Broadening Perspective · Part 1
Empathy
Part 1 of my MFA thesis, Broadening Perspective, at the School of Visual Arts. An audio-reactive installation built from one of my illustrations, designed to respond to the emotion in whatever music each visitor brings.
Part 2 of the thesis is Vision '7-Point Perspective'
"A particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view."Oxford Dictionary
Everyone has their own unique point of view. Similarly, everyone has their own taste in music that makes them feel a way that is individual to them, so not everybody can relate to what makes a song special to someone else.
However, when everyone sees their favourite music reflected in a shared visual, they can enjoy the feelings it creates together. Visitors could play the guitar or the piano, or pick a song on Spotify, and watch the feeling of it reflect in the visuals around them. The piece was made to be empathetic. It reflects every song without judgement and always brings some beauty out of it, even when the music is dark.
Behind the scenes
Almost everything was built in TouchDesigner. I picked out the combinations of bass, mids, treble and overall volume that stirred a particular emotion in me, and tied each one to that emotion. When a song brings one of them in, it triggers effects that make the visuals feel happy, sad, angry or scary, from scratchy and jarring to ethereal.
Because those emotions come from my own reading of music, the piece is subjective by design, and it was a different experience for every person who took part. It can take as many instruments and audio sources as the hardware can handle, all affecting the visuals at once.
I used my own abstract illustrations as the visuals being manipulated, since they are highly interpretable. They can be replaced with anything, so each performance can be unique.
With thanks
Thesis advisor
Javier Cruz
My mentor in learning TouchDesigner, who guided me through the various steps of my thesis, in both of its parts.
