Type: Post

new video: leftright

I've had the idea to do this kind of thing for a long time, so I'm glad to have it done.

A short video. I walked back and forth in front of the camera many times, and then I sorted the frames of the video based on the position of my red hat. The audio is a short guitar bit I recorded, cut into pieces; the pieces were looped to created a bunch of layers of sound. The stereo effect is created by delaying the two channels of each piece by varying amounts, rather than the more standard amplitude difference method.

I had intended to make the audio the same way as the video: do a stereo recording (using a stereo mic setup) of some sounds moving back and forth, then cut up the sound into piece and sort by "leftness". I figured out how to measure the "lag" between two signals, but it was too short, and didn't actually correlate with the stereo position very well. I'll have to try it again with a pair of fairly widely separated microphones so the lag is a little larger.

17 grotesque things in Of Human Bondage

  1. The way Philip limped. "Other boys saw it and began to laugh; then they all copied the first; and they ran round Philip, limping grotesquely, screaming in their treble voices with shrill laughter. "
  2. Hayward's elastic-sided boots: "He described one of the vivas with tolerant humour; some fellow in an outrageous collar was asking him questions in logic; it was infinitely tedious, and suddenly he noticed that he wore elastic-sided boots: it was grotesque and ridiculous; so he withdrew his mind and thought of the gothic beauty of the Chapel at King’s."
  3. Miss Wilkinson in her petticoat and camisole: "She had taken off her skirt and blouse, and was standing in her petticoat. It was short and only came down to the top of her boots; the upper part of it was black, of some shiny material, and there was a red flounce. She wore a camisole of white calico with short arms. She looked grotesque. "
  4. Foinet's description of a knee in one of Miss Price's drawings: " 'Look, those arms are not the same length. That knee, it’s grotesque. I tell you a child of five. You see, she’s not standing on her legs. That foot!' "
  5. A table cloth offered for sale: "The Levantine unfolded a table-cloth, red and yellow, vulgar, hideous, and grotesque."
  6. Miss Price: "She gave a gasp and threw him a sudden look of anguish. Then two tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked frowsy and grotesque."
  7. The perspective in one of Miss Price's drawings: "It was not only that they were ill-drawn, or that the colour was put on amateurishly by someone who had no eye for it; but there was no attempt at getting the values, and the perspective was grotesque."
  8. The British-ness of Hayward's appearance: "Hayward in order to put the rest of them at their ease had clothed himself in a tweed suit and a Trinity Hall tie. He looked grotesquely British."
  9. Mildred Roger's name: "He thought of this old fancy of his, and it seemed impossible that he should be in love with Mildred Rogers. Her name was grotesque."
  10. Philip, running: "He was strangely grotesque when he ran."
  11. Mildred, after some violent sobbing: "She had the grotesque look of one of those painters’ dummies used to hang draperies on. "
  12. Philip killing himself: "His reason told him that he would get over his unhappiness in time; if he tried with all his might he could forget her; and it would be grotesque to kill himself on account of a vulgar slut."
  13. The fit of a laurel wreath on the dead Cronshaw's head: " He was pleased with his idea of crowning the dead poet with this; and attempted, notwithstanding Philip’s disapproving silence, to fix it on the bald head; but the wreath fitted grotesquely."
  14. The way Mildred's boots protruded from her petticoats: "Mildred was asleep. She lay with her head thrown back and her mouth slightly open; her legs were stretched out, and her boots protruded from her petticoats in a grotesque fashion."
  15. Philip's opinion of an unpleasant scene between him and Mildred: "While his eyes sought out the newspaper shops to see the war news on the placards, he thought of the scene of the night before: now that it was over and he had slept on it, he could not help thinking it grotesque."
  16. Uncle William: "With his skull-cap and a crochet shawl over his shoulders he looked grotesque."
  17. The importance of money, when it was hard to come by: "when you had to consider every penny, money became of grotesque importance: you needed a competency to rate it at its proper value."

dueling axes: two-center bipolar version

I wrote some code in Processing so that I can participate in a future Dueling Axes event with BEAMS, an event in which audio performers generate visuals by using their two channels of input to independently control the x and y coordinate of a point, oscilloscope-like. I decided to try other coordinate systems. This video is my two-center bipolar proof-of-concept. Here, the audio channels are just a guitar and a slightly delayed version of it.