Take Your Seats (2016) was created by assigning the seating positions of the unwitting attendees of the TEDx event to notes on a virtual fret/chair board. Voicings are created by unconscious social conventions of proximity, and an indecisions create rippling melodies. Mobile phones add the higher synth tones. This was created in the time it took for the attendees to get seated, and my presentation time, a rather intense 2 hours.
Web Strings (2016) in collaboration with Manolo Hernandez (Frank Mohr Institute), turns a spider web into a virtual harp/wind chime. Each string is assigned a different note based on length. The gusts of wind create delicately detailed expressive melodies accompanied by the natural sound. This is achieved in real-time with Max/MSP/Jitter watching for movement of trigger points on the strings.
Another Day (2015) is created by converting a 24-hour period of an entire road’s bus stops, lighting system and parking spaces to notes distributed among the instruments of a virtual orchestra (e.g. horns, percussion, strings on left, middle, right) Loading bays and illegal parking are assigned more dissonant and percussive material, which become more frenetic during rush hour. The spaces are always active, even when a careless unwitting performer spills a bucket of water over a loading zone. Video: Anna Tanczos
Birth & Death (2015) is a real time simulation of the global birth and death rates (in right hand and left hand respectively). The areas of the keyboard are assigned to continents. The approximate 5:2 polyrhythm ensures an unrelenting global population growth.
Groningen Harp (2016) During my residency at the Frank Mohr Institute I was granted access and permission to Groningen’s CCTV on a main vantage point. This allowed the entire city to become an unwitting orchestra. In this excerpt the lines on the road become a harp. With interesting highly complex polyrhythms emerging from varying walking and biking speeds.
Heart of Mouse (2018) connects the pulse of mouse to the filters of a big analog synth, revealing the majesty to the animal’s existence. The data is not just the pulse rate, but shape. A glimpse of the process is provided in Technologies Collaborators: Prof Philip Aston, Dr Kamalan Jeevaratnam (University of Surrey, University of Cambridge)
Public Opinion (2019) In order to track public sentiment responses to news events, here the signing of the petition to revoke Article 50 dictated the tempo pf virtual performance of Flight of the Bumblebee. Every note represents one signature in real-time, and the lulls and uber-virtuosity reveals the hidden patterns of public opinion.
Doctored Names (2019) converts the Excel file of the Doctoral College attendees into visualised musical material. Letters are converted to pitches using a custom letter frequency to note frequency system (see DataLoop), while Faculty and discipline provide additional layers and rhythmic metric information.
