Program - Creative Music Technology Multimedia Project

Multimedia Project 2021 Second-year QCGU BMus Creative Music Technology students perform 6 original audiovisual compositions with computer-controlled lighting, all using node-based visual programming language Touch Designer (TD). In between each composition, a series of 1minute audio-visual sketches created by students of Multimedia Project 2020 and 2021 will be randomised in TD, all content is created using TD.

1.

Minecraft Memories by Caitlin Reilly and Maria Hamon

Our presentation was spawned from the global phenomenon that Minecraft has become, not only to children but also adults throughout the world. Since its release on November 18th 2011, there is now a generation of Minecraft gamers that have grown up playing the game and feel a deep sense of love and nostalgia for it. We wanted to capture the feeling of remembering the joy it was to play Minecraft as a child and exploring all it had to offer. Imagine for a moment burnt orange tones of sunrise and possibility, green tones of the dreaded creeper and multi-coloured silliness of creating your own personal funspace!

These are some of the audio-visual styles incorporated into our performance to bring the nostalgia to life. We hope the audience will go back and revisit their childhood feelings associated with Minecraft. For those who don’t share a childhood (or adult) connection to Minecraft, we hope they will remember their own childhood memories of cartoons, freedom, creative play, and for a moment feel like a kid again. The mouse movement and keys (w, a ,s , d, e and space) used to play the game will be used to control parameters in the TouchDesigner patch as well as some MIDI channels to connect the audio with the visual, especially in the section with beat. Glitchy and dreamy styles of music and visuals are included throughout to produce the idea of jolted mixed-up memories as we reminisce about the many aspects that make this game so likeable. Sounds and melodies are loosely based on samples and sounds found in Minecraft. You will hear sound samples of digging, mining, natural animal and storm sounds as well as some well-rehearsed zombies. Join us for a fun trip down creative memory lane!

2.

“Multiverse” by Amy Anderson and William Clarke “Multiverse” is a unique concept which explores numerous styles of music and visual landscapes. It consists of multiple smaller stages of works existing in a larger space that will be navigated throughout the performance in 'worlds'. Each individual world is defined by its music genre and its complimentary visual landscape. When a universe (represented by a sphere) has been left, you enter the barren, spacious atmosphere outside, referred to as the “space zone”, which is unsettling and creates an out-of-place feeling. This space zone is accompanied with atonal music, layers of sound effects and a dark, sparse visual landscape. The camera moves through each space to make the performance appear like a simulation. There are three different ‘worlds’ which are explored throughout the performance which contrast in music, visuals and overall feeling.

The start of the performance explores the sunrise world, which features the visuals of a soft sunrise in a large, hilly landscape. This section creates a three-dimensional landscape made from layers of 3D shapes. The dark, shadowed mountains contrast with the orange to blue sky, which highlight the sky’s softness. This world features subtle details which capture the natural landscape, with a flickering light ray and a light bloom effect to give surfaces a natural, coloured morning glow.

The music compliments these visuals with synths, acoustic guitars and backing vocals to create warm and mellow timbres. The tempo is at a walking pace, with bird noises created through whistling in a microphone, which is then processed with audio generating effects. As the audiovisual performance develops, the visuals have a glitching effect, with repetitions and cuts of the sunrise. The music is also distorted, with repeated phrases and changes in pitch.

The second world of noise is designed to be a short visit into an unsettling place, filled with static and unsettling amounts of light and sound-manipulation. Visually, this world is jarring with black and white visual noise, like that from TV static, filling the space in various patterns and texturing various objects. The audio accompaniment features different levels of coloured noise patterns that poke out to the audience intermittently, joined with low synth hums and drums to create an unfamiliar soundscape. Overall, this world is designed to contrast the other two worlds in its visual and musical composition within the greater performance.

The final world is built around the recreation of a launchpads’ button layout as the inspiration of the visuals, tying in with the performance of live recorded loops on a

physical launchpad. The audio for this section will be built up live through a looper within Ableton that includes standard electronic music components of synth leads/pads and percussion. The repetitiveness of these loops allow time to establish a visual correlation of these loops to the virtual launchpad buttons in Touch Designer, which have distinct visuals depending on which instrument is triggering the button to activate.

The performance finishes with an ending scene that should give audience members a feeling of familiarity.

3.

“ode to bird” by Caleb Littlejohns, Luke Sauvage & Sean Visser “ode to bird” is an audio-visual piece concerned with the lifestyle of a bird, and the parallels between humanity in a metaphorical sense. A bird living in the city has the ability to escape the bustling world below by flying above and away, however never is this permanent. Birds always return down to earth and back to the chaos below. In a way we do the same through our travels and time away from work/study. These two different sides of our lives are radically different, one being consumed with errands, stress, and deadlines while the other is an opportunity to indulge and invite stillness in for a short period.

In this performance these ideas will be represented through juxtaposing audio and visuals split into distinct sections. The use of collage-based photos made up of images from travels both within periods of vacation and work/study life will serve as the source material in which you’ll see transformed through extreme manipulations. These extremes explore the blissful memories of travel and escapism from the mundane as well as the grey feelings of regular day to day life.

The accompanying music will look to build further on these ideas and serve to reinforce/support the other mediums being presented. With noisy, fricative beats and static consuming the moments when the bird lands on the pavement to rest only for a moment as it’s barraged the mental and physical strain our jobs and courses put upon us. And serene, calming tones that bring us out of the noise down below into the bliss and emptiness of the skies above. These sounds work as clear opposites to each other, as when thinking of the opposite to musical style such as noise music it’s common to think of ambient music, and vice versa. Which is something we intend to convey and put across to you, the audience.

Caleb will be in control of many of the noisier sounds as well as the textural elements.

Leading the way during the noisy sections and playing an accompanying textural role within the cool downs. Luke will instead be the leader of the calm sections, building loops of enveloping oceans of pads and melodies. Along with this Luke will control lighting as well as provide extra texture and noise to the noisy sections.

Sean is the leader of visuals making edits to all the projections you see and following the mood of the music through the visuals. As well as controlling various visual effects Sean will be able to run the lights in parts where Luke is preoccupied. That being said, we hope you enjoy this performance and don’t feel too bored by reading all of this. John made us write 500 words to explain the performance, but it’s better understood by watching it. Thank you!

4.

“From Mind to USB” by Deakin Jennings, Lachlan Seawright Lachlan and Deakins' performance was designed to discourage thinking. Much of the music in the 21st century is created the same way and follows the same procedures. We wanted to throw that idea out the metaphorical window. The music is designed to not be counted, analyzed or even thought about, but purely to be listened to. To achieve this, we have used different techniques including odd meters, speeding up and slowing down rhythmic elements, different syncopated instruments, and many others. While the intent behind the music is to daze the listener and create a completely unique composition, there needs to be a foundation to keep the listener grounded and focused on the performance. There is a steady beat that drives the piece forward which is contrasted heavily by the syncopated bassline and melody.

This composition uses a sound effect that 1.5 billion people might hear multiple times a day and not bat an eye at. This sound effect is the most prominent instrument in the piece and has been sampled and manipulated to fully separate it from its original sound and create a unique melody. This melody sways along with the beat, repeating the cycle every four bars and serving as a foundational melody. However, in the bridge, this effect is manipulated heavily and sequenced to create a disorientating pattern which is repeated throughout the rest of the piece. This along with the multiple harmonic and rhythmic elements combine to create a piece that will only compliment the psychedelic visuals. Accompanying this piece are two main visual scenes. The idea is that these visuals complement and enhance the purpose of the audio composition, and given the composition is intended to daze the audience, visual ideas have been created that not only daze any given audience member, but mesmerize them, drawing their attention inwards.

The first scene is a kaleidoscopic, audio-reactive scene which contains both real-time audio responsiveness, and randomised spatial ideas, which therefore result in a visual environment suitable to experience the piece. Fluorescence and vibrancy were predominant influential factors in creating these visuals, as the colours are all audioresponsive and therefore effective in entertaining. Both scenes can be randomly manipulated on command to suit the performer's needs.

The second scene, while audio-responsive in colour, is mostly controlled by hand on the spot. This allows for more creative license and unpredictability which is a useful element within this performance. With psychedelic influences such as Tame Impala and Plastikman, we have created an experience which is fluorescent in colour and vibrant in character. Thus ultimately creating the perfect place for audience interpretation.

We aim to draw our audience away from their minds and into our digital environment.

We hope that there they can let the audio-visual work allow their mind to vacate for a time and just experience the moment. Try to keep an open mind to the unexpected and the psychedelic. Enjoy!

5.

“One Life” by Louis Shenfield, Jordan Dietrich Video-games. They have played a considerable part in the childhoods of many. This nostalgic feeling is what Louis and Jordan hope to accomplish by inviting the audience back into this digital universe of two dimensions, 8-bits and unforgettable stories. What better way to do that then through an artistic performance that engages what we can see and what we can hear. With Louis controlling the visuals and Jordan controlling the audio, this combination will send everyone spiralling into an arcade-like world where we join the hero in his futuristic cosmic quest to escape from the dangers that lurk in the darkest corners of the galaxy.

The visuals of this performance are heavily inspired by the pixelated 8-bit and 16-bit era of video games. Games like Pac-man, Galaga, Space invaders, and asteroids ruled the arcade scene with their 8-bit, high contrast, pixelated styles while the NES, SNES, and Saga Genesis were introducing kids of the time to home gaming experiences. This era of video gaming is known for its visual picture elements (reworked into gorgeous “sprite art” to capture people's imaginations), saturated colours, two-dimensional playing fields, and the big arcade cabinets that housed these experiences. However, The visuals, made and performed with the use of Touchdesigner, not only look the part of an arcade

game (using a combination of hand-drawn sprites as well as generated pixelated graphics) but play like one too. Controlled by Louis, the visuals form a game, similar to Galaga, asteroids, and scramble, represent a game with the interactivity of one too. The player controls a small spacecraft flying through space with the goal of dodging and surviving the varying obstacles and enemies controlled and animated by the music in real-time. This playability combined with different sections, as well as a boss fight and loading screens, allow the visuals to throw you right into an arcade game with a fantastical world of rockets, lasers and creatures of… considerable sizes.

The timbres and textures of the melodic and percussive sounds are reminiscent of retro game music on classic video-game consoles and devices and are used to musically communicate the story of the video-game visuals. The melodies are quite simple and are repeated and looped with evolving and varying automated and live performed – by Jordan – manipulated effects that are changed in the music software, Ableton, using potentiometers on a MIDI controller. The percussive sounds drive the beat forward simulating the sense of urgency we see in the hero’s mission through space in hopes of conquering the impending danger. Ascending arpeggiation in the harmonies also point towards the 8-bit styled video-game soundtracks a lot of us loved as children and still love to this day. Video-game soundtracks like Undertale, Pokémon, Terraria, Legend of Zelda and many more inspired the music and sounds you will hear tonight. Lou and Jordan hope you will be able to recognise the familiar bit-crushed oscillators and those virtual trumpets and strings that made those classic game soundtracks what they are.

Combined with more modern electronic sounds and merged with more abstract approaches to granular synthesis, this compilation of retro and neoteric sounds come together to form the sonic environment in which the audience is invited into, joining the hero in his journey

6.

“Zoetrope” by Alex Knight and Ben Gibson Zoetrope is an audio-visual noise and drone piece with a focus on textural, aggressive, noisy digital sounds and accompanying aesthetics. This composition is designed to be avant-garde in nature, drawing influence specifically from the boundary-pushing work showcased at festivals such as Dark MOFO and Berlin Atonal. It is aggressive, polarizing and puts the listener in a sense of unease.

The audio for the piece was the first step, the focus being on textures, noise, distortion and atmosphere. It is designed to be more suited for installation work but could comfortably find a place being performed alongside musical genres such as Industrial or

Noise. Melody and harmony are replaced by frequency and overtones, the audio spectrum filled with subtle sweeps and not so subtle drones. The visuals have been designed to match the aggression and texture of the audio, their intensity will rise and fall with the track to create an experience that encompasses all the senses.

The visual aesthetic of the first two sections is inspired by classic CRT TV flicker, and the image of a pitch-black street, lined with streetlamp downlights. You will see the lights and visuals flow with the washes and sweeps of the first section, building in intensity into a transition “into the screen” for the second section. This section invokes feelings of intensity, pressure and weightlessness. The visuals in this section are crafted to put the listener in a void-like location, like space or the depths of the ocean. During the second half of this section, Ben will be improvising with guitar and effects.

The third and final section focuses on much louder, grittier aesthetics, with glitches, deep drones, and synth pads dominating the audio realm, and the lighting and visuals following suit. The visuals for this section will be a modified version of section one, with more intense visual glitches, camera shakes and flashes. Finally, the piece comes to a close with a ringing, reverberating echo, slowly fading back into emptiness. The central visual aesthetic of a CRT monitor’s flicker and shutter effect was chosen to insight unease and discomfort, paying homage to some old horror movie aesthetics. During the performance, Ben will be in control of the audio, adjusting effects to add movement and variation to the sonic landscape. He will also be utilising his guitar to add to the cacophony of the performance. Don’t expect to see him play in a traditional sense, using effects pedals and playing behind the bridge, overtones and distortion will be at the forefront. The visuals will be controlled by Alex, adjusting effects, audio reactivity, lighting and section transitions throughout. Together they will guide you through an audiovisual experience that evokes both ethereal and apocalyptic visions. Sit back, relax, and prepare for a sensory onslaught.