Intro
For my final MDEF project I teamed up with Tatiana and Joaquin for an interactive audiovisual exhibition at Akasha Hub in Barcelona on June 28 2022. It will feature five separate exhibits (detailed below) and an opportunity to engage with the community through activities that persist after the event finishes.
Exhibition Concept
Natural and technological ecosystems are closely related, however counter-intuitive it might seem at first. Investigating these overlapping areas through our senses, we venture in hybrid worlds of sounds, visuals and haptics. Between self-mutating algorithms and recursive patterns in nature, we draw similarities and aim to provoke questions about a more sustainable and tangible view of technology.
Exhibited Works in Detail
Hybrid Spaces
Exhibit one will be a live and interactive audiovisual installation on the main screen featuring a set of biomaterials and plants as physical triggers:
Audiovisuals related to nature + algorithms are generated by participants touching buttons, like a VJ/DJ set. There will be a panel with various unconventional buttons, including plants, biomaterials and other artifacts related to the theme. Various visuals and sounds will be triggered at the same time, overlaying on top of each other depending on the buttons chosen.
Fractals at different scales
Our second artifact will consist of a video loop exploring recursive forms in nature and mathematics:
This project investigates how fractals and other mathematical patterns appear both in the natural and digital world. It would be a video which morphs a mix of algorithmically created fractals & “natural” fractals without any sound and interactions. The loop would be a few minutes long and displayed on a screen.
Sonic Ecologies
An interactive experiment distributed across six small stations, inviting participants to shape clay from Collserola park inspired by audio recordings taken there. These clay artifacts will give sonic feedback while being touched.
From the concept of Joaquin:
Exploring the Relation between sound, technology, nature and the physical world.> When was the last time that you played with mud? Why are objects designed to last forever? Why have we lost our connection with nature? What is the relationship with sound and our physical world?
These are some of the questions that will be explored with this intervention. Sonic Ecologies is a series of specific designed interventions that will be happening in the city of Barcelona and its natural surroundings, Ending with MDEFest trail road in the natural park.
The intervention is designed to work as a cycle, with human intervention opening and closing the loop, and It's divided in x stages.
Stage 1: Collect the Clay from Collserola Park, or el Garraf.
Stage 2(at Akasha Hub): The Clay will be installed in different metallic and conductive totems, these totems will be connected to an electronic system that will be throwing sound signals when the clay is touched, so it will be modeled in a collaborative way by people that will be participating in the expo. It's expected that the resulting shape will be abstract like sculptures.
Stage 3: For the final act, there will be a hike organized to Collserola park, where every participant will take a piece of the clay that was made by different people the day before. The pieces of clay will be set up for a music performance that will be played there. After the performance, all of the clay pieces will be returned to the park as little sculptures, as nendo dango seeds, or as traces of human intervention.
Interactive Particles
A live and interactive visual installation inviting participants to move particles through motion inputs. Gathering motion data input from either Kinect (movement, postures) or Leap Motion (hands, gestures), we can let visitors interact with a particle simulation running in Touchdesigner, or Processing. The particles will move according to natural laws, akin to snowflakes, water, microorganisms or smoke.
Unnamed NA.B3 Project
NA.B3 is an artist collective working with audiovisual installations and multimedia art. After reaching out to them, we communicated that we would love to invite them to participate in the exhibition. After thinking about it for a good week, they confirmed their involvement stating that they identify a lot with the vision and concept of our planned exhibition. A draft of their exhibit hints at a “metal installation involving plants and possibly sensors” and states, that they will have it ready until June 28. We are excited to to find out more about their ides forward to bringing this collaboration to fruition. This presents a unique chance to engage with the artist community in Barcelona and set the stage for a future professional network.
Data Collection & Feedback
Exhibit number one, three and four will be interactive, so there is a substantial amount of visitor interaction provided. Beyond that we are thinking about collecting thoughts and inputs regarding the exhibition matter itself through a QR-code that leads to a web form. There are two possible ways to continue:
Live feedback
Set up an online form that, when submitted, could trigger an audio sample and potentially display the words on the screen.
Sequential feedback
QR code linking to a online form, collecting data to analyze & visualize it at the end of the event.
Floor Plan
This is a possible layout of the exhibition space. It aims to let people move throughout the space in an organic way and interact with the different exhibits over time. We hope that this distributed way of arranging the pieces will also enable conversations to form dynamically as people interact with the objects and each other.
Our preliminary floor plan for the exhibition
Timetable
Since the screening and the gathering part would no longer need to be separated, we could have everything happen at the same time: Gathering, exhibit interaction and the networking of the visitors. This way, the guests could organically move throughout the distributed exhibits and form conversations naturally.
Goals
With this exhibition, we want to inspire people to move through the world with open eyes and see nature in a new way. Experiencing how tech and nature are not two separate entities, but ones that can co-exist and benefit from each other, is an important mission of ours. Visitors should have the chance to engage in conversations around the topic and to connect with both Akasha and the community. We want people to leave inspired and encouraged that every one can make an impact.
Progress
In the weeks leading up to writing this paragraph we managed to achieve substantial progress towards letting this exhibition become a reality. So far we planned the exhibition (see above), confirmed the details with the location, manufactured prototypes for our main exhibit and connected the software stack to power it. Additionally, we are producing visuals and sounds for the various exhibit pieces, as well as refining our key visual for promotional purposes. Below, some impressions of our technical progress - without spoiling too much about the final exhibition.
Our main exhibit's technology stack visualized in a schematic way.
Our first controller iteration (featuring biomaterials) for exhibit one.
Controlling Ableton through Touchdesigner over MIDI over IP, while reading Arduino sensor data.
A video summary of our prototyping progress so far.
Next Steps
Our next steps are prioritized by designing, polishing and expanding the current technical prototypes that we built so far. Further, promoting the event in a fashion that sets the right expectations and assumptions is critical for us.