Pecha Kucha at Show & Tell,

Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK, 21st July 2012.

This is a script of the Pecha Kucha presentation I gave at this regular Cornerhouse event - though typically I didnt stick to it. Why not spend a couple of hours on a saturday afternoon getting a taste of whats happening in the mind of some of the citys leftfield innovators? Bringing the visual arts community and Manchesters thriving digital design sector together in a playful and informal setting, 10 artists and designers will make lightning presentations about a current project, experiment or source of inspiration. The video of the actual presentation and the slideshow is online at - https://vimeo.com/77681376 & https://vimeo.com/77678879.

Slide 1 Hello. My names Lewis Sykes. Im a musician, artist, digital media producer and curator - but what Im going to talk about today is my current Practice as Research PhD at Manchester Met - The Augmented Tonoscope. Youre probably wondering what the hell an augmented tonoscope is and all should become clear but first I want to explain why I decided to do a Ph.D. Slide 2 From 2005-08 I was a member of the audiovisual collective The Sancho Plan. We performed live on stage using electronic drum pads to trigger not just the music but also live animated visuals. We also turned these live works into interactive installations. It took a big team of varied talents and several months painstaking work to produce each new piece - and while we were moderately successful - with live performances at the Gala event and a permanent exhibit in the Ars Electronic centre - ultimately I found the creative process unsatisfying. Slide 3 So my research is about trying to find a more immediate, direct and elemental connection between what you see and what you hear. Im designing, fabricating and crafting a hybrid analogue/digital audiovisual instrument. Im then going to compose audiovisual works and perform live with it, make short audiovisual films with it and exhibit it as an interactive installation. Slide 4 This is an early SketchUp mockup of what I thought it might look like in a gallery setting. A physical device that produces an analogue visualisation of sound which is captured by a camera, projected on a screen and superimposed with digital graphics that expand and extend the effect. A controller allows visitors to interact with the piece and affect its output in some way.

Slide 5 It hasnt quite turned out this way aesthetically at least this is what it currently looks like as exhibited at the BEAM Festival, London at the end of June. But the essential components are there - the physical analogue visualisation device (in fact there are several of them on the table), a camera now with a controllable LED ring, a touchscreen instead of the projection and a number of input devices. Slide 6 The physical effect underpinning my analogue visualisation of sound is Cymatics the study of visual sound and vibration. Although the phenomenon has been known about for centuries it was in the 1960s and 70s that a Swiss medical doctor turned researcher, Hans Jenny, made an authoritative empirical study into the effect that sound has on materials. In fact Jenny coined the term Cymatics from the Greek wave and used his tonoscope to visualise the emergent patterns. Slide 7 My research is motivated by the idea that if Jenny could produce these mesmerising visualisations nearly 50 years ago with the somewhat limited tools and technology of his time, then what could I produce now with all of the computational power, fabrication and visualisation technologies and access to a global network of knowledge at my disposal? Slide 8 And Cymatics has certainly inspired numerous contemporary art and photographic practitioners: Thomas MacIntosh et als sonic installation Ondulation (2002), Gary James Joynes Frequency Painting Series (2011), Suguru Gotos sonic installation Cymatics (2011) and Dan Blore and Jan Meinemas (2009) photographic study cymatics.org. Slide 9 Its also the subject of contemporary research - Benlloyd Goldsteins Cymatica is an architectural thesis that explores how sound can generate form - The goal of unlocking the cymatic language is not to display truth or beauty - but to be able to translate and re-interpret the communication of sound through form; to better understand how to create atmosphere and effect, to compose architecture more rapidly; to play by ear . These are sentiments I can relate to. Slide 10 John Telfers Cymatic Music research - an audiovisual science and music project that investigates the possibilities of creating a system of visual, or rather visible music - provides much food for thought too. Telfer also asks if cymatic patterns can be interpreted musically but argues that the Equal Temperament, the twelve equal steps of the keyboard octave embedded in the piano and fretted string instruments which have dominated Western Music since the C18th, actually has harmonic inconsistencies.

Slide 11 In looking at previous artistic efforts to find links between music and visual art Ive found inspiration in the work and writings of John Whitney Sr. - the seminal experimental computer-aided filmmaker who regularly worked alongside his brother, James Whitney. This is a photograph of the brothers with their early analogue computer made by modifying the guidance systems of WW2 antiaircraft guns. Slide 12 John Whitney Sr. created a series of remarkable 16mm films of abstract animation that used early computers to create a harmony - not of colour, space, or musical intervals - but of motion. He championed an approach in which animation wasnt a direct representation of music, but instead expressed a complementarity - a visual correspondence to the dynamics found within music. Slide 13 In his 1980 book Digital Harmony, he proposes that the attractive and repulsive forces of harmonys consonant/dissonant patterns [also] function outside the dominion of music. He argues - and demonstrated through his films - that by applying the same Law of Harmony which underpins music to motion graphics, its possible to create not a visualisation of music - but a visual equivalence to music and this idea has become central to my research. Slide 14 This led to recent code-based work - which will become part of the digital component of the Augmented Tonoscope - showcased as part of Whitney Evolved at Kinetica Art Fair 12, London in February this year. This was a group screening project when we built on John Whitneys aesthetic of simple dot and line, bold colour and dynamic geometric form and re-imagined his intricate two-dimensional patterns as complex three-dimensional shapes and projectionmapped forms. Slide 15 Im at the Manchester Mini Maker Faire at MOSI next weekend showing where Im up to with my research. If youd like to see for your self please do come along - its free and youll get the chance to see work form more than 40 makers. Or check out my website - www.augmentedtonoscopoe.net., drop me an email lewis@augmentedtonoscope.net or buy me a beer in the bar afterwards ;-)