1w69(2w19) Decode decoded

So i went to Decode on Friday.

IT WAS AMAZING.

i dragged Charlie along who works at Google and is a flash techie too but he wasn’t as impressed as me. Maybe it’s just my love for digital that anything remotely creative wins me over? irregardless.. i had a great time playing with the interactive pieces and seeing what things are going on in the digital field.

There were two pieces that stood out. The sound piece that was comprised of molecules that would break apart dependent upon the sound picked up via the microphone. The body paint piece was beautiful to look at as well as interact with and the “garden” kind of lights at the beginning was interesting as it not only worked via sensors but also because for that split moment in time, standing there amongst the lights, i felt i was in a different world away from the gallery space.

I’ve taken some images and some video footage so that i could share them with you and to also keep as part of my primary research.

So what did i like/dislike from this? Well firstly the dislikes as they’re fast and few I didn’t like the networking stuff. The things that weren’t interactive were kinda boring as I wanted to be engaged. I didn’t understand the soundcities n google map one. i just think the fascination with networks in general just isnt my thing. maybe later when i know more about it or bother about it but for now, i’m content skipping it altogether.
What I did like: I liked the molecule animation. I liked interacting with the pieces and playing with them. Did i want to read the artists’ details n piece details? nope, not really. i was more content about playing with each piece and interpreting it for what i wanted it to mean to me.
i liked the layout of the space. it was small and in a u-shape but it was fairly dimly lit – almost dark in some areas – which kind of highlighted each piece more and it created a nice environment from which to view each work.

Thoughts:
1) After attending, i’ve realised i may want to do an engaging piece based on interactivity. I have one piece nailed in my head ( an animation based on the frequencies in the mp3, using code and flash) but that’s not interactive. I worry that the user won’t see the piece in it’s entirety because who would watch dots moving up and down for 3 minutes or so? But then again, is it necessary to watch the whole thing through if u get the jist of it within the first minute? like when i’m driving, i dont stay in the car and listen to the end of the song after i’ve parked up. if i know the song and like it, i might keep humming it after i leave the car or a certain chorus may pop up in my head randomly thoroughout the day.so i guess my point is, so long as it gets it’s point across, then i needn’t worry about the user seeing the song through ( “seeing the song through” .. shouldn’t that be hearing? or at least visually hearing? is it possible to hear sound? hmm.. well anyway i’ll leave that to simmer in my head for a bit).
2) the piece i thought for creating interactivity is john cage’s 4.22 piece which is just silence. it makes the user take note of the sounds around them. could i create a piece that’s just taken from a microphone and movements via webcam or mouse movements? would that be classified as translating a piece of music visually? i always thought i’d take a piece of music and translate it literally but then where does interactivity come into this if the piece is created by the user? would that be ok to be counted as their own unique composition? thoughts of the microphone piece and the youtube video playing/stopping at music lounge come up.
i will have to think more harder about this second piece and what route i want it to take.
3) charlie and i spoke about my work after the exhibition over a drink. i showed him i was reading musical time based on semiotics again and he asked if time was important to me to indicate in my work. he suggested the dots i will use for the first piece should maybe have a trailling effect to show the disappearance of each sound as time moves forward… so then if a long note is played, i guess the trail takes a while to fade out? i dont know if that would assist with the translation or would that just be visual beauty?
4) I met up with Eric and Dorothy after the exhibition for some more drinks where we talked about the exhibition. Eric is a web designer and Dorothy works with creating spiderwebs/harvests or something similar to SEO for the internet. They are attending Decode today but were interested to know my views on it. We talked about engagement of users and when i showed them the images/videos i took, they were interested in mainly the pieces that you can interact with.
This made me think more about interactivity as well as how i can present my work so that it’s engaging enough. Should I put the music on at all? Should i play it low so that the user is forced to listen hard to try to hear the piece and thus focus on the animation a bit more in order to try to make a connection with the sound they’re trying intently to listen to? for the presentation, i’d like it to be on screen for the first piece. the second piece i’m now veering towards something more interactive. something more like an installation. perhaps a projector in a dark room so that focus is given to the projector panel. but how could i translate this to onscreen if i were to create a website for it? more thoughts need to take place on this new angle i’m percieving.
5) along with onscreen, i’m thinking would i want to do something physical too? as in the format of a book or sculpture or something? or could i just make these as secondary research outcomes? i like the idea of my onscreen final pieces being surrounded by sculptures that relate to the work in some way. perhaps i could create them and just scatter them around the screen to further immerse the user/viewer into my project world.

I’ve a lot to think about in this month. It took me a week to think how best i could reorganise my timetable to reflect reality and the possibility of being able to create my final pieces as well as fit in my life/working life. i’m giving myself the shortest of times i think in terms of what i plan to do. but i’ll discuss this in the next post as i don’t want to keep going off in more tangents for this post

enjoy the images/videos and if you’re in london.. definitely worth it to check out Decode ^^

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