Unseen Catalysts

Exploring everyday sounds of the city, this work creates a translation of the unseen impact of sound into a creative visualization through light and projection. The visualizations are a representation of catalysts that lead to the chain of events or Butterfly Effect that can be found in even the most insignificant of acts or moments in our daily lives. Using projections, I wish to visualize the impact of sounds in a public environment. With Orr street, Melbourne CBD as a test site, the work creates an immersive aesthetic experience of those everyday moments through public installation.

The Question?

Is it possible to bring to attention, through projections, the significance of a single moment (any moment that represents ‘moments’ in general) that may or may not be the beginning of a chain of events that would have otherwise taken a different path?

Being a visual artist, I am compelled to absorb every moment through my eyes, mostly. This project draws its inspiration from that need of mine to visualize everything. From a philosophical point of view, this work of mine began with the idea of finding ways to reveal the invisible. Reading about theories from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to Derrida’s Deconstruction to Baudrillard’s The Vital Illusion, I became very interested in looking beyond commonly accepted realities or norms. This made me realize that there are so many things happening in the world around me that I cannot sense with my eyes; hidden in plain sight. This revelation inspired me to look for means to represent the existence of the invisible. By revealing them, I am also trying to point out that the realities each of us perceive in our daily lives are not complete in essence. There is always something that slips out of our circle of attention. With the limitations of resources and funds, there are so little options that I can work with to make my idea a reality. I have looked into many other processes that will make the invisible visible, such as Schlieren Optics, Optical illusions, laser illumination, etc. Although these options would make a much better case in representing my ideas, there are always some limitations that stop me from materializing these options within the parameters of this course and my own financial capacity. Therefore, I decided to work with mediums that are within my reach while still holding on to the central concepts that govern my thought processes for this course. Having completed an undergraduate degree in Computer science and a couple of short courses on animation, multimedia and graphic design, I decided it would only be fitting that I brush up those rusty skill sets I had acquired years ago to help me create a suitable artwork.

Sound recording

The first part of this project was to test different soundscapes to find out how much the sounds in a particular context would contribute to its immediate surroundings. So I recorded sounds from different places and times to compare its acoustic intensity.

There are 3 different recordings.

-The first one is the soundscape of Orr street.

-The second one is a recording from Melbourne Central train station.

-The third one is outside my home when it was raining.

These 3 recordings are randomly chosen from a collection of recordings that was used to test different acoustic environments.

creating my own visualization

Finding out that After Effects cannot accept live sounds to create visualizations was quite a disappointment for me because I assumed it was only a matter of changing the input source to the microphone within the software itself. But apparently this software does not come with that option, as it is only designed to manipulate recorded sounds and videos digitally. On that disappointment, I went on to continue looking for a suitable software that accepted live audio as its input. I found that very few software that had this capability. But there was still another issue with these software programs: designing custom visualizations. All these other softwares had great potential to visualize public soundscapes with aesthetically pleasing visuals. But the problem was that none of these visuals would be my own creation. In theory, these softwares could still act as a backup plan if I was unable to find a software with which I can design my own visualizations. In such a case, I would only consider myself as a facilitator of an immersive experience rather than an artist who facilitates it.

After extensive research and apparent failures to find a suitable medium to create my own visualization, I found one software that hold a bit of hope for me to realize my ideas. The software is called VSXu and demands some amount of learning curve to control it, if not months of learning a new programming language similar to the other options I found in my search to find a suitable medium.

SITE

LOCATION

The location should have great acoustics that is constantly varying. Public should not be too restricted or busy to stop by and experience the work for a while. While there are many ideal locations all around the city, I must take into consideration the safety of the equipments used. It will mostly be inside or right outside a secure building where the equipments are safe, but is also a place where the public is comfortable spending some time hanging out, chatting, etc.

In this context, I found that Orr Street is an ideal location to project the visualization while absorbing the varying soundscape of the surroundings to be used as input for fuelling the visualizations. For the purpose of presenting my work during the seminar, I may move the projections to the interior of Building 50 because of the possibility of poor visibility during daytime.

SPACE

Ideally, the space for this kind of projection I would prefer a dark walkway with walls on either side that is often used by the public. This is ideal because the projection here will be more noticeable due to the darkness; the walls will provide a richer acoustics as the sound waves bounce off them and is received by the microphone; and the regular public access will ensure continued input of sound waves.

For this purpose, I tested the projections on a large wall in Orr Street. The space was ideal as both sides of the street had tall walls or buildings trapping most sound waves within the street itself, while also reducing the effects of a strong breeze neutralizing the sounds created by passing individuals and vehicles.

INSPIRATIONS

Senye Shen

This work by Senye has been quite an influence on me ever since she told me about it. The impact of air movement on these light weight and sensitive material speaks a lot about the changes we bring about through a seemingly localised action such as walking. The Floating wall inspired me to create a very similar work, but one that relates to me directly. I use digital visualization to reflect sound waves in my work mostly because I have done my undergraduate degree in computer science.

Malte Wagenfeld

The aesthetics of air relates to my work in a lot of ways. Malte uses advanced technology to study the movement of air using lasers and smoke machines. The apparatus was setup inside an abandoned warehouse to utilize most the less hindered air movements within an enclosed room and blocked out light. The main commonality here is that it reveals a hidden side of our surrounding using technology and visual aesthetics.

Toshiyuki Inoko

In an empty, dark room in the Melbourne NGV this summer, I found dozens of people wandering around in circles looking at the lights on the floor. It was a digital simulation of the movement of water – like wading through phosphorescent pools. Visitors drag beams of light around with their feet while overhead an ambient, choral soundtrack plays. This work titled Moving creates vortices and vortices create movement is an installation of light and sound based on a digital model of the movement of water.

Nikola Bašić

Sea Organ uses the tidal movements of the Adriatic sea to push sounds though resonant tubes. This group of installations requires no electricity, just the forces of nature for their soundings. The set of rectangular holes made into the topmost step is where the soundwaves would come out as they are pushed from underneath by the sea and the force of kinetic energy. This work is essentially similar to my own project it translates one form of energy into another perceivable form. This conversion of one state into another is an act enabling one’s imagination to become perceivable for others through an immersive experience. The enabling part is what I also wish to do with my works.

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