VISIONS OF THE AMEN |
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PRESS AND PRAISE FOR VISIONS OF THE AMEN: Lia Grainger for The National Post Ceci Moss for Rhizome at the New Museum Gareth Branwyn for MAKE Magazine Blog
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An interactive installation featuring a performance by Ashleigh Semkiw First exhibited and performed January 22, 2010
TECHNICAL: The microphone feeds into a custom software written by the artist in the Processing language. The software performs a pitch and volume analysis on the incoming audio feed, and then uses a set of algorithms to determine which strings should be activated based on the audio input. The software then exports PWM values for all the motors via serial protocol to a set of microcontrollers. The project was originally set up using Arduino microcontrollers, but it was found that for addressing multiple controllers, the protocol was simpler using the new ArtBus controller being developed at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The spinning bearing mechanism connecting the string to the brass rod was custom lathed from delrin machining plastic, and the accuracy of these mechanisms is essential to ensuring that the rods spin on axis.
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OVERVIEW: "Visions of the Amen" is a sculpture consisting of strings dangling from wooden joists and weighed down by brass rods. Each one becomes animated in response to sound input.
Each string in the arrangement is activated by a different audio frequency, and will spin with a velocity dependent on the volume of that particular pitch. As a string spins, it sweep out transparent, three dimensional wave pattern with a period and amplitude that changes according to its velocity, and pulls upwards on the rods. In these videos, singer Ashleigh Semkiw performs her arrangement of Bjork's Unison and Messaien's Poemes Pour Mi, creating two unique choreographies of 16 brass rods dancing, bobbing up and down in a forest of ghostly columns. A tenuous, ephemeral architectural space is created, and viewers are encouraged to walk through the rows of columns being animated by Ms. Semkiw's voice. Although the piece was designed with Ms. Semkiw's performance in mind, for the vast majority of the piece's exhibition lifespan, viewers may stand in the space of the project and activate it themselves by whistling, stamping their feet, or even trying their hand at the aria of their choice.
On a technical level, the responsiveness of the strings is achieved by sending a microphone feed in the sculpture to a custom software written in Processing by the artist. The software identifies, in real-time, the pitch and volume of the audio input, and based on that data uses an algorithm to determine PWM values for each of the 16 motors attached to strings in the joists above the viewer. The sofware end of the project is very similar to a sound visualization program, but with a serial output to an array of Arduino microcontrollers rather than a screen display. Earlier verisons of the project have run on the ArtBus microcontroller currently being developed by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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2010 - Visions of the Amen
2009 - Traditional Strategies In Building
