the oh so quiet show

The name of NYU’s “Interactive Telecommunications Program”:http://itp.nyu.edu sounds a lot less exciting than it really is (or less creative). Just saying ITP is probably better. Someone described the program to me as art for engineers, or engineering for artists. What comes out is a bunch of cool projects that may be useful, or just made for the heck of being weird and technologically innovative. It’s a leaning experience, so heck, why not? God knows I’m not learning anything particularly useful, unless writing essays at the last minute is more crucial to life than I thought it was.

Each semester they have a “show/exhibition”:http://itp.nyu.edu/show that’s like a “science center”:http://www.lsc.org/ and gallery rolled into one. Or mashed, if you don’t like rolling. The winter show was yesterday and today so if you didn’t go, OH WELL! It was pretty cool and worth going to in the future, if you have the chance. There were quite a few interesting sound-related projects that I bet no one will care about (because it’s much cooler to see in person than read about) but this is my blog, so OH WELL! Stop reading now if you don’t want me to taint your neurotransmitters.

“Death of Sound”:http://itp.nyu.edu/show/detail.php?project_id=372 – “The user will enter the space, and see the instrument mounted to the wall. Upon walking closer the instrument, they will begin to hear its repeatitive harmonic progression. As they nurture certain parts of the instrument, most likely through bathing or sheltering the instrument from light, they will begin slight alterations on the musical framework, as well as overall light indicators on the object which give you overall information about its state of ‘wellness’.”

I just thought it looked nifty. Look, things are spinning! Whoa! God, I’m as amused as a cat pawing a mouse on a string. I guess it sounded like it was dying.

“inTension”:http://itp.nyu.edu/show/detail.php?project_id=384 – “Inspired by the Golden Ratio, the pattern of the cords allows for a user to passively trigger tones or fully engage the environment in performance. inTension can be played like a traditional stringed instrument or more dynamically, using the body to trigger multiple strings and tones.”

It was like a giant harp. I couldn’t tell what sounds were coming from all of the strings but some definitely made…some sounds. I liked it although it would’ve been cooler if there were less people/noise around and I could hear the sounds better. MAYBE I’M DEAF! This would be cool if colors were associated with the sounds and the strings were like fiber optics that gloooowed and…made me Nutella-spreaded toast.

“Linera, Crossed”:http://itp.nyu.edu/show/detail.php?project_id=474 – “The piece is neither interactive nor generative, as mentioned, so it will basically sit on the wall, runing through its looped animation, which will repeat every few minutes. I hope that, because of its length, viewers will have a horizontal experience, where they can watch patterns and shapes move across the wall. Up close, the piece will span your entire field of vision, so watching a detail of it up close will involve moving to keep it in sight.”

I was immediately drawn to this in another moment of “cat pawing something random” brain-deadness. The solenoids make clicky sounds! AHRRRH I LOVE YOU, CLICKY! I dub thee Clicky. I kind of want one, although I think it would make me go insane after a while. Maybe it can be programmed to make me toast. Clicky is made by “Tristan Perich”:http://www.tristanperich.com/, who makes “One Bit Music”:http://www.onebitmusic.com/ that is pretty good if you like bleepy things. (nod your head) (Actually, I made a goal a few years ago to make an album of really annoying, high pitched happy bleepy music before I die, but preferably much sooner than that. Deep down inside, every girl has a dream…don’t knock it.)

I forgot what this was called, but it was a bowl of water with wooden things floating around that would make sounds as you pushed them across the water. Or something. I’m sure there’s some technical aspect to it that I wouldn’t understand. File this under “things I want in my room, next to the giant harp and Clicky”.

“iChair”:http://itp.nyu.edu/show/detail.php?project_id=447 – “iChair is a project of making two interactive chairs. They interact with people in different ways: The lights inside the chairs will interact with your movement upon the chair, you can control your iPod by touching different parts of the chair, and the two chairs interact with each other.”

It looked neat, although I admit that if I get a chair, I just want it to not hurt my butt. It looked cool though. I didn’t try it out so maybe it’s not uncomfortable.

“KeyBored”:http://itp.nyu.edu/show/detail.php?project_id=417 – “For this demonstration users simply play the keyboard to write an essay in Microsoft Word. The user will be able to type using the electric piano, and in doing so will combine two artistic disciplines that have (for possibly good reasons) never been combined until now : music composition and essay writing.”

You press the keys and it makes sounds…while typing words! Yes, there are good reasons for why these things haven’t been combined. I think it’d be interesting if it were the other way around, as in you’d feed your 10-page essay into some program and the piano would play the essay. But this is works too…maybe…or someone could program a computer keyboard to play notes. NOT THAT I’D KNOW HOW TO DO IT.

Uh, on that note I actually need to write an essay. It’s about food blogs; you wouldn’t be interested. There were many other sound-related things but I think you got the picture.