more playful or challenging experience of interaction. Giving the piece a life of its own, and instead of the user just reading the checking they do what they say, there becomes a generative aspect to their originally intentional navigation of the system. This allows for the narratives they create to be unexpected and yet partially controlled by themselves.
This piece allows the user to think about the skill of performance and composition of time-based media, through the range of translative/transformative controls available; allowing for appreciation of the generative system and its boundaries.