Sometimes sitting in a room pushing notes around on the page or writing code can get old. I like to spice up my creative life every now an then with an installation. My most recent installation, American Idols was up at the AC Institute in Chelsea in February 2012. For a number of years Academic Computer Music was up at the Computer Music Center at Columbia University. Sadly we moved it one too many times and it broke.
Documenting these things is basically impossible, but I have tried to give you an idea of what they are about below.
American Idols (2012)
American Idols is an exploration of a self-sufficient system. There are four guitars, each facing an amplifier, and feeding back. In between the guitar and its amplifier is a piece of software that stops any pitches that might feed back from getting out of hand. If a pitch gets too loud, the software snuffs it out. The sound of the guitars is fed directly into the televisions through a modulator.
The only input to the system is the 60 cycle hum of the guitar amplifiers. This hum excites the guitars, causing the strings to vibrate and begin to feed back. The guitars act as resonant filters, only vibrating at the harmonics found on the strings of the guitars. To keep the system sounding pretty, the guitars are tuned to a just intonation scale based on the 60 cycle hum of the amplifiers. This is the entire system. It is left to evolve slowly over time.
See this video below for a general sense of the installation. The guitars are arranged in a square around the installation space; one behind the televisions, one behind the camera, and two on either side.
American Idols from Sam Pluta on Vimeo.
Selbsportrait mit Peter Ablinger (2011)
Selbsportrait mit Peter Ablinger is either an installation or a work that runs as the audience enters a concert. In its setup, the computer listens to and spectrally freezes the sound in the room every six seconds. At the same time it analyzes the frozen spectra that it captures and notates the strongest formants on a large screen that hangs at the front of the space. An ensemble placed around the space reads from the score on the screen and plays the notated pitches. There is an endless feedback between performers and space, resulting in a constantly changing wall of sound. The performance below is by the Wet Ink Ensemble at St Peters Church in Chelsea, NYC.
Academic Computer Music (2007)
I made Academic Computer Music after I moved from Birmingham, UK to New York. At Birmingham we had BEAST, an insane sound system with 70+ Genelecs and other even more delicious speakers. In New York it is difficult to find a space with two good speakers. So, I made this installation with 96 piezo buzzers and an Arduino controlled circuit. In its final version the user sits at an elementary school desk with six knobs that control the sound. This way they get to control their own highly spatialized concert for one. The schematic, some pictures, and a recording are below.
American Idols from Sam Pluta on Vimeo.
Selbsportrait mit Peter Ablinger is either an installation or a work that runs as the audience enters a concert. In its setup, the computer listens to and spectrally freezes the sound in the room every six seconds. At the same time it analyzes the frozen spectra that it captures and notates the strongest formants on a large screen that hangs at the front of the space. An ensemble placed around the space reads from the score on the screen and plays the notated pitches. There is an endless feedback between performers and space, resulting in a constantly changing wall of sound. The performance below is by the Wet Ink Ensemble at St Peters Church in Chelsea, NYC.
Academic Computer Music (2007)
I made Academic Computer Music after I moved from Birmingham, UK to New York. At Birmingham we had BEAST, an insane sound system with 70+ Genelecs and other even more delicious speakers. In New York it is difficult to find a space with two good speakers. So, I made this installation with 96 piezo buzzers and an Arduino controlled circuit. In its final version the user sits at an elementary school desk with six knobs that control the sound. This way they get to control their own highly spatialized concert for one. The schematic, some pictures, and a recording are below.