Pulse, Empty XY(live coding performance of music and visuals)

Created
Apr 8, 2022 09:35 PM
Tags
p5.js
tidal cycles
hydra
 
notion image
 
Personal composition
Group composition
 
Personal composition:
The project was inspired by Lifeline-Zeraphym and Sturm I - Fear. The former using music and heartbeat sound to create an atmosphere that seems to tell a sad/hopeful story, the latter combines rapid piano with interest sound effects and play progressive melody repeatedly.
 
Making music is more like natural flow than meticulous design but I do want to show different emotion phases during the composition and to have a metaphor on life’s quietness, pain, struggle, strength, beauty and blossom. I am not able to fully develop my idea within the limited time but I tried to make a minimalist visual of the transformation of a single line to represent different emotional stage of life.
 
I started the project with making some random beats. I didn't expect to make it musical at all not only because I didn't want to but also because I thought it was hard to write a melody without thorough musical theory knowledge. I wrote a short melody of 4 or 6 notes as practice and found it sounded good after adding more notes and double it. Neither, I didn't expect to use piano because it is not my taste of music and "superpiano" doesn't sound good. However, after I wrote a melody and its chords I found the pitch would be different using other synthesizers, so I kept the superpiano because I had to find out the proper chord again otherwise. Magically, when the gain was assigned with a certain number, superpiano sounded fine. That is basically the full story of the composition style. I added the heartbeat-like beat and then I added a simulated electrocardiogram machine sound. Also, I don't want my composition sounds happy. I wrote a chord that sounded very joyful at first. Hopefully, the final result was at least less happy than that. As for the visual, my computer felt much stressful with hydra. It stopped functioning frequently and I also didn't spend as much time on the visual as on the sound, but I did accomplish my idea of making visuals with a line. I would like to explore more with this kind of simple or minimal style.
 
Group composition:
For our final, Empty XY wanted to build further on what we have created for the Drum Circle. We had received positive feedback from our colleagues and so we wanted to push the industrial/electronic theme further. We left a few base visual/audio codes from the drum circle however, the experience is different from what we created in the drum circle.
For the hydra, Meera and Yoki created an introductory visual with a slightly industrial vibe. Then the visuals began to alternate in a similar theme to embody fluidity and ease the audience into their experience. For the Tidalcycles, Tonia and Xuwen created a steady beat that eased but also excited the audience for the rest of the performance. Then the visuals turn into sharper and straighter lines to transition the audience into the build-up. Next is a glitchy visual that finally allows the audience to arrive at the drop/industrial theme.
At the first drop, we blended shaders with a video source, and then as the drop slowly began to sound muted the visuals match the sound by using muted colors and visuals. As the sound slowly builds back up for the second and final drop, the visuals change and with it. The visuals are slowly alternated depending on how the sound changes, to build to the final drop.
Finally, once both the audio and visuals drop, the sound slowly mutes again and the visuals blend into a fade-out to conclude the performance.