PROJECT PROPOSAL

CART 412 Project Proposal

Dario Farina & Sophie Girard

Project Themes:

• performance

• embodiment ; in relation to Foucault and Deleuze

• time & space

• non-representational theory focuses upon practices – how human and nonhuman formations are enacted or performed – not simply on what is produced
 (all of the project themes chosen above tie into this main ideology from the class lectures)

Proposal:

This experiment plays on the idea of alternatively hearing your drawing gestures while leaving their marks behind. The idea is to use digital sounds output based on the movement of the performer drawing on a surface. The sounds would be affected by the speed and direction of the user’s drawing tool. The equipment behind the amplification of these sounds would naturally be a contact mic. The surface that will be used to perform on, will be a composition of several materials including plastics, metals, wood, and polystyrene. The stylus will be double-ended to allow for two types of tips without changing instrument. It is still uncertain whether we want the performative sounds coming through the contact mic to be real-time or delayed. If time permits, it would be interesting as well to have projections of the drawings and visuals of the movements created on the surfaces.

Examples & Inspirations:

• TML (black box) project with contact mic table and tools to interact

- performing a set of noisy actions consciously and unconsciously

• This project is more based on the musical aspect rather than our drawing aesthetic. It shows the diversity that a contact mic has by simply using your hand and surfaces to make music.

http://www.gizmag.com/mogees-any-surface-instrument/21010/

“Mogees is great news for all the air guitarists out there. This tiny device, built by Bruno Zamborlin for his Arts and Computational Technologies PhD project*, offers a whole new way of expressing yourself musically, even if you don't have the slightest idea how to play an instrument. Mogees, or a "Mosaicing Gestural Surface," is based on a simple contact microphone that turns any hard surface into a musical interface for triggering audio samples. What sets Mogees apart from other interfaces of this kind is that different types of touch stimuli generate different output. Simple gestures like scratching, rubbing or tapping can produce a surprising array of sounds worthy of a serious experimental music set up.

As you interact with the rigid surface, the contact microphone attached to it picks up the resultant vibrations, which are then either converted directly into audible sound or used as input for selecting a matching audio sample from a database. The selected sample is of course instantly played, so the aspiring musician is treated to a real time experience.”