Elemental Force is a series of free spectacular large-scale outdoor shows which put historic buildings centre stage and use light, sound and film to celebrate the rich heritage of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
TechsQUAD are working on the show running projections onto the participating buildings. The setup involves 2-3 Panasonic 20k projectors stacked and aligned with media playback handled by a Hippotizer HD server.
Dance my pretties!
Here’s an early teaser of a project I’m working on to create a light show using domestic lamps to accompany a live performance. More details will probably be showered onto this blog as progress is made. For now, absorb this ambiguity.
Also, this really needs lamps with standard bulbs that can be dimmed. FML!
Here’s a nice storify for the happenings going on during our v.01 project in the QUAD gallery during Feb 2012. Check it out!
Don’t know why I haven’t put this trailer up before today, it’s been around all week. Made by the extremely talented and devilishly good looking Sam Jordan.
View Larger Installation in the gallery is well under way now and things have become far more real. You can see the cables hanging down in the centre that will feed into the brain of the installation and when complete will transform the perception of the space.
This was a point of inspiration when constructing the musical and sound design elements of the v.01 installation. The sparseness and simplicity of the musical ideas allows them to create large sounding orchestrations without becoming chaos and the restriction of key prevents notes clashing.
The underlying aspect of this that really fits with our installation though is that sounds can be triggered at any time and in various combinations so that the generative piece is never the same. We have also added control over rythmic phrases that gives more immediate opportunities for creation to those that do not want a slower, more contemplative experience.
Have a play with In B Flat. The clips are all in the form of Youtube videos that can be triggered at different times and their volumes adjusted individually. Click the link arrow on this post title and go have fun!
The v.01 installation is a collaboration between Techsquad and Aaron Bradbury. He’s doing the pretty pictures, we’re taking care of the sound design and control systems.
The project started with a really basic brainstorming session. Our aims were to produce something that could run in the gallery space at QUAD (our fortress of solitude) that would showcase both our creative team but also the resources we have access to through our work at QUAD. We decided that the piece had to be a large scale, interactive sound and visual piece that would allow users to affect their environment within a set of aesthetic constraints that would encourage them to learn and adapt the piece as they play with it.
Hopefully it might be fun too.
As we’ve gone on and seen the amazing work that Aaron has produced for the project, it’s getting really exciting. Now our challenge is to create a robust system that allows enough interaction with any limitations remaining unobtrusive. The main obstacles being processing power for the visuals and implementing effective controls that make sense without requiring any prior knowledge or training of the gallery visitors. There’s no way this could work if it’s designed with musicians or VJs in mind - it has to allow anyone to interact with it and be aesthetically pleasing on even its most simple levels.
View Larger Been working on the drum triggers for the side aspects of the piece today. They all work… which is nice. What happens is that anybody can tap on the drum (no drumstick required) and it activates one of the triangulated images on the side gallery wall and initiates a piece of piano music that works with both the image and any other music playing in the space.
