I discovered the Bacterial Orchestra today, a project put together by an architect, an electronic artist and a musician in Stockholm, Sweden. From their website:
"Bacterial Orchestra is a self-organizing evolutionary musical organism. It consists of several audio cells. Every cell listens to its surroundings and picks up sounds trying to play them back in sync with what it hears. It can be the background noise, people talking or sound played by other cells."
It looks like every audio cell contains a microphone, a set of speakers, and a controller of some sort that listens to the microphone and plays back what it hears with a pre-programmed behaviour. This is quite like an all-electronic audio-only version of my "deep listening" device.
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009294.php
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Under the Bridge
I went back to Point Douglas yesterday to explore under the Louise bridge, which connects Point Douglas to Elmwood. Cars driving northbound over the bridge produce some nice thumps under the bridge. The slope next to the bridge seems to be used as a toboggan run for the neighborhood kids. The area is probably more heavily inhabited during the spring, summer and fall. Several drain pipes hang underneath the bridge and beneath each is a pile of sand and gravel washed down from the bridge surface.
Considering Point Douglas
Our next studio project is the creation of an autopoietic device (based on our previous work) to be located in the Point Douglas neighborhood of Winnipeg. Point Douglas is a somewhat down-trodden (but interesting) section of Winnipeg located in a bend of the Red River just north-east of Downtown. Point Douglas is bisected by the national Canadian Pacific Railway line and bypassed by the Disraeli Freeway. The neighborhood contains a mix of residential, commercial and industrial properties.
I explored the area a couple of times looking for possible places to locate my future device(s). There were a few areas that caught my interest.
I spent some time under the Disraeli freeway, listening to the traffic zoom and thump overhead.
I also spent quite a bit of time next to the train tracks near the rail bridge over Higgins. There is a stand of trees right next to Higgins with a tiny clearing inside.
This site slopes up rapidly to meet the elevated rail line and has a view of Higgins, the nearby industrial buildings, the Louise bridge, the River Parkway and out across the Red River.
I was lucky enough to experience two trains rolling through while I was taking pictures there. I was engaged by the shifting slivers of sunlight cast between the rail cars, sweeping across the snow as the trains rumble past. Photocells could be used to observe passing trains by sensing these fleeting curtains of light. I was also interested in the varied rhythms of produced by the two trains rolling past one another at different speeds.
I'm not sure exactly what my device(s) will do yet. I've been thinking about continuing with the "deep listening device" theme by making a collection of bellows of different shapes, sizes and materials. Each bellows would contain a different reed, so that each would sound with a different note when activated. This collective might watch or listen to passing trains and cars. It might sporadically and spontaneously "remember" a passing train and attempt to play it back through the motion of the bellows and sounds of the reeds, with certain bellows pumping away to describe the rhythm of the train, and others reacting to the train's length or the direction it was traveling. I have serious doubts about the feasibility of building such an installation: Could it survive in the snow and cold? Would parts of it be stolen? Would it be quickly destroyed by mischievous neighborhood kids?
I explored the area a couple of times looking for possible places to locate my future device(s). There were a few areas that caught my interest.
I spent some time under the Disraeli freeway, listening to the traffic zoom and thump overhead.
I also spent quite a bit of time next to the train tracks near the rail bridge over Higgins. There is a stand of trees right next to Higgins with a tiny clearing inside. 
This site slopes up rapidly to meet the elevated rail line and has a view of Higgins, the nearby industrial buildings, the Louise bridge, the River Parkway and out across the Red River.
I was lucky enough to experience two trains rolling through while I was taking pictures there. I was engaged by the shifting slivers of sunlight cast between the rail cars, sweeping across the snow as the trains rumble past. Photocells could be used to observe passing trains by sensing these fleeting curtains of light. I was also interested in the varied rhythms of produced by the two trains rolling past one another at different speeds.
I'm not sure exactly what my device(s) will do yet. I've been thinking about continuing with the "deep listening device" theme by making a collection of bellows of different shapes, sizes and materials. Each bellows would contain a different reed, so that each would sound with a different note when activated. This collective might watch or listen to passing trains and cars. It might sporadically and spontaneously "remember" a passing train and attempt to play it back through the motion of the bellows and sounds of the reeds, with certain bellows pumping away to describe the rhythm of the train, and others reacting to the train's length or the direction it was traveling. I have serious doubts about the feasibility of building such an installation: Could it survive in the snow and cold? Would parts of it be stolen? Would it be quickly destroyed by mischievous neighborhood kids?
Electrifying Work
I've been working on the electronics of the Deep Listening Device sporadically. I've installed all 41 of the solenoids on the wood rails, so they are ready to be wired up and set in the device to control the valves of the accordion.
I've been working on the circuitry to operate the solenoids as well. The circuit is essentially a 48-bit shift register (but I am only using 41 of the bits). It accepts a serial signal and converts it to a parallel signal that goes out to the Darlington transistor array that operates the solenoids. The shift register has a latch on the output that allows me to control when the signal gets output to the solenoids.
This is how it works: A string of bits is sent into the circuit, instructing it about which solenoids to activate. For example, to activate the 2nd and 24th solenoids, the string of 48-bits (0's and 1's) would be sent in with a '1' located in the 2nd and 24th position, and '0's' everywhere else. Once all the bits are sent into the device, the latch is activated to output the signals, turning on only the 2nd and 24th solenoids.
I am using the Arduino microcontroller as a bridge between the Pure Data software and the shift register circuit. I've modified and added to the Arduino code from this page to accept up to six notes and convert those notes into a string of bits to send to the shift register to turn on the appropriate solenoids. The Arduino USB board I am using powers itself through the computer's USB connection and is able to provide enough juice to power the shift register as well.
Over the winter break I upgraded the RAM on the $8 computer I had bought from Value Village. I've installed Ubuntu Linux, Pure Data and Arduino software on it (all open source and free). The computer will be integrated into the device to run the Pure Data code that will listen to the room and determine which notes the device should play.
I bought a car window motor and a windshield wiper motor from Princess Auto. Both motors provide quite a bit of tourque, so I'm hoping one of them will be able to power the bellows.
I've been working on the circuitry to operate the solenoids as well. The circuit is essentially a 48-bit shift register (but I am only using 41 of the bits). It accepts a serial signal and converts it to a parallel signal that goes out to the Darlington transistor array that operates the solenoids. The shift register has a latch on the output that allows me to control when the signal gets output to the solenoids.
This is how it works: A string of bits is sent into the circuit, instructing it about which solenoids to activate. For example, to activate the 2nd and 24th solenoids, the string of 48-bits (0's and 1's) would be sent in with a '1' located in the 2nd and 24th position, and '0's' everywhere else. Once all the bits are sent into the device, the latch is activated to output the signals, turning on only the 2nd and 24th solenoids.
I am using the Arduino microcontroller as a bridge between the Pure Data software and the shift register circuit. I've modified and added to the Arduino code from this page to accept up to six notes and convert those notes into a string of bits to send to the shift register to turn on the appropriate solenoids. The Arduino USB board I am using powers itself through the computer's USB connection and is able to provide enough juice to power the shift register as well.
Over the winter break I upgraded the RAM on the $8 computer I had bought from Value Village. I've installed Ubuntu Linux, Pure Data and Arduino software on it (all open source and free). The computer will be integrated into the device to run the Pure Data code that will listen to the room and determine which notes the device should play.
I bought a car window motor and a windshield wiper motor from Princess Auto. Both motors provide quite a bit of tourque, so I'm hoping one of them will be able to power the bellows.
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