updated pure data patch……

I’ve been working hard this week trying to get my head around the program Pure Data, and the learning curve is steep!

But saying that the open source nature of this program is to be revered, and by scouring the forums for examples and advice I have got to the stage where I have a patch that is not pretty, but it works!

The more I use Pure Data the more it makes sense.  PD is primarily an audio based application but the objects that the audio part of the program uses more often that not transpose over into the video element of the program (the only difference is that audio objects use a ‘~’) 

I spent a lot of my teenage years playing around with musical hardware and problem solving by bypassing an input here to get an output there and so forth, so the idea of patching objects together is not foreign to me.

Also, as some the objects have audio titles such as threshold (which are used in audio compressors) they do make some sense to me, and I have found that my instinct on what an object may do has usually been correct.  This knowledge combined with a bit of mathematics (long time since I had to do that!) has led me to create the patch below.

  

larger picture – click here

The patch is a combination of 2 video mixers and an audio sampler (GEM, the environment that PD uses for video does not support audio, so you have to extract the audio separately and sync it up later in the process)

The videos are switched by a horizontal fader and the audio is switched by a vertical fader.  These are all connected to a ‘Bang’ (the object that make stuff happen in PD)

The Bang is connected to a threshold object, the threshold object emits a bang when a value is passed through it that is greater than the value you set (and with a bit of math) sends another bang signal when the number drops below the value you set.

It is my hope that when I get an ultrasonic sensor up and running this value that is sent to the threshold object will be the distance the sensor is reading.  So when an individual gets say within, 200cm of the sensor, I can set the threshold to emit a bang when the number drops below 200 to flip the video, and send another bang when the individual moves more than 200cm away that will flip the video back to its original state.

If this works I will have good control over whatever space I have to show my work, as the size of the room can be accounted for by increasing or reducing the threshold value.

Fingers crossed……….    

keep it simple……

I had a tutorial with Andy last week in which we spoke for part of it about the relationship between the technology behind the work and the work itself.  

Andy’s opinion was that the work (visually) should always come first. He felt that the technology shouldn’t be at the forefront of the audiences gaze, it should not be the first thing they notice, quite the contrary, they should not notice it at all, it should blend into the background and become a part of the experience, and not be all of the experience.

He then he said those wise old words of ‘keep it simple, the simplest ideas are always the best’.

After this discussion, and looking back at my blog at some of the preliminary ideas I have come up with to date, they now look quite cumbersome and ugly.  They place the technology at the forefront of the audiences gaze and I couldn’t agree more that the work itself could become lost within these (physically structural) ideas.

So with all that in mind, here is a new idea that is clean and simple.  My project focuses on the non-place, and how our movement within this space shapes and defines it, our presence is its identity.  It seems obvious that movement has to be an important variable in the final installation, and in a way shape how it is experienced.

Andy and I spoke about how it would be interesting to have an installation that reacted and transformed itself only when there was a presence in the room.  When there is no movement it remains an un-definable entity, but when it senses a presence, your movement through this space it will begin to reveal its true identity to you.

With this diagram the sensor is placed so that it bounces back an ultrasonic echo the distance between it and the entrance to the installation.  If you are walking past or standing outside the room the visuals would remain unidentifiable (either they would be completely static or maybe even moving at great speed so they could not be recognised) If you choose to enter the space the ultrasonic sensor would pick up your presence and change the visuals and become something that you can begin to understand.

We also spoke about how sound could be used, maybe having no visuals and only abstracted sound, and when you enter the space the visuals start up and complete the puzzle?  But this is all for a later date, for now I need to concentrate on getting a prototype up and running with an ultrasonic sensor, then I can settle down to the nitty gritty of developing the visuals. 

Its back to Pure Data…….. (deep breath)