2006
Digital Audio, High Definition Generative Video Synthesis Performance
Duration : 40 minutes
Single screen / Stereo
produced in collaboration with Alain Thibault
SYNOPSIS
“Pulse” is an audio-video performance based around the framework of an electronic pulsation iterated through time. In contemporary culture, the pulsation has become an essential element, namely in music. The idea of pulsation is closely related to techno culture, where analog and digital audio technologies have recently allowed the advent of a stable pulsation, without the variations that a human player might introduce. “Pulse” thus takes the language of techno culture by stressing the specific live experience where the experiment takes priority over emotion, where physical stimuli are paramount. The objective sought in “Pulse” will not be to present a composed work, with a pre-established scenario, via a traditional arc, but to produce a series of psychological states through which the witness will be able to build his own narrative.
Image and Sound Relationships
We wish to examine the possibility to create a temporal “object” which is neither aural nor visual but a new entity where one cannot dissociate the components. “Pulse” thus fits in this continuity of research in a context of generative performance. The project will create, in real-time, a different experiment for each performance. We are striving to work beyond the ideas of audio visualization or simple synesthesia.
The audio system allows us to set up a performance where the basic material would be various sound samples of kick or bass drums as being absolutely representative of techno culture. This idea is then extended through the addition of synthetic pulsations, impulses, and various forms of waves, reproduced with a variety of treatments, under various speeds or tempo.
As for the visual dimension of “Pulse”, we will work with custom software and algorithms, and in this way, the imagery will never be identical to previous performances. The software is in fact generating or synthesizing the imagery rather than playing back pre-recorded segments, as a typical VJ does. Similar states are used in the software that emulate standard audio synthesizers, but are used to create imagery. Technically, since we are synthesizing imagery, the images are not constrained to a standard 24 frames per second as we are used to, but we can use the “synth” to play at rates much greater, surpassing speeds of 125 frames per second. This speed does not allow for the reading of visuals in the standard way, but leaves traces of the light stimulation on the brain of the viewer.
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Materials and principles
On the audio level, the sound element dominating will be the impulse and the determining principle will be, of course, the pulsation or the iteration: a minimal sound material, pulsated, deployed through the spectrum as series of variations. At the visual level, the fundamental principle will be also the luminous pulsation (or flickering), in a direct interaction with the sound. By creating a system that allows the interaction between the machines that create the sound and image, image and sound will become in dissociable.
By utilizing these strategies in setting up an iterative performance continuum, will enable us to explore certain physiological states. Visually, flickering light, alternating between back and white, at rates between 7 to 12Hz has been shown to induce a variety of hallucinatory states. Various explanations have been offered in order to explain these effects. One of the theories is that the flickering at such a high speed starts a hyper-stimulation in the alpha and theta wavelengths of cerebral activity. Theta waves are usually associated with dreams and the hallucinations, and are generally most active in our brain during the REM (rapid eye movement) cycles of sleep. Alpha wave activity is related to physical states such as daydreaming or a major state of introspection. One can establish a links to synesthesia where a visual feeling can be felt in partnership with an auditive perception, or a sound feeling with the perception of a luminous stimulus. Synesthesia in particular occurs during the period that precedes sleep or under the effect of certain drugs.
Historical References
Flickering has been used for centuries in order to induce hallucinatory states and was a technique employed by Nostradamus. Catherine De Medici would situate herself above him when he was lying on his back and by quickly moving her extended fingers over the top of Nostradamus’ eyelids would create a flickering effect that induced and produced his visions of the future.
The following quotation comes from a book of interviews with the artist Brion Gysin which will soon be published internationally by Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV):
BRION: “One of the reasons is that . . . I think it scares people . . . Because of the fact that it deals with the area of interior visions which has never been tapped before. Except in history, one knows of cases - in French history, Catherine de Medici for example, had Nostradamus sitting up on the top of a tower (which is now just being restored, at the present time, over there). And there was no pollution in those days . . . one didn’t have any screen between the man on top of the tower and the sun. And he used to sit up there and with the fingers of his hands spread like this would flicker his fingers over his closed eyes, and would interpret his visions in a way which were of influence to her in regard to her political powers . . . they were like instructions from a higher power.”
Michael A. DuVernois (duvernoi@odysseus.uchicago.edu) link
This extremely interesting reference underlines the insinuations on the capacity that the aural and the visual can have on the individual and the community.
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Aesthetic References and Inspiration
From the aural point of view, the very definition of iterative sounds was evoked for the first time by Pierre Schaeffer in his “Traité des Objets Musicaux”(first published in 1966). The iteration will be the structural element that will determine the morphology of certain sections, or states, as well as the form of the unit. Moreover, the term iterative, in data processing, has an interesting definition: a treatment or a procedure that carries out a group of operations in a repetitive way until a well-defined condition is met.
As for the visual, many references come from structural experimental film techniques such as the scratch film, or “The Flicker” by Tony Conrad. While these films are points of departure, we will extend the experiments that were begun with the examples cited below. In addition, cues for building generative image machines are inspired by early video processing hardware built in the 50’s and 60’ by such artists’ as Nam Jun Paik (Paik-Abe Synthesizer), Stephen Beck and Dan Sandin (Image Processor).
The Flicker by Tony Conrad
A film consisting of only alternating black-and-white film images. During the projection, light and dark sequences alternate to changing rhythms and produce stroboscopic and flickering effects; and while viewing these, they cause optic impressions which simulate colors and forms. In the process, the film also stimulates physiological in place of psychological impressions, by not addressing the senses as such, but rather triggering direct neural reactions. Tony Conrad, who has devoted himself to an intensive study of the physiology of the nervous system, created with «The Flicker» an icon of the structural film, which succeeds without a narrative or reproducible imagery. Since the seen is not captured through the eyes, but rather first produced in the brain.
Heike Helfert link
Psycho Porpoise by Rock Ross
A scratch film that in addition to scratching the image track of the film, also scratches the optical sound track, thereby affecting the audio and visual in the same manner.
Cycles#3 by Guy Sherwin
This one comes from an early exception of performance film. Long before there were AV video performances, there was the film performance. The technique instantly created a merging of sound and vision, where the two couldn’t be separated. link
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