Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
University of Glasgow
sys_m1
/sys_m1/ is an eight-minute electroacoustic composition realized using systemic, a system I constructed for real-time composition, performance and sound spatialisation controlled via a physics-based visual environment. In systemic, physics-based algorithms govern the behaviour of objects in a visual system (triggered by a human user), and the movement of those visual objects controls the spatialisation, via vector-based amplitude panning, of corresponding sound objects over an 8-channel circular speaker configuration (it is worth noting that this work has been realised in eight channels, but the system is customisable to accommodate a range of multichannel configurations). These sound objects can be either synthesized in real-time via the software controlling the sonic trajectories (puredata) or can trigger the playback of pre-composed sound objects.
/sys_m1/ is composed from a number of recordings taken from systemic. The sonic material is a combination of pre-composed sound objects and real-time synthesized sound, with Doppler shift added according to speed and trajectory. By utilizing a physics-based visual system to control the spatialisation of sound, I am effectively removing decision-making from the spatialisation process, often seen as an extension of electroacoustic composition. Here, spatialisation of objects is aleatoric, raising questions about the nature of the diffusion process more generally.
This portfolio submission consists of a flash drive (and data DVD as a backup) containing the following:
1: The composition /sys_m1/
1a: Stereo mixdown
1b: 8-channel versions (as eight individual channels)
2: Software patches for the systemic system
2a: Puredata patches (for the sonic component of the system)
2b: Processing patches (for the visual component of the system)
3: Example videos of systemic functioning.
3a: Stereo example video of systemic functioning.
3b: 8-channel example video of systemic functioning.
4: A contents file, containing links to the portfolio items.