I met with Norman this past week to discuss my final 10 weeks of school. We talked about the background of my research- influences from John Cage, Oskar Fischinger, Andy Warhol, DJ Spooky and David Byrne. It is important to contextualize my work when I present my final projects. My project has become investigative research. I want my practice to be expressive, creating instruments for designers and musicians to be expressive in this medium.
When I worked on the synced visual show, I was starting directly with an instrument ( the computer) and creating at the same time the music was going on. Now I am investigating a different approach, perhaps a shared instrument. The goal is to harvest enough experimental data so I can refine it and bring it back into a concert setting.
When using visuals to create sound, it is not about how free the user is to create the sound, but how expressive the sound becomes. Therefore, the user should not be in reactive mode when generating content. They should be the author. The topic becomes authored chance, not pure chance. So the prompts must appeal to one’s expressiveness. As designers, we deal with the uncertainties inside the drive of the human condition. So we must develop new tools, new possibilities for discovery.
