Process Book 2020

Unit Ten_Self Directed Brief_ ake Vine.

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p3 p4 p5-9 p10-11 p15-18 p19-22 p23 p24-27 p28-33 p34-47 p48-53 p54-64 p65-70

Brief Explanatory Text 1 Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3 Outcome 1 Explanatory Text 2 Experiment 4 Experiment 5 Outcome 2 Degree Show Proposal 1 Degree Show Proposal 2 External video screen shots

Sound + Spaces Project 1 Sound Bison Dancing Faces Cassettes in Stone Playlist Dice Project 2 Sound Wall Spatial Sound Soundscapes Frame Frame 2 Misc.

Brief.

Introduction / Brief:

This brief informs both my project 1 and 2.

In writing my brief, I established that I was interested in space within the context of music.

I wanted the brief to have enough room to be interpreted in an interesting way, but in providing less constraints I also found beginning the project difficult.

This brief was essential when I lost sight of what I was aiming to achieve.

The context / spaces we listen to music can often be as important as the music itself. The way we listen to music has changed with technological innovations that allow us to listen to music practically anywhere. This brief aims to make people more aware of the contexts humans listen to music within. Is this with headphones? Speakers? Which room is this within? Where in the world are they listening from?

How have spaces changes how we listen to music and what role does music have within different peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lives.

What are these spaces? How have these spaces changed over time? Why is this important to us as human beings?

Declaration: I am going to make people more aware that the spaces in which we listen to music are equally if not more important than the music itself.

Format suggestions: Installation, musical composition, physical space, listening space. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Project Shift: Originally my outcome was going to explore sound within a physical space, but because physical restrictions, I have decided to shift the project into a virtual space. I will make people consider the spaces they listen to music through their personal digital devices, but creating different musical soundscapes.

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Jake Vine

Explanatory Text 1

Unit 10

As a designer, I want to explore the ways in which we interact with music and space. The spaces in which we listen to music are as important, if not more to the listening experience. Through a series of experiments, I have explored some conceptual points that make the modern listening experience what is today.

The way we listen to music has changed throughout time. Previously the listening experience depended on the presence of musicians and an audience. Having previously worked as a designer in the context of live music, I was interested in exploring the effect that personal listening has changed our interactions with the sonic spaces.

I wanted to begin my brief by analysing the first environments that music has been performed in.

Through research I established that these where cave systems inhabited by homo sapiens. One of the most well preserved cave systems is the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the Ardèche region of France. The cave space was a shared cultural space that allowed humans to share art and music.

The cave was a space for performance, In a sense, the caves where the original stages. I wanted to explore the role of the cave paintings as an interactive element of the space. My peers mentioned that light from fires within the space would make the paintings look as if they where moving. I wanted to animate a sense of movement into the paintings using the graphic language of the record. I found a way to animate my illustrations inspired by the caves to move according to a sound wave. In making the first test more experimental, the animation aspect wasn't successful, but through further design iterations I successfully created an animated record.

In the second experiment I explored the graphic language of the cave paintings. The geometric markings on the cave walls are often overlooked, yet they have been discovered in several locations around the globe. The idea of a global network excited me, as networks like these are usually established through a digital means. I wanted re translate them into a contemporary format in the form of a font inspired by emojis. The emoji is a universal language recognised by all cultures, therefore I wanted to adapt the graphic elements of the geometric cave markings into emojis. I didn't feel the font was enough, and the energy in wearing a mask on a face was missing from the piece. Using 3D rendering software I created a series of masks that recognise people’s facial feature, obscuring their identity. I used my facial filter on found footage of attendees of an acid house rave. Following the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, raves became illegal.

To highlight the illegality of performance in a space, the facial filters conceal the identity of the attendee on camera.

In the third experiment I wanted to explore the cassette, one of the first pieces of technology that allowed people to listen to music in any location of their choosing. I identified this as one of the most significant technologies that changed the way we listen to music. The walkman allowed people to listen to music regardless of location, without physical constraints. I highlight this change in the privatisation of sonic spaces in relation to sound and space in my critical report.

Through writing and developing my project, I felt my outcomes where becoming more concise in the concepts I wanted to convey. To explain this concept I wanted to use the artefact of the cassette tape cast in stone. I wanted to marry the materiality of the cassette with the immaterial of the Spotify playlist. The format of the mixtape is intended to be personal as often it’s intended for one person. The playlist is impersonal as anyone can listen to playlists on streaming services such as Spotify. I wanted to highlight this contrast by selecting Spotify playlists for the most significant events in a human life, birth and death. I then superimposed these playlists onto rendered versions of the cassettes.

Through writing my critical report I identified the next milestone in the modern listening experience as streaming. The majority of people interact with music through the streaming service Spotify.

Spotify uses several algorithms to create playlists that make the listening experience a more personal one. In creating these personal listening experiences we are creating our own environments where we are fed content that we will most likely enjoy, but yet deprives us from creating organic discoveries of music. I wanted to subvert the algorithm, and achieved this through randomisation. One dice has the option of 6 emotions and the other a different name for

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Jake Vine

Explanatory Text 1

Unit 10

songs. When rolled it creates 2 variables that when typed into Spotify suggests songs or playlists users wouldn't usually discover. The user is instructed to forward the suggestions until they reach a song that they enjoy.

Through this series of experiments I enjoyed engaging with different aspects of the listening experience in relation to space. I felt some experiments where more successful than others, but they allowed me to develop my answer to what bearing space has on the listening experience. I feel I explored these concepts from the perspective of a designer rather than a musician, and this was to my advantage.

Scoping Research.1 Beginning my research, I wanted to explore contemporary performance traditions.

In researching the origins of performance, I had decided I wanted to establish what the first performance spaces where. Through research, I read sections of the book ‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Noah Harari, he highlighted that cultural practices where what allowed Homo Sapiens to out evolve Neanderthals. He also highlighted the importance of caves.

The caves where the first structures that allowed people to creatively express themselves through art and music. I became fascinated by one of the best examples of preserved cave systems named the ‘Chauvet Caves’.

I wanted to cast my net wide in researching various areas, then editing them down into the most significant parts.

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Sketchbook Notes

Developing ideas Experiment one.1 Peer Feedback

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Following feedback of my research, I was still deciding what I wanted the project to become. My peers advised that the cave paintings where the most interesting of the research examples, and the area I was most enthusiastic about.

My various Illustrations in reference to the Chauvet Caves

Animation of illustrations in Cinema 4D

Division of illustrations into record format

PHENAKISTOMIXER 3.0 Concept and Animation: Vesna Krebs Programming and Sound: Borut Kumperscak Sound engine: Berkan Eskikaya, Louis Pilford Phenakistoscope was an early animation device that used a spinning disk of sequential images and the persistence of vision principle to create an illusion of motion. Original phenakistoscope discs had slits cut into them and had to be viewed using a mirror.

Phenakistomixer appropriates this by precisely synchronising disc rotation with the shutter of a video camera to achieve similar effect, and is used as a live visual performative tool.

Phenakistomixer version 3.0 is inspired by early 30s visual synthesizer Variophone in which optical sensor linearly scans monochromatic plates and translates reflected light intensity to sound waves.

Illustrating and animating with sound.1

The Variophone was invented by Evgeny Sholpo in 1930 at Alexander Shorin’s Central Laboratory of Wire Communication in Leningrad. Below a film demonstrating the how the apparatus works.

The cave walls where a great source of inspiration, we spoke about the effect the light from fires would have upon the paintings as if they where moving.

I wanted to illustrate the movement of the cave paintings. I created a series of cave painting illustrations inspired by the cave paintings at the Chauvet Caves, and found a method of making them move as if they where a waveform in cinema 4D. The 3D cave paintings jumped in accordance with the music. I liked this effect, but wanted to develop it by animating it on a vinyl record, further relating it to the subject of music.

Inspired by the ‘Phenkistomixer 3.0’ by Vanesa Krebs, I wanted the animals to be animated in the form of a Phenakistiscope.

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3D extrusion of the animal illustrations

Render of the proposed sound disk.

Engraving experiment

Following the creation of the disk illustration, I made a 3D rendered version in cinema 4D to visualise what it could look like.

I decided to simplify the design, and then roughly fabricated it to test if the animation worked. Unfortunately the frames where too far apart (1fps) and the animation effect was lost.

The second design followed the rules of a phenakistiscope rigidly, 24 boxed separated with a more fluid and gradual design.

The animation effect was successful, but the experimental crossing of sound with animation was lost. Despite this, I am satisfied with it as an experiment.

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Refining and fabricating.1 Amended design

Experiment one: Sound Bison (click the image)

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Key for traveller semiotics

Example of cave painting

Map of semiotics around the world

Formalised semiotics translated into faces

Reflective questions

The cave painting space is a platform, its a space where people share ideas, stories and song.

How can I incorporate the cave painting ideology into a music context?

How can I use data to inform this?

How does streaming affect this???

Is mapping what people are listening to at any given time what I want to do?

The cave walls where covered in geometric markings, and upon further research, I found that these same markings where found in many different locations around the world.

I was interested in these because they are early examples of semiotics, an integral part of graphic design. In formalising them into a consistent typeset, I could see that the components could make facial expressions, much like emojis. The meaning of emojis are universal, in some ways making it the ultimate pictoral language.

Do I just curate a video / vj of the ideas explored in the project?

Does the distribution of these images make them more powerful? Or is it about the spaces themselves?

Walls for sound absorption

What happens if I input these symbolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s points from the vector versions into an audio processing software

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Neanderthals could mentally visualize previously seen animals from working memory, but they were unable to translate those mental images effectively into the coordinated hand-movement patterns required for drawing,â&#x20AC;?

Development: translating cave painting semiotics into masks 10

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The paintings are interesting as they assume a passing of time, its the power that the time between their painting and their showing. Does showing reproductions of them diminish the value of them?

If your travelling as a musician and require design bits (like a design nomad) what can I do for this????

Can I use a similar kind of carbon dating tech to date materials around me?

Does changing the format of the information the cave paintings contain change their message / effect

Bruno Munari sketched masks

Refinement: a functioning font into masks I built the expressions using components from the cave semiotics, but wanted to make them function as a font, like real emojis. I discovered a website called Pentacom.jp. The website allows you to design fonts, but is restricted to 8 bit squares.

After re building the font in 8 bit, I began playing with it and speculating how I could develop it further. I found that this font was an interesting way of codifying the information. I liked this idea of concealing information or identity through the use of this type.

Designing the font on Pentacom.jp

CAVE

BISON CAVE PAINTING Experimenting with the new type

ABCDE FGHIJ KLMNO PQRST UVWXY Z

Thoughts on using the type as masks

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Xu Bing ‘Emoticon Book’

Notes on facial recondition and emotional communication

CV Dazzle, styling to avoid facial detection

Camouflage from face detection CV Dazzle

Xu Bing -

Emoticon Book

“Book from the Ground” is a book written using only emoticons by Chinese artist Xu Bing that illustrates the ability to create a universal language using graphic symbols, he said Wednesday in Valencia, Spain.

“It’s the first book that everyone in the world can read, since it needs no translation,” said the artist, adding that currently, by using a very simple system of signs, emoticon users, especially young people, enjoy the ability “to communicate on the international level.” ++++++++++++++++++++++++

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CV Dazzle explores how fashion can be used as camouflage from face-detection technology, the first step in automated face recognition.

The name is derived from a type of World War I naval camouflage called Dazzle, which used cubist-inspired designs to break apart the visual continuity of a battleship and conceal its orientation and size.

Likewise, CV Dazzle uses avant-garde hairstyling and makeup designs to break apart the continuity of a face. Since facial-recognition algorithms rely on the identification and spatial relationship of key facial features, like symmetry and tonal contours, one can block detection by creating an “anti-face”.

Research: Facial recognition to conceal identity The use of masks isn’t much different from the use of emojis. I wanted to link the traditional use of masks to the contemporary use of facial filters.

The integrity of these filters where questioned, as the technology it uses is also used by police services.

I liked the concept of concealing the face to the eye, but simultaneously conveying emotion.

Examples such as ‘CV Dazzle’ explore methods of making your face unreadable by facial recondition through styling.

Video ‘Old School Rave - The Morning After the Night Before’

The Battle of the Beanfield 1985 Editing my Typography into face masks in Lens Studio

Filming the found footage on my computer screen

Development: Making functioning facial recognition and finding suitable found footage.

I began by searching for suitable footage. I wanted to edit footage of illegal raves.

Following the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, attending raves became illegal. This made it seem as if the government where policing behaviours that have been practiced for thousands of years. This was performance in it’s most basic form, and becoming involved with these performances became illegal. After searching for suitable found footage, I chose a film depicting ravers continuing to dance the day after a rave in broad daylight, they are exposed performing an act that recently became illegal.

To highlight the theme of the illegality, I wanted to conceal the dancers faces using facial recognition filters. I exported the filter to my phone, and filmed the footage of the ravers. The result is the video of the ravers dancing, whilst flashing in and out of anonymity.

Video ‘South Downs National park Rave Up’

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Editing the footage in Final Cut Pro X

Experiment two: Dancing Faces (click the image)

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Translating image into sound, then back into image

Extruded waveforms into vessels

‘Petrachus Pot’ a pot with recorded sound on the surface

For my next experiment I wanted to return to the idea of translation of sound. Translation is essential to the mechanics of sound, the technology often shapes the media it records, and I wanted to consider this concept.

Research: sound translation ideas (unpersued)

The first example translates image into sound, then back into an image.

This technology is similar to faxes.

The second translation explores sound translations into vessels. I found a reference that claims the pot has the sound recording carved into the surface.

I wanted to visualise what the sound of different letters where rather than visual representations.

Although this speculation and exploration was helpful, I didn’t feel any of these concepts where worth fully exploring. Nonetheless, it was a valuable exercise as I knew I needed to map what I intended to achieve in the next experiment.

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Concept Mapping

Reflective notes on Sound Pots

Research into Spotify’s Discover Weekly Algorithm

Spotify and taste predicting algorithms The results, as many Spotify Discover users can attest, are a little unearthly. “How the hell did they come up with that?” one friend exclaimed to me after a deep cut from the ‘90s alt-rock band Dinosaur Jr. Landed on his playlist.

“One of my favourite things is how weird Discover Weekly is,” Ogle said. “We can build this huge system, and it’s taking millions of preferences and crunching them, and instead of music beige coming out, it’s throwing out a lot of left-field stuff.”

My playlists vary from week to week, presumably reflecting my shifting musical preferences. On a typical Discover Weekly playlist with 30 songs, I’ll find about 15 songs I love, 10 that are meh, four that I could do without, and one that I become totally obsessed with.

One day recently in my favourite cafe, the soundtrack coming over the speakers sounded awfully familiar. Many of the tracks were on the mixtape that Spotify’s algorithms had made just for me . But these were coming from someone else’s Discover Weekly playlist: Homero, who works as a barista when he’s not playing in his own band, had been given a nearly identical mixtape that week.

“You thought you were alone in the universe until you realize there’s a guy just like you, musically at least.”

How did Homero and I get the same songs? Did two billion playlists filtered through a complex algorithm really churn out identical results for the two of us? Are Spotify’s human editors putting their finger on the scale and promoting certain songs?

“Some people have said, ‘Oh, all three of us had this track on our Discover Weekly, did someone put it there?’” Ogle told me. “And the answer is yes, someone put it there: other Spotify users who were playlisting, which means that something is happening in music culture, in the world.”

He said Spotify never intentionally seeds the playlists with particular songs, despite repeated requests from artists and their labels.

“The answer to the labels is, have your artists release some awesome music, and get genuine music fans to share it, and it will end up in Discover Weekly,” Ogle said. “There are a lot of ways to say, hey, here’s some music you should check out on Spotify; we think DW should remain firewalled from that sort of thing.”...

Taking a trip into someone else’s head It gets even weirder when you listen to someone else’s Discover Weekly playlist, as I encountered that day in the cafe, or in the weeks since when I have cajoled other Spotify users into sharing their playlists with me. It feels a bit like taking a momentary trip—both the geographic and psychedelic kind—into someone else’s head. There’s a strange feeling of unease that comes with listening to a mix that is optimized for someone else’s subjective tastes and unconscious preferences.

The new ad type, as reported by TechCrunch, gives brands the ability to “own the personalized listening experience” and gives them access to a particularly engaged audience, as Discover Weekly listeners spend twice as much time on Spotify compared to users who don’t. Microsoft will be the first brand to partake, with an artificial intelligence-related campaign called “Empowering Us All” — mostly made up of ad breaks that discuss the impact of AI on education, healthcare, and philanthropy.

But what does it mean for Spotify to sell Discover Weekly? It feels, pretty simply, like yet another example of a tech company creating a highly personalized product in seemingly warm partnership with its users, then realizing that it can trade on this goodwill to make money. Companies have to make money, as the line goes, but do we need to so intimately assist them?

The way Discover Weekly works makes it dependent on personal information, which users have fed it for years Discover Weekly is a little over three years old, and was hailed upon its debut as “cracking human curation at internet scale.” It’s a mix of human and algorithm, created after the company acquired the music-specific data and AI startup the Echo Nest in 2014. Spotify explained the process to The Verge in September 2015: Spotify has built a taste profile for each user based on what they listen to. It assigns an affinity score to artists, which is the algorithm’s best guess of how central they are to your taste. It also looks at which genres you play the most to decide where you would be willing to explore new music.

The algorithms behind Discover Weekly finds users who have built playlists featuring the songs and artists you love. It then goes through songs that a number of your kindred spirits have added to playlists but you haven’t heard, knowing there is a good chance you might like them, too. Finally, “We should call this what it is: the automation of selling out. Only it subtracts the part where artists get paid,” Pelly writes. “Brand playlists are advertisements, even if Spotify strives to imbue them with so-called editorial integrity. Such uncompensated advertorial playlists are harmful in that they offer artists no option to optout, but also because they undercut what can sometimes be a valuable source of revenue for artists.”

“When I was young it was a very independent thing, you go home, throw on your CD collection, and that helped identify who you were: I am this type of music,” Newett, the engineer, told me.

“But now you may realize, you thought you were alone in the universe until you realize there’s a guy just like you, musically at least.”

The moment that Ogle realized that Discover Weekly was going to work was during a very early internal beta, when his team was testing on the recommendation engine with themselves as guinea pigs.

“Whatever just served this song needs to be out in the world.”

“It was the first or second playlist Ed made for me, and the first track was by Jan Hammer, he’s famous for writing the Miami Vice theme,” he says. The song was “Don’t You Know,” from an album first released in 1977.

“It’s hilariously smooth, I realized that all of Air was basically them ripping off this one song,” Ogle says. “It starts off with this poppy thing, then the strings…when the vocals came in, I thought, holy shit, we have to ship this feature. Something snapped, and I thought whatever just served this song needs to be out in the world.”

https://qz.com/571007/the-magic-that-makes-spotifys-discover-weekly-playlists-so-damn-good/

Re establishing my design intentions

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A highlighted area of interest was the similarities of curation in both art and music. I established this concept in writing my critical report, and it was at this point that my practice really connected to my critical report research. If curation is decided for the user through algorithms, do we have choice in the media that we consume at all?

How could I convey this in my next experiment?

Most followed playlists for birth and death

Formalising into cassette label format

Experiment three: Playlists for life events

Rendering the cassettes

Through mapping thoughts on the role of staging the communication of music, I wanted to cross the analogue of the cassette tape with the modern interaction of streaming. I identified that curation of music was very important as itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a practice that crosses both art and music. I was surprised to find that events in peoples lives could be sound-tracked by a stranger.

I wanted to contrast the personal and impersonal of the cassette tape, the first fully portable personal listening device.

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Attaching labels

The render shows the track listing for the playlist in the mixtape. The artefact illustrates the oddness of the idea. Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s birth has this been played? Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funeral has this been played at?

Cassettes in Stone Outcome

Peer Feedback

Midpoint Peer Feedback Following feedback from my peers, the piece I presented seemed quite different from my developmental work. I am aware of this, but through making the previous outcomes I have become aware of what I want to achieve in this project.

The act of curation is essential to both artistic spaces and sound spaces.

I found it concerning that streaming services allow people to have a lack of agency over their listening experience.

As a designer, I see the similarities of the curation of the visual and the curation of sound. Allowing these choices to be made for us is problematic as without any agency, we loose what makes us characteristically human.

I want to develop this concept further.

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Reflection on Feedback

Mapping the Function of the Stone Casettes

Reflection: What did the outcome aim to achieve

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Following the crit, I needed to reflect upon what I wanted to achieve with the outcome. I found that the reason I found the concept of the spotify mixtapes interesting was the lack of agency over the curation of music. The idea that Spotify could shape our taste scared me, so I began ideating ways of breaking the algorithm through introducing an element of chance.

Developing final outcome one

Writer’s wheel of emotions

Collaged type

Laser Engraving the dice

After finding my area of interest lay in curation of music, I wanted to create an interaction in which people could discover music in a more spontaneous way.

Breaking the usual habits of the user can result in interesting discoveries.

I introduced the concept of spontaneity with dice.

1. Choose a suitable hard and flat surface 2. Prepare your telephone / computer by loading ’Spotify’.

3. Pickup the dice and roll them in your hand.

4. roll the dice and read the description.

5. Search the description in your Spotify search bar 6. Play the top result, listen to the top result but only if you enjoy it 7. If a playlist continue to forward the songs until you reach a song you enjoy, if the top result is a singular song, roll the dice again.

Brian Eno ‘Oblique Strategies’

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One dice reads an emotion and the other has names for songs such as ‘tracks’ or ‘rhythms’. When rolled it creates a search term that is to be searched by the user.

I decided to laser engrave the dice and box to separate it from the ephemeral streaming experience.

I was inspired by Brian Eno’s ‘Oblique Strategies’ as the dice aim to challenge people’s habits.

Instructions Engraved for ‘Playlist Dice’

‘Surprise Grooves’ search result

Testing Outcome One Inputting search term into Spotify

My outcome functioned in the way I intended. Some of the results where more successful than others, but the success of the interaction depends on the user’s taste. The dice did help make the searching experience of streaming more spontaneous, and the music I discovered was outside of my usual listening habits.

The Spotify search result

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Outcome One: Playlist Dice

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Jake Vine

Explanatory Text 2

Unit 10

How have listening spaces changed during a time when social gatherings have become prohibited? Listening to music has become more individual and reflective in the scenario of lockdown. The curation and experience of listening to music has become truly digital. As a designer how can I illustrate the changes to curation and sonic spaces in lockdown?

Following my last project, I became interested in the role of curation in relation to streaming. My critical report has lead me to ask questions about what relation space has to music. I identified Spotify as a streaming service with issues as Spotify’s ability to dictate our listening habits is potentially harmful to music culture. I concluded that a positive way to utilise the platform is to use it to share curated musical material from person to person. I wanted to connect the curation of playlists from person to person, to the spaces that the music was curated. In my first outcome I explored the concept that the personal playlist as a way of gaining insight into someone’s listening space. I chose three of my peers and listened to their playlists only playing the first five seconds of each track, timed by my designed ‘Next’ clock. I filmed myself doing this, and using a green screen placed myself at their addresses via google street view.

Although this was a valuable exercise, I didn't feel this approach was the best possible outcome as the original outcome was intended to be performed by the curators of the playlists themselves.

In the Second outcome I designed a physical interaction in which people would share their playlists through vessels designed for phones. This would allow the users to share their listening material through their personal listening devices. After experimenting with various fabrication techniques including ceramics and digital rendering I had to pivot my project, and make my concept entirely digital.

In pivoting my project I was glad to have been given restrictions for the outcome, and making the sound experience non dependant on physical constraints meant it became more accessible for my audience. Interacting with a digital space aligned my project perfectly with my ciritacl report, and in this sense I am very glad to have adapted my project. My experiments culminated in creating a digital physical space in which the listener could move around. I identified significant areas of my research into spaces for listening, and with reference images began sculpting these 3D spaces. These spaces where the caves, the industrial space turned club, the living room, the Bayreuth music hall and the 1000 year composition long player.

In collaboration with musician and artist Joe Hill, the soundtrack maps the feeling of each room without obvious relation to their functions. This soundtrack is distributed throughout the sound spaces, and when the user turns to face different directions, this is reflected in the 3D panning of the audio. As I designer I fully acknowledge I am not a musician, and that often the outcome becomes more effective when assisted by my peers.

This digital space utilises subtitles to explain the sound spaces, and make the narrative journey through the exhibition clear. Each of the rooms signifies a different aspect of the listening experience, and outlines what each of these spaces mean to my research.

The Soundscapes experience is intended to highlight that often the listening experience requires the listener to be present in a specific spaces. The locations I chose for the outcome shared this common theme, but presented the spaces through the lens of a simulation. The notion of the ‘simulacra’ (Simulations) affecting our everyday life was inspired by the writings of Baudrillard. He highlights that many of he processes and rituals that are distinctly human are becoming simulated and automated, and through this we become part of the simulation itself. As a designer I find it worrying that often the distinction between what is a human interaction and an automated one is no longer so obvious, and that with the integration digital processes into our everyday life we loose what makes us distinctly human.

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Initial Design for â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Wall interaction

Interaction design notes

Instructional art research

Experiment four: Playlist curation (initial plan) Clock for timing audio duration

For my next experiment, I was interested in the making of a playlist being a form of curation. Initially my concept was supposed to be a physical interaction, therefore I designed instructions that assumed people would be able to interact with me. Following lockdown I pivoted this and decided to re-position this task for remote listening.

I listened to the first 5 seconds of each of the songs in the playlists of three of my peers. My next aim was to connect this to the location they where at the time of curating.

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Instructional Art The language and way in which instructional art functions interests me. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more akin to graphic design as rarely does the curator or audience have a say in how the work is produced. The selling of an idea is also attractive to me.

I feel I must create a proposal for the pieces that use a similar language to instructional art if the pieces are going to be interacted with.

Notes to Pivot my interaction

Intentions for the experiment

Exploring the living space on google maps

The noted addresses

Experiment four: pivot, adapting the experiment and highlighting the location of playlist curation When executing the experiment, I had to pivot the interaction digitally. I noted the objectives and function of my previous interaction â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Wallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and wrote new rules for the video version. I recorded 5 seconds of each song on the playlist, and compiled the addresses to film my interaction with their living space on Google Maps.

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The original instructions

The selected playlists and recording

The edited addresses for the

Editing the elements together

Situating myself at the locations of curation via a green screen

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The green screened video and edited audio

I set up the interaction with a green screen to super impose myself at the locations that the playlists where curated. The clock indicates â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nextâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; for the next song and the address for each person is displayed in the bottom left corner.

Experiment four: Sound Wall (click the image)

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Acoustic Phone Speakers

Sound Mirrors

Notes on possible concepts / designs

Initial Renders

Experiment five: ideas and research Following the last interaction I was unsatisfied with the outcome. I wanted to create an interaction that required people to share their curated playlists.

I liked the idea of communication between people via analogue means. The 2 examples are of ways of acoustically amplifying sound, the wooden objects are acoustic speakers for phones and the structures are â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Sound Mirrorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, methods of communicating miles without any technology.

I began sketching ideas for this interaction and making propositional renders.

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Situating my pot designs

Telecommunications road markings

The rendered proposal

I find visualising 3D object much easier when rendering in a 3D software. The plans here show the renders of my pot designs.

The circular design was intended as a carpet for the interaction to occur. The markings on the carpet symbolise the cables that allow the internet to function.

Visualisation / planning through rendering

The pots would be formed to lay on the carpet and have phones placed within them to amplify their sound. This allows people to make an interaction of sharing music physically in the exhibition space.

The carpet design

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My attempted coil pot

Demonstrating ceramic pickup in a crit

Experimenting with different medias and hardware I wanted to create the pots from ceramic, as its a new media I’m interested in.

I attempted a coil pot, but the finish wasn’t to an acceptable standard, so with permission from the ceramics department I spent a day throwing pots.

The results where varied, and I wasn’t particularly happy with it.

I had purchased ceramic pickups, the most simple form of microphone, and connecting wires to allow multiple pickups to function at the same time.

Shortly after this the ceramic studios where closed due to lockdown. So I had to decide how to pivot this outcome My attempted thrown pots

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Ceramic Pickup Microphone

Pivot: from physical piece to digital Online 3D

After designing several aspects of the stone circle interaction to be physical, I had to pivot the project into an online space.

hosting

Three.js is an online hosting 3D tool. I wanted it to be hosted online to make it more accessible but after building the scene I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make the sound emitters function.

Online space was an interesting concept to explore for music as itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s accessible to anyone regardless of location.

I wanted to host my 3d model online. The objective is to get the rocks to emit sound. I managed to make it rotate, but making the sound emit from the rocks was more difficult.

This also highlights the relevance of location to the project, as people can experience the stone circle interaction in their own living space.

I began formatting the installation for digital online space. How this interaction could function would partly dictate the experiment.

Initial interaction design instructions

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Shift to online 3D hosting platform

Examples of online 3D sound

Explanation of panning audio

Testing spatial sound capabilities in unity

Bass

Person

To de-construct the sound, I need the different channels of the musical track. These are called stems. These stems are downloaded to test the physics of the installation.

Synth

Guitar

Drums

Online 3D hosting

L

R

Stereo panning conventionally uses left and right. This is called ‘stereo imaging’. Stereo imaging generally deals with left and right, but not usually forward and backward. This gives a sense of sonic space.

I want to be able to allow the listener to interact with the audio, walk around it as if they where witnessing a performance. This is achieved through a sound space.

L

Research and development: testing 3D sound in Unity

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R

The producer establishes your position in the mix. In real space people can move to interact with the space.

The concept of online hosting was interesting, but after several attempts at coding spatial sound, it proved more difficult than I anticipated.

I found that the game engine Unity had more accessible and powerful sound design parameters, so I chose to use this instead.

This lead me to design my first test with different audio tracks from one song found online.

Unity

Unity is a game development software. It allows the user to design environments that can be moved around.

The audio hosting for this software is much more user friendly than three.js, this is why I’ve chosen it over the online hosting.

Person

An example of audio panning for a mix. My example allows the user to determine their position in the mix.

Experiment five: Spatial Sound Test (click the image)

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Sculpting the rooms in Cinema 4D

Outlining what I wanted to achieve

Constructing a narrative with references

Environmental references

Bjork, Vulnicura VR experience

The spaces that people listen to music have changed with self isolation. We now listen to music in the same spaces daily, how can I change this as a designer?

Step inside your private immersion room and travel a twisting trail of immersive and intimate virtual reality experiences.

The importance of interior spaces has become particularly important during lock-down.

Interactive scores are also completely new additions, and the entire audio has been re-worked and presented in a specially created world built from LiDAR scans of the Icelandic landscape.

Rural environments or more space on indoor spaces?

I have decided to design these 3D spaces to listen to music, and plan to make them available for download much like a game. People will be allowed to download a selection of songs listenable in a 3D virtual space.

Different rooms will touch upon themes I’ve discovered in my research over the course of the project.

For the first time, Björk Vulnicura VR brings together all the visually re-imagined tracks from the 2015 album in a curated and expanded way as one VR experience — being shown exclusively at OTHERWORLD.

3D Sans of the Chauvet Caves

This experience is as close as I could find to what I want to achieve. I want my installation to have more of a commentary on the listening experience. ‍

All the elements for

the sound spaces will be inspired

by the research I

have already done.

Characters for the

game???

My sketchbook

outlines all of these themes, now I need to align them in a

narrative based game

experience.

What would the 3D space look like? Does it take the form of a room or more an expansive landscape, a room is more manageable to design but the landscape is also interesting.

Does it convey the right message?

Julijonas Urbonas, Planet of People This installation allows visitors to be 3D scanned as part of the installation. I like this concept and the idea of the exhibition space being a relevant room for the music experience interests me. curation has crossovers between art and music but is more prominent in art.

Summarising research and design intentions /starting spatial sculpting

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After the successful sound test, my feedback highlighted that although it was an interesting effect, it lacked a narrative. I reflected upon my research and selected elements that had most interested me throughout the project. I used these references to construct a narrative. After establishing what these where I started constructing the environments in cinema 4D

Initial renders for feedback

Baking object textures

Experimenting with environment sculpting

Baking objects creates a custom skin for the shape. This allows you to map where to put your own textures, or export the shapes of the object with the texture attached.

Through Baking the textures given to objects it creates these interesting layouts.

I like these digital improvised layouts and want to use them in other parts of the project.

A B C D E F G H

For the second room I want to highlight the club. Its the modern space for performance.

I want to reference the printworks club space as its a familiar space and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s past as an industrial space for printing is interesting.

For one of the rooms I wanted the element of an outside environment.

I liked the idea of the crossover of my custom type and the interactive environment.

After laying out the vector version of the type, I extruded it to different heights and made an interesting environment to interact with.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m unsure of how this will look, so will test it in unity, and decide whether to keep it or not.

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My plan was to experiment with the rooms, then following feedback build upon what I had made or remove it. I experimented with my face typography as a possible landscape, extruding the forms to make skyscraper style structures.

Initial renders for feedback

Feedback

The feedback touched upon the relevance of sound to space, muzak was composed for specific spaces.

The general consensus was that the relevance of the extruded font environment was confusing.

It didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem connected to the rest of the environments, and that I should look at designing more rooms.

This included a concert hall (the Bayreuth), a living room, possibly a headphone or a listening booth.

This draft shows the environment that I worked on. The layout and walk through is a bit confusing, I want to get feedback on weather to include the large environment.

In the feedback it was clear that the addition of the landscape didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help the experience. The two rooms are clearly defined, but the landscape confused the concept.

Suggestions where made of what other environments would be better suited to the project. I took these suggestions and used them as inspiration for modelling the additional rooms.

This made it clear that rooms and interior spaces are very important to my concept.

The clarity of the feedback was very helpful and now I had a list of rooms to design.

Feedback notes

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Geffrye Museum 60s room

Development: Sculpting rooms informed by feedback

Bayreuth Music Hall In designing the living room I used photos of the Geoffrye museum in Hackney. These living room sets are supposed to be the average middle class home, and as the record player became a staple in the I felt this era is appropriate.

The living room is essential to the modern listening experience, therefore I am happy with this reference.

Sculpting the Bayreuth music hall

For the environments, I used reference images to sculpt the rooms. Depicted top left is the 60s style living room at the geffrye museum in Hackney.

These sets depict style choices of each 10 years.

The 60s was a time where personal record collecting was commonplace, making it an important site for the advancement of the listening experience.

The next room was the Bayreuth concert hall, constructed to specifically show operas composed by Wagner. This space was designed for the sounds composed by one person, making it an interesting space to sonically explore.

In designing the living room I used photos of the Gefforye museum in Hackney. These living room sets are supposed to be the average middle class home, and as the record player became a staple in the I felt this era is appropriate.

The living room is essential to the modern listening experience, therefore I am happy with this reference.

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Longplayer installation

Sculpting Longplayer installation

I added 2 more rooms including rooms with a giant headphone and sound mirrors.

Headphones are important to the listening experience, but the environment feels out of place. I want to get feedback on this and see whether this is worth including.

Sculpting rooms informed by feedback Sculpting experiments

I added 3 more rooms including a representation of the installation ‘Longplayer’ a 1000 year composition, a giant headphone and the sound mirrors.

The headphones and sound mirrors are an experiment, and at this stage, I was scultpitng them with the option to remove them later.

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The sound mirrors are an interesting idea to include in the sound experience.

Both this and the headphone are set outside and this may be the reason I feel it doesn’t fit in the sound experience.

Re assembling the environments from cinema 4D to Unity

Transferring rooms from sculpting software to game software

Baked textures as materials

Imported Environments into Unity

Transferring the environments from cinema 4D to Unity was more difficult than I expected.

The exporting worked best when parts of the model where exported one by one, then re-assembled in unity.

When baking the materials for the objects, I found that the baked textures where interesting on their own. They are intended to be re attached to specific objects to give the object the same skin as in the sculpting software. When attached to a different object the materials made an amazing effect when rendered. These became the materials for the environments in the installation.

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Attaching collider links to stones

Adding materials and assets to transport player I checked each scene, and changed parts that where too detailed that made processing the game too difficult.

I attached the skins to each of the rooms depending on their feel.

Each room needs linking to each other, so I introduced rocks as links to each room. This required a simple script, but allows the user to walk into the rocks and transport to another room.

Script for linking one scene to another

Re-assembling the Bayreuth music hall

Re-assembling the Longplayer installation

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Experimental rooms (removed)

Installing mouse and keyboard controls

Refinement: Removing experimental room and coding movement I added an additional room, but this room was too complicated for the computer to process.

I decided to keep this scene out of the final game.

I had to make the keys on the keyboard control the movement, and the mouse to control the looking controls.

I tried following tutorials, but kept receiving compile errors. I decided for the sake of functionality to copy a look script from github.

For the movement script I managed to follow the tutorial and had a moving player.

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Creating audio sources for listener (camera)

Creating sound sources and coding subtitles The sound sources are the objects that emit the sound that the audio listener (player) can hear.

Each of the audio sources can have the parameters tweaked to make the room sound larger or smaller, higher Doppler effect, lower. I added the tracks for each room in more than one source making an interesting interactive sound effect.

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Designing the subtitle script for the game

The subtitles for the project are important as they explain the relevance of each room.

The code for this was simple, but writing the subtitles themselves where more of a challenge.

Audio files sent from artist and musician Joe Hill

Material texture layout inspiration

User interface design To explain the objective of the game and how the controls work, I designed the user interface to match the game. The layout is inspired by the layout of the baked textures used throughout the game.

I sketched the pages that I needed for the game, then altered them slightly in Illustrator.

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ďż˝

The spaces that we listen to music as as important as the music that we listen to.

This game contains 5 rooms with the aim of making you more aware of the spaces in which you listen.

Opening Page

Explanation / justification for the game

W A

S

Ensure you have both headphones on.

Use the WASD controls on you keyboard to move and the mousepad to look.

Controls

Sketch plans for the UI

Loading Page

The designed UI Interface

D

Walk into each of the rocks, they will trasport you from one room to another.

Installing / making user interface function To make the user interface work, I exported the backgrounds and attached them to the camera.

The buttons are exported seperatley, and use button links to take the user to the next page.

I wanted to add an animated element in the form of rotating spheres with the skins that are used throughout the game.

Installing UI in unity

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Individual buttons fro UI

The final UI

Website Wallpaper

Instruction website parts (exported individually)

Designing The Soundscapes website (download and installation instructions)

I wanted the sound experience to be accessible to users within their own space. I decided the best way of achieving this was hosting this game through a download website.

In this way anyone can assess the experience with internet and a mac.

Arranging the elements in the website builder

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Designing the Soundscapes Disk Image

Soundscapes website (click the image)

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Final Outcome: Soundscapes Gameplay (click the image)

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Illustrator ideas, three shows showing a sense of sequence using the device of ‘frame’, Dun Lee and myself

Degree Show Proposal No

1

sketching ideas The degree show branding began with our concept.

Monelle Kanza, Dun Lee and myself agreed that the a suitable concept for the show would be frame.

The chosen icon referencing the place holder, often used in editorial design

Monelle created a coherent strategy for our branding and Dun and myself went about experimenting with initial ideas for conveying the concept of ‘Frame’.

Anything within the frame becomes artwork, and the show aims to frame students’ work.

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Initial design ideas designed by me

Our design intentions and ideas for A5 invitation We had chosen the icon to symbolise â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;frameâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and wanted to reflect the concept of a frame by allowing users to use a cut-out viewfinder in the programmes.

We decided against this and decided the use of the frame should be placed in between the copy, drawing attention to the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work in between words.

Our core idea and design rationale was discussed and edited

by Monelle Kanza and the poster and A5 invite design was executed by myself.

Our proposal to be handed to the panel

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(3) Visual Execution Monelle Kanza Dun Lee Jake Vine

Monelle Kanza Dun Lee Jake Vine

(3â&#x20AC;&#x201D;2)

(3â&#x20AC;&#x201D;1)

Visual Execution Symbol

Visual Execution Typeface

Proposing our core visual identity

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Presentation slides

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We formalised the presentation by laying out our concept for the icon, the explaining the use of our typeface px grotesk, with the added visual element of squares replacing certain glyphs to represent the frame.

Monelle Kanza Dun Lee Jake Vine

Proposing our promotional poster design

(3â&#x20AC;&#x201D;4) Visual Execution Posters

After establishing the design for the A5 invite, naturally the poster came next. This shows the graphic device of the place-holder, symbolising where the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work would go.

We proposed a submission system in which the panel would be able to select the works that where displayed for each show.

The poster designs, designed by myself

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e Kanza ee ine

Monelle Kanza Dun Lee Jake Vine (3â&#x20AC;&#x201D;3)

Execution ion

Visual Execution Invitation

Proposing our A5 invitation design In the presentation we presented both black and white versions, and concerns where raised about the excessive use of ink.

The A5 Programmes

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Monelle Kanza Dun Lee Jake Vine (3â&#x20AC;&#x201D;5)

Poster design mockup

Visual Execution Mockups

The mockup of the implementation shows the space in the poster for the physical frame cut out.

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Degree Show Proposal No

2

sketching ideas

Illustrator sketches by myself

Following feedback, the panel found issue with the darkness and use of the cross as a negative image.

We understood and went about creating alternative concepts for the proposal with more of an emphasis on perspective as well as the frame.

It was mentioned that animation was encouraged and that moving image would make the proposal more desirable.

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Animation by myself

Animation by Dun Lee

Animation ideas conveying perspective I attempted some animation showing the number of each show moving as if in a tunnel. The animation was proving difficult, so I shared all my illustrator files with the team and Dun produced an animation that was perfect for the proposal. It utilised perspective and colour as requested by the panel.

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Way-finding floor tape

Poster Layout Design

Designing posters and wayfinding ideas

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Implementation mock-ups

Following the establishment of the design device of the number, I went about creating layouts for the print assets, way-finding and implementation of the assets. I decided that the frame needed to be reflected in the layout, and the typography would be simple to roll the assets out throughout the branding.

Proposing our identity In the final presentation we showed the three numbers for the shows and explained the emphasis was on the show numbers rather than the visual device of the frames, and that the frames where reflected in the circle surrounding the numbers.

The three show design devices

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Proposing Frame concept “The exteriority of meaning is part of the nomination of found objects as art. It is only through the frame of ‘Art’ can anything be ‘Art’.”

Derrida and the frame, Ally Mcginn The concept of frame is merged with the heritage of the site through the use of the platform numbers around the building.

Painted signage from the building’s past

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Proposing Modular layout The layout is modular in itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s layout, leaving space for multiple types of information within the outside visual device of the frame.

The layout design, designed by myself

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Proposing show Differentiation Each show has itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own primary colour, to discern itself from the previous show.

Designed show posters

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Proposing digital displays and e invites The televisions and the e invites have animation to show messages running along sections of the design.

This messaging is easily changeable.

Digital display proposal

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E-ticket design

Wayfinding and signposts The versatility of the designed frame means it can be adapted to several locations including the signage outside and the windows viewed when waiting to enter the building.

Window design for exteriors

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Way-finding design on sign post

Doorways as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;frames â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The doors and open spaces are framed by the visual devices around the building including a constructed frame for ticketing and vinyl on the doorways.

Ticketing frame design

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Way-finding door design

Doorways as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC; frames â&#x20AC;&#x2122; and wayfinding The way-finding integrates with the space, and leading lines with the colour of the corresponding show lead visitors around the building.

Following this presentation out proposal was unfortunately rejected. The emphasis on the number of the show created a hierarchy of importance for the shows.

Door Frame Design

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Way-finding Design

Screen shots: experiment one

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Screen shots: experiment two

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Screen shots: experiment four

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Screen shots: experiment five

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Screen shots: Outcome two Soundscapes Website

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Screen shots: outcome two, gameplay video

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