EAST BY WEST

 

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Communication Archive Part IV

 

 


Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 09:09:34 +0200
From: Orm Finnendahl

Hi Sher, Johannes,


I just came back from Nürnberg and give you a brief report as it
relates to our project in some ways: The performance of the new piece
which includes the patch I programmed the last months went very
well. Matthias Bauer, an excellent improv musician (double bass), the
dancer Helena Zwiauer from Palindrome and me did a collective
improvisation with the computer grasping parts of the performance of
the double bass and transforming it. Unfortunately we had to cancel
the motion tracking part which was supposed to control the sonic
transformations due to the lack of rehearsal time on behalf of
Helena/Frieder, so I played that part all by myself (using a newly
aquisited Doepfer pocket fader, Sher :-). The performance was very
well received .I had a small conversation with Klaus and I told him about the
connection of this patch to our proposal.

Concerning sending sounds to both of you: I'm not sure how to make
demonstrations of the patch as the sound is closely related to the
realtime visualization (which we might not use in Dresden
altogether). There were some people playing with it (with seemingly a
lot of fun) in Nürnberg and they all told me that the combination of
the graphical interface and the emerging sounds are somewhat crucial
(especially as you could use about any sound and the transformations
are quite endless). For Matthias and me the main thing was that you
could play the computer like an instrument (quite sensitive or even
poetic and not as unflexible as those machines normally tend to
sound), but maybe I'm exaggerating. Since playing an instrument isn't
something you'll learn within 5 minutes I'm somewhat unclear about how
to implement this patch for Dresden.

I guess a lot of decisions have to be made ahead of time, leaving only a limited amount of options to
the realtime motiontracking control part of the visitor which somehow
interferes with my preference to open systems. But maybe there's a way
to find a good balance.
Anyway let me know your ideas.


Warm Greetings,
Orm


Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2002 02:08:14 -0400
From: Johannes Birringer

hallo Orm, Sher


I can only answer briefly, thanks for your letter/description, Orm,
I am busy this week with our final performance in my lab.
what you say sounds good, and is somewhat different from the other
reports I got, including a letter expressing deep reservation, and I spent hours in front of the computer
Friday but was unable to see/hear much of the BlueLab webcast, except for 2 minutes when the
live webcast actually worked. Hannes explained some of the technical
difficulties, with RealPlayer, etc., in the Trialoc/Dialoc, but I am
encouraged by what you say on your end, let us think about it, and I
will get back to you both/
best
Johannes


Subject: Re: Trialoc
Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2002 20:45:00 +0200
From: Orm Finnendahl

Hi Johannes, Sher


> what you say sounds good, and is somewhat different from the other
> reports I got.....

You're referring to the late night event, which was on Friday only and
-in my opinion-, was a complete failure, if not a desaster, due to
literally no rehearsing because of the trillions of technical problems
arising (as far as I saw it as I wasn't really involved). It was the
show before, which was on Thursday and Friday, I was talking
about. That show wasn't supposed to be broadcasted anywhere and much
better prepared (and very well received by the local audience).


Question:
How long can each of you stay in Hellerau? The official end is on
July, 28th I think (thats the Sunday).


Orm

Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 14:05:46 +0200
From: sher doruff


hi johannes, ormas for the dates. i'm a little more flexible now as a conference date
in london was changed. i whad been thinking to be in dresden 20-30
july. i could extend until 3 august if necessary but would opt to
come a bit later. do you think it's necessary to be involved the full
length of time in the workshop - meaning should i try to come 16-28?
if our project is selected then surely we'll need as much prep time
as possible.


i was in the states most of may. had a very productive trip to new york.
i will also reread through the proposal with fresh eyes and a mind
towards the sound and interconnection of spaces. we need to
determine the method of motion tracking before going to dresden. as i
mentioned, keystroke can track two discreet objects but doesn't
process speed and acceleration so i think we must have an external
application for this - but what? Eyecon?softVNS? something else? we
may need additional assistance to program this system. something to
think about.


all the best,
sher

Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 00:20:29 -0400
From: Johannes Birringer

hallo Orm, Sher,


thanks for clarifying, somehow this was not clear to me, sorry, that
your concert was not part of the Friday night Trialoc/webcast link up, I
assumed that Nuernberg was one of three locations they wanted to hook
up. Well I am glad all went well on your end for the performance in
front of a local audience.


I still am thinking about your description of the sound and possible
interactive-set up issue, which you seem to worry about r feel less
inclined to, I need to read you again on this carefully,but as to your question, YES, I can stay longer, at least until August 3 or 4.
with best wishes
Johannes

Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 16:38:15 +0200
From: sher doruff


hi johannes, orm,


should we send our technical requirements to thomas individually or
collectively?


johannes, perhaps you know a bit more about the workshop structure
than i can make out. how far are we meant to go towards realization?
this will have an impact on the technical requirements. i cannot
imagine they will be providing all the items requested for every
project. i guess i don't understand the distinction between the full
workshop and chosen projects.
enlightenment?
best,
Sher

Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 09:38:11 +0200
From: Orm Finnendahl


Hi Sher, Johannes,


When I talked to Klaus last weekend in Nürnberg it didn't seem
necessary to be there from the 16th to the 28th. As there is a pretty
big concert I'm organizing for the world congress of architecture on
July 23rd I will very likely be very busy until then. Maybe there's a
chance that I could come down to Dresden before that date for 1 or 2
days, but that depends on the organisational situation here. Your
former comments made me plan my holidays starting on the 1st of
August, not thinking we would extend more than a couple of days. I
will try to rearrange that as I agree it would be good to have as much
time as possible, but do't know yet, whether this'll be possible. I'll
let you know as soon as possible.

I suggest to contact Thomas Dumke directly about the audio. My own
multichannel PCI card will probably be needed for a dance show here in
Berlin on all the weekends of July. I know that Palindrome is there
and they have a Computer with multichannel which they probably don't
need. But we actually need one of these for every room. Maybe it's ok
if we test it out with one pc only...


As far as interfacing is concerned, audio and visuals probably talk
via midi to each other, right?As far as I've understood, the selection of projects depends on the
impression of people from TMA and V2 and Ars Electronica. I guess
people from abroad will be there near the end of Dresden (July 28) and
it would be very good if we had something to show then. They decide
then, which project gets presented where and as far as I can see,
everything is quite open. Dresden's TMA obviously just got the money
and wants to decide, what to do with it based on their impressions
(and on the feedback of the V2 and Ars Electronica people) in July.
--
Orm

Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 14:22:58 -0400
From: Johannes Birringer


dear Orm, Sher


sorry to be tired (we had a big opening tonight of our whole lab
performance system process)., and apparently lagging a step behind.
The discussion you have started about our piece, about constructing it,
about equipment and programming, that's a serious matter now, and we
need to agree as soon as possible.>>>>johannes, perhaps you know a bit more about the workshop structure


> than i can make out. how far are we meant to go towards realization?
> this will have an impact on the technical requirements. i cannot
> imagine they will be providing all the items requested for every
> project. i guess i don't understand the distinction between the full
> workshop and chosen projects.


I must admit that I am confused. First, I don't get the situation of
the netzpannung, and what Klaus wanted to initiate with his foum
discussion, I am disappointed that there has been no interest in
discussion, although Angelica and I tried to foster one or Klaus
suggested that we look at issues as a group.

I was also amazed at the numvber of project proposals, since we were only 23 people in Nuernberg, in March, and I assumed that people would
be developing joint projects, so I thought there might be six or seven
or eight. There are 15.I don't understand why they don't choose a few projects they want to
support, and then support these in construction and completion as best
as possible, resources/equipment and location wise.


How can there be 15 projects of this complexity level be developed, and
then shown?If final funding decisions and exhibition decisions (ars electronica, etc)
are done at the "showing" of the works in late July, then folks, we all
need to be there ahead of time and work hard to have something in our
hands, so I must appeal to your sense of realism, we cannot bild an
interactive installation in 3 days, for the people from Linz and
Rotterdam to look at. Staying until August 1 is fine, with me, but may turn out to be useless,
if the resources/equipment are terminated when decisions ate made on the
27th/28th, or perhaps the Festspielhaus is no longer available or the
dorms, I need to write to Thomas about that.So this puts a damper on us as a team, I also strongly urge us to rely, to an extent, on our own computers, since we may not have one coming to
us from Bluelab or Palindrome, because they are all doing their own
projects. I think we need you both there, in Dresden. I can start out
with the sculptural work, but really won't be able to do any interactive
programming until you both get there.

 

<<When I talked to Klaus last weekend in Nürnberg it didn't seem
necessary to be there from the 16th to the 28th.>>


I disagree, that's nonsensical. I do know of your other
commitment, although it will make it hard for us to develop anything
substantial. It might be good, Orm, if you come down between the 16th
and 23rd. on an agreed day, to meet with Sher and me, Sher, 2oth ? 21st?
remember, we are talking "exhibition" on 27th/28th. I think Sher and I can
get stuff accomplished between 21 and 26, and perhaps as we start out
duetting, Orm you could have a half day or something on the 21st with us?

Let's think about this carefully, and start discussing the interactive
side of the project, yes, let's make this our agenda item for this weekend. How do we want
visitor/audience activity activate midi? do we?


It is something we need to talk more about, whether the audience
in our two rooms will be perceiving/experiencing themselves as agents in
affecting/discovering new or different sound spaces, and how/why would
they see images, and what are the visual relations to the changing
sound.Last night, after 2 months of exploring (Mas/msp/jit , keystroke
isadora) we performed our VSS, a performance system involving 3 teams or
performers (at laptops) and dancers out in other half of space (behind
screens), the dancers were only visible through camera mediation
(including one small webcam, Sher, running into Keystroke), and the
camera feed (signal) was manipulated in real time, but the interactione
in the piece (VSS = Visual Sound System) is all done by us as
performers/programmers, the audience was invited to wander around and
enjoy. They were not asked to "act".

For a link to VSS.01, click here.


I think "East by West" is suggestive of action, interaction (bocchia
game, the suspended objects/fabrics/costumes), touching and sensing and
hearing, and then also seing (I havew not solved tyhe problem of where
to project, but wanted to build these tent like forms), but indeed this
would imply have motion tracking equipment lined up
(cameras)...............
......
Please help me to understand the politics of this selection process
more later
cheerio
Johannes

Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 21:07:16 +0200
From: Orm Finnendahl


Hi Johannes, hi Sher,

Considering the process: Today I talked to Thomas. He said that
it is absolutely clear that we can't have anything near to be
presentable after this workshop and that we rather do sketches of
proposals. I agree with you Johannes, that it doesn't make a lot of
sense to do things without rehearsing (last week in Nürnberg made that
totally clear to me and I'm glad that I came there perfectly prepared
(BTW I refused to use the eyecon system for my new commissioned piece
due to too little rehearsal time provided there and rather relied on
the rehearsed part with the double bass, which proved to be a very
good decision as the preformance went very well)).

About the meeting: I will also try to make it possible to come earlier, at least for some time. And I assume, I have an advantage of being able to prepare better than you two, so that I can have at least
the patch and sounds to be selected from prepared and can focus on the
interaction part of it.I think we should also try to communicate to Dresden that a
preselection (as announced) would have helped and just inviting
everybody who did a proposal just seems to be the wrong way to do
it. The total funding already is limited and spending it for financing
the preliminary studies will make funding of the remaining projects
even harder.
Anyway, thanks Johannes for getting that straight.
Tell me your thoughts (both, if possible)
Yours,
Orm


Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2002 04:04:37 -0400
From: Johannes Birringer


Dear Orm, Sher:


well, thanks Orm.
that helps a little. But on the other hand, I am not comfortable with
what you found out .

"Sketches"? I can't see how we can make a "sketch" of the two room
installations, which in my mind had a specific character and
environmental ambiente and sculptural definition, including the sense of
interaction that you and Sher are envisioning with me
(I quote from your earlier letter, since we need to talk about his more:.>>

Indeed the cross linking between the two spaces is close
to our project (and I would like to see it). For the Dresden project I
find it crucial that the feedback is doubled and would try to make the
effect of movement on the visuals or audio more immediate. The main
point for me is the split or seperated situation of communication: The
visual part of what I say is in the other room, the audio part is in
my room (and vice versa). As our mind always combines and relates the
visuals and the audio, the two sides are actually creating a totality
being stuck with controlling only one side of it. It's maybe the
opposite of being schizophrenic: I'm not two persons at once, but only
half a person in the space which I perceive.>>>?

Sher, would you comment on this? I like your passage, Orm, but the
seperation of the communication is also confusing to me, since one
audience member can only be in one room at a time, so if I understand
you correctly, that one member would not perceive the "visual"
interaction or response, since it's in the other room, right? s/he may
however become aware of a visual event that is "happening"-transmitted
from the other room? am I understanding you? is this how you also see
the interactivity with the sound? Now, back to sketches.

I also must say I did misunderstand the Dresden
Bluelab scenario. Your performance, which you describe, was a part of
or was in "Polytropos" (with Palindrome), Palindrome mentions so many
musicians, so did you perform a partucular scene or segment of your
music? You were not listed as performer but as musician, but I assume
you were at the laptop collaborating in real-time with your friend the
double bass player (Thursday night). So this went well, and I gather you
came very well prepared, and this is good for us to know for Dresden,
since if you and Sher and I indeed arrive well prepared, a "sketch" is
feasible, and I would like us to do the best we can.

 

Let us define how we will do that, and here we need Sher's input, since
I am not an expert with BigEye yet, nor softVNS, and would not want to
work with Eyecon. I think I can program some basic BigEye motion
tracking, but I never felt that convinced about its effectiveness --
however, if you can use the midi data we can generate (we need cameras,
and computers dedicated for BigEye in both rooms, my laptop isn't
capable for that) and if they can talk to your patches, then we are in
business perhaps, and we infuse the Keystroke potentials (I am not
convinced with the webcam as live input, Sher, one neees to be too close
up to have a reasonably strong/interesting image suitable for
projection, I tried it this week). I am a bit disaffected now about the Dresden/Realtime organization/the
selectiojn process or non selection process, the silence on the
netzspannung list. you wrote


<I will also try to make it possible to come earlier, at least for some
time.>>


that would be good. I come prepared too. Finally:


>>>I think we should also try to communicate to Dresden that a
preselection (as announced) would have helped and just inviting
everybody who did a proposal just seems to be the wrong way to do
it. The total funding already is limited and spending it for financing
the preliminary studies will make funding of the remaining projects
even harder.>>

Please respond, Sher, I am in accordance, and would like to propose that
as a project team we jointly communicate this to the organizers, in
the way Orm formulated it. The current organization may precisely
create the kindof prolems of the 31st of May, and I
don't wish to be embarrasse, if they invite folks from ars
electronica and V2.We also need to resolve, as a team, who will write to
book space, and equipment so that can work effectively and efficiently.
How am I now to assume, at all, that I can work on sculpltural
installations and technical installations in the east and westr wing, if
15 project teams are showing up top work there. If all teams share the
available space, then how can this possibly work?
warm regards


Johannes

Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2002 14:40:30 +0200
From: sher doruff

orm, johannes,
>
>Sher, would you comment on this? I like your passage, Orm, but the
>seperation of the communication is also confusing to me, since one
>audience member can only be in one room at a time, so if I understand
>you correctly, that one member would not perceive the "visual"
>interaction or response, since it's in the other room, right? s/he may
>however become aware of a visual event that is "happening"-transmitted
>from the other room? am I understanding you? is this how you also see
>the interactivity with the sound?

this is a vital decision we need to make and we can approach in
different ways. i feel this is what the workshop is about.
determining the perception of the image and sound control relative to
the images and sounds used and their relationship to presence in the
rooms. we could make preliminary decisions about this and the create
the media to fit it. is the sound and image control feedback to each
room or are the rooms modally discreet (sound only/image only)?
unless we use blindfolds and earplugs there will always be vision and
sound but they may have varying relationships. i can imagine
beginning with orm's sounds and experimenting with their effect on
visual data to determine what kinds of images (movement) create the
most interesting relationships. or the other way around. begin with
the intention of the bocchia balls and see how that might alter the
sounds and then what part of the altered sound is fedback to the
sandroom.maybe we have to use spatial mapping that correlates in each room.
i'm not sure, but i do think that whatever we assiduously plan will
change when we are sitting down together testing our source material.
is that vague enough? :-)


>
>Now, back to sketches...... I think I can program some basic BigEye motion
>tracking, but I never felt that convinced about its effectiveness --
>however, if you can use the midi data we can generate (we need cameras,
>and computers dedicated for BigEye in both rooms, my laptop isn't
>capable for that) and if they can talk to your patches, then we are in
>business perhaps, and we infuse the Keystroke potentials (I am not
>convinced with the webcam as live input, Sher, one needs to be too close
>up to have a reasonably strong/interesting image suitable for
>projection, I tried it this week).

motion capture: BigEye is not the best solution anymore. we would
also need and extra dedicated Mac laptop to run it. i'm wondering
about eyesweb which is freeware and pc based. problem is i can't
test it. orm, do you have an extra laptop? as for the image we can
always use a dv camera but there is about a one second encoding
latency. at least you can zoom and the image quality is higher. i
will bring my camera (plus webcam)

.about the phase II and selection process,
yes, i agree in principle. although it seems that their AIM is to
half-facilitate all the projects and create a drafting workshop which
they can profile as a kind of pro active think-tank. if this is the
case, i'm guessing we're to work with models or prototypes. it's not
unreasonable, it's just a different approach than we expected. i have
been involved in these type workshops before and they can be very
useful in sorting out the good ideas from the weak ones.
even if they meant to facilitate only three projects, i doubt they
would have been able to provide all the equipment necessary when we
can't be absolutely certain until we begin what all the peripheral
and unexpected items will be. i must admit, i never grasped how they
could pull that off in the first place.

>>If all teams share the
>available space, then how can this possibly work?

so we first need clarification of the east/west room space. can we
have it to ourselves or is it a jumble of projects?
over and out for now,
Sher Doruff

Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2002 22:08:47 +0200
From: Orm Finnendahl

Hi Sher, Johannes,

 

> >the interactivity with the sound?
i thought it that way: whatever one person in one room does will have
an effect on both, sound and visuals. only that one of the two parts
isn't (at least directly) perceivable for him, as it is happening in
the other room. if as an example, this person is modifying the
acoustical space in his/her own room and the visual space in the other
room, the other person is doing the same vice versa (that was, where I
was throwing the stupid term of "orthogonality" in).

i see the transformation of visuals and sound as some sort of extention of the
persons movement and hope, the interconnection leads to some sort of
"dialog" between the two people in the two rooms. one person might
want to create some sort of homogenity of sound and visuals, but can
only modify one of the two parts (the audio in this scenario). So he
has to hope, that the other person "understands" what he is trying to
do and helps him by doing things which will synchronize visuals and
audio. In this sense, there is a communicative situation, where each
of the person can only talk with a limited set of tools and they are
dependant on each other: Everybody is crippled in his very own
distinct way. And furthermore, whatever you try to fix in your own
room might have consequences in the other room you don't foresee and
you get some sort of feedback process which might not get where you
expect it to go.is that, what you were asking for, Johannes? I'm sorry if I
misunderstood.I have to admit that even though that might sound interesting, I'm
sceptical that such a thing works, especially with an unprepared
audience: On one hand the cause/effect relationships have to be very
clear in order to be perceived as something, one could change
intentionally, on the other hand, very direct relations are likely to
be rather boring in their directness. Apart from that it might not be
very likely that people in each room even understand and appreciate
the notion of communicating to each other and I don't like long
explanations how something ought to be used at all. But anyway, those
were my thoughts.

> maybe we have to use spatial mapping that correlates in each room.
> i'm not sure, but i do think that whatever we assiduously plan will
> change when we are sitting down together testing our source material.
> is that vague enough? :-)


> >Yes, absolutely. All your suggestions sound wonderful. BTW, I agree
(as we probably all will) that whatever somebody does, sound and
visuals will inevitably be related to each other (i think that's much
too deeply implemented in our perception).I'm prepared to bring some material to test out and really look
forward to that part of the process. Whether or not this meeting works
(at least in the audio realm) strongly depends on the amount of
preparation on my side and the flexibility of the system for adapting
and changing it to the needs which will certainly come up and can't be
foreseen. And I hope it works out the way I imagine it.

Anyway, I will have a glance through our emails to find out what has
already been suggested soundwise, but if anybody has ideas about the
kind of sounds he/she is interested, please let me know (a
list?). Maybe you even can provide some sounds ahead of time (send
them via email), so I can have a look how at to include or integrate
them.


as to the Polytropos concert-
There were 3 shows altogether: A dance show with 7 pieces was done on
Thursday at 8.00 and the same show repeated on Friday at 9.00 p.m.. In
addition a final "late night" show with the webstreaming stuff was
done on Friday after 11.00 p.m.. I had two pieces in each of the dance
shows of Thursday and Friday. One was a finished piece, which got
"interactivated" and danced to, the other one was a commission by
Palindrome with interaction using my new patch. The Friday night show
was really o.k. but I'm glad we came well prepared as there was hardly
any time for rehearsing there.>> orm, do you have an extra laptop?
No. I have a G4 (400 or 450 MHz) and a Linux Laptop and might be able
to bring both. The G4 now has an excellent 8-channel audio interface
and could get used in combination with my laptop for the audio part. I
don't know: maybe it's possible to spare the G4 (if my long awaited
8-channel interface for the laptop finally arrives and I can persuade
it to talk to linux) and then you two could use it in Dresden. Would
that help? But don't you think we can address that to TMA? It should
be possible for Dresden to provide a PC, as they hardly cost any
money, don't you think? Does it have to be a laptop?

> so we first need clarification of the east/west room space. cane we
> have it to ourselves or is it a jumble of projects?


I seriously doubt that we will have the space all to ourselves (it
would make us 3 blocking more than 60% of all available space, right
Johannes?), but that indeed is a crucial thing to clear up ahead of
time. Shall I do that?
all the best,
Orm

 

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