This past semester my research dealt with model construction together with the conceptual and practical exploration of systems that can be described as general-diverse-illusionary. These systems deal with collective memory, connotations, the “Tetris Effect” (the assimilation of a set of cognitive rules due to repetition) and our shared destiny.
Interdisciplinary systems, based around varying mediums. Each system requires the viewer to participate and activate their individual imagination and contribute to a certain system. Contributing a piece of our imagination, an abstract, to an existing system, is in fact an illusion.
I chose to explore the surface of each system, envision them, experiment with them, familiarize oneself with them and initiate dialogue within them. All in order to understand the impact of this system's correspondence - as an imaginative exercise and in reality.
Door with a continuous knocking
Stuffed cat with a human tongue that continuously moves
Directional speaker system that creates continuous non-linear sound
Camera system that creates a continuous, infinite narrative out of the space
My attraction to these systems stems from their intuitive origins. These systems penetrated my brain at one moment - and don’t exit. Creatively pursuing initial thoughts fascinates me. I believe in the potential of a conscious procedure based on the unconscious. I can see the potential if we all collectively, to one degree or another, dedicate ourselves to our initial, un-processed, un-censored, idiosyncratic and original thoughts that stem from our unconscious.
I find it appealing to invest, explore and engage over the span of two years on an initial thought that appeared at a single moment.
I would like to deal with an overall experience, and thus I approach each medium and every piece of information that I can reach and to adapt to them according to my needs. I avoid dealing with a specific medium due to the fact that I would like to explore an overall experience, without focusing on one medium, or to deal with connotations that are attached to a medium that touch on all the senses and contexts.
The systems I construct, in one way or the other, challenge/disrupt the perception of the viewer through a recognition of the multitude of conventions and the mutual experiences constructed by our society-audience. These are based on a multitude of contexts that are built through our life experience or through the human narrative based on a huge assumption - we all hold similar basic experiences, we all lean on a similar range of feelings. In other words, we are all based on the same foundations.
These are the preconceptions of my work. They are what excite me, but also what touches others (a fact that is constantly rejected in one way or the other). My effort and my belief is that through continuous refining, my work will arrive at the communal foundation through which I will hopefully be able to communicate my feelings and to feel close to the human environment. This deep feeling of emotional attachment takes place through spontaneous and continuous acts of precision. Through an efficient connotation system. a race of meanings.
The systems deal with absence. They demand from the viewer to reconstruct from their communal imagination a piece of the puzzle that is missing. The absence of the character who is knocking on the door; the absence of life in the cat’s cadaver; the absence of the one who is speaking; the absence of the narrative in the video.
The automatic completion operated by us through a communal destiny based on the solitude of life in a human environment is demonstrated in the impossibility to perceive the same picture the other sees. We are not able to crack the coded communication line with our environment through the use of words/objects/descriptions. We must involve our feelings/abstract thoughts/imagination. Through emotional communication, we are destined to believe, in a slight act of foolishness, that the person in front of us, and with whom we trust our most inner feelings, understands us.
But the person in front of us perceives the world imminently different to us. Part of my research deals with extremizing the individual experience; generating a bridge over personal emotional content in order to reach further contents that are based on fundamental human experiences.
I believe that we all share. Close, personal emotional contents include intricate thoughts, words. Further contents - as i have demonstrated - include collective fundamental human/emotional experiences.
A directional speaker or parametric speaker allows to create narrow beam of sound in the space-to direct the sound to a specific person or to create reflection of sound from a specific object in the space.
Using this method, it is possible to create an illusion of spatial sound.
The resonance frequency of the transducers is 40Khz the sound is broadcasted on a carrier wave of 40Khz using AM modulation, colliding with a non-linear medium like air or object creates a phenomenon of demodulation that makes the sound hearable.
The directed speaker system that I constructed allows to isolate the viewer from fellow viewers - an act that creates a cut in the communal experience of a mutual destiny. After the viewer is exposed to the contents that are broadcasted by the directed broadcast I expect that the viewers will involve others in their experience. I expect that through sharing the experience with others, an alienation will arise based on the dissonance of the difference between viewer’s experiences.
This comes in contrast with the intuitive tendency to get closer to our fellow viewers, to unite and to share our mutual experiences. The dissonance that arises through the work exists but is made more evident through the individual perception of sound.
With the help of two directed speaker systems, Theoretically it will be possible to replace the need to wear earphones in order to create a spatial sound speculation (binaural/ambisonics). The system constructed will use two 360 degree movable speakers. The system can trail a human being in a space. A pair of ears-with the use of machine seeing. The system creates a target in the space.. “i hear the person getting closer”..”no one is there”.. For a non specialist audience, this may be disorientating. A person hears someone standing next to him in the space quietly whispering.
“ I love you. I love you”
directional speaker prototype 1.0
directional speaker prototype 1.2
directional speaker prototype 2.0
Unclear carrier wave using 555
AM with a input signal
Amplifier audio amp on 9V
Output very week and distort
Square array
20-50Khz carrier wave using 555 (unstable)
AM with a input signal
Amplifier audio amp on 9V
Output very week and distort
Circle array
Frequency response >700hz
Moveable with serv
directional speaker test prototype 2.1
40Khz carrier wave using 555
AM with a input signal output to PWM
Amplifier H-bridge amp on 20V
Output strong but distort
Different arrays
Frequency response >300hz
40Khz carrier wave using 555
AM with a input signal output to PWM
Amplifier H-bridge amp on 20V
Output very strong but distort
Full array
Frequency response >300hz
A very strange thing happened to me, during one of my internet searches for sources of information on a directional speaker I came across a video that explains the phenomenon, and presents it via a sound transmission to stuffed animals. How strange
First semester status: a successful prototype; a lot of noise in the system; not great beam directivity...; interesting resonance from directing the speaker straight towards the viewer; interesting feedback with dynamic microphone; not enough knowledge regarding the safety of the device...
Plans for next semester: Check safety of the equipment; build two modules; switch the amplifier from H-brig to class D amp; switch origins of modulation from 555 to microcontroller or TL-494; connect software that emulates ambisonics sound;
Life within the preservation of death. The domestic animal as a familiar and beloved member of the family. The cat’s housebreaking as a result of a social conditioning. Movement within a dead object. A human tongue within a cat.
I ordered a stuffed cat from a woman who deals with taxidermy in Russia. She shared with me the process of stuffing. It was exciting to see.
“The Cat and the Tongue: Preserving an Existing State of Affairs' includes a stuffed cat with a human tongue in his mouth, continuously moving (possibly in perfect sync with “The Door”).
It's difficult to elaborate on this sculpture at the moment. It’s image came to my mind one morning and from that moment on it stuck there. It may be conceptualized through what I have already wrote, but I am sure when the sculpture will be realized, I will be able to explain more.
The taxidermy phenomenon is interesting in itself. Our pursuit of the preservation of a spark of life within a still life. Animals that most of the day run away from us in a panic, after taxidermy we may get closer to them - observe and touch them. A few years ago I came across a website of a taxidermist, the reactions of people in the chat amazed me, countless people asked him to stuff their recently deceased pet. And some even asked him for his "service" regarding the people closest them. People who want to stuff their dear ones. To preserve the beautiful moments in the form of a sculpture, object, art. To place their dear ones in an impossible position. The photograph or recording are not enough, neither as a digital or analog medium. They want the thing itself. As close as possible to it, the material mass of life, without the spirit. Without the mind. The soul is reflected in the eyes, but the eyes are not able to be preserved in the taxidation process.
First semester status: The stuffed cat is on its way, I have the tongue; I purchased a stuffed calf in order to begin to understand the silence of taxidermy; created a virtual model of the cat with the tongue and I look at it.
Plans for next semester: To look at the cat; to connect to its mouth the tongue with a motor and to place it in different spaces and to listen to it.
The door — a representation of a passage, of a desire to enter, to exit, to realize, the inability to open the door, the urgency. Sound without text that reflects emotion. The difference between urgent knocks and calm knocks. Knocks we recognize. Noting a person with the help of sound. Perception changes after a prolonged exposure to knocks. The frustration that comes from an urgent noise that signals communication, like a cell phone that calls for help. We all know what the sound of a knock on the door is like. It evokes feelings in everyone of us, the energy / emotion with which the mechanism knocks on the door changes everything. Whether strong knocks or soft ones - It is a basic human experience.
Video from my presentation, examining the door and the cat in changing environments..check the presentation! It is interactive and fun (it can be found at the top of the page in the main menu)
First semester status: Visualizing the door in a 3D environment; interrogation of the virtual experience. Experimenting with building a series of unsuccessful knocking systems: knocking using a DC engine knocking using a transducer knocking with a fan engine.
Plans for next semester: To build a system that uses solenoid; to find a door; take a video of the doors on the street and add a knocking sound to them
I have always been fascinated by narratives and our inclination, as viewers, always to look for a narrative in every connection (even random); to look for a linkage between image and image. The montage has been successfully engraved in our consciousness - deep and far. We are all intuitively used to interpreting or containing connections.
From a young age I would shoot video and connect to the sound through an editing software. The magic created by the connection between sound and image always surprises me, no matter what my intentions are, something new is created.
I am currently working on the following system: a system that will always record (video and sound) that is happening in space, save the files and randomly broadcast back into space, connecting between occurrence and occurrence, between one shot and another between sound and sound. I wonder what narrative will be created. And what feelings will that narrative give the audience. Enough with the cuts. Enough with the screen. Enough with the context. Enough with the audience.
First semester status: Prototype ready; at this point I use one camera; a simple algorithm that chooses the files based on MAXmsp; numerous lags in the system including difficulties using two cameras and broadcasting partly HD video format.
Plans for next semester: two HD cameras; move the cameras with motors; make them zoom in and out; Teach the system with the help of ML to look for things in the room that look like morning newscasts
Insert a live camera or recorded material into the system, select the video quality random range of recording time and sound input level.
Let the algorithm build you a narrative that has never been seen before!