A while ago, I filmed 25 people individually in a recording studio. I played them each note in the classical human vocal range, and asked them to sing it for four seconds. This was surprisingly difficult, even for more experienced singers. Few people could sing in tune, or cover anything like the vocal range I asked for. But the attempts were valiant, and the results were varied and unique.

I then edited these performances into a series of note-long movies. With the programming expertise of artist/code genius Evan Raskob, I developed a custom computer program that allows these movies to be played back in the manner of a vintage Fairlight synthesiser.

The result is an fully-playable instrument that allows this amateur choir to be played like a piano, with three octaves range, twenty notes of polyphony and pressure-sensitivity. The instrument has been field-tested by Chad Lelong, a professional jazz pianist.

Uniquely, it also allows the singers to be seen as they perform. A dynamic visual composition is built up as the instrument is played. Their faces are projected onto a group of identical shapes, to form a ghostly disembodied choir.

I work a lot at visually interpreting existing music. Pitch Control looks at the reverse idea, where musicians adopt their playing style to achieve a pleasing visual composition. During testing, Chad, our pianist test pilot, instinctively altered his playing style to make it ‘look better’. Pitch Control also subtly explores some of the issues surrounding ‘user-generated content’, particularly ownership and authorship.

Some external links about Pitch Control:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-05/19/takeaway-festival-of-diy-media.aspx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXjmuLASyZ4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EURV81awDzg

http://www.rexfeatures.com/search/?kw=takeaway+festival&iso=GBR&viah=Y&lkw=&stk=N&sft=&search_oldest.x=-1

http://www.jotta.com/magazine/video/96/the-takeaway-diy-media-festival

You can click on the photos below to make them bigger.

Click here to see a movie of the installation.

For more information and high-res photos, please contact Marcus Lyall.

“Year Of The Motorcycle,” part of a mixed-media installation (and subsequent DVD) lead by artist Tom Ericsson at Progressive Insurance Corporation headquarters in Mayfair, OH, consisting of a large, interactive movie and a collection of found objects assembled from the house of Tom Ericsson’s uncle Mike, who was an avid motorcylist.  It was commissioned by the Progressive Insurance Corporation art collection as part of a festival celebrating motorcycle culture.  The interactive movie rewarded participants’ actions by showing them more intimate photographs and memories of Mike Ericsson, running the broad spectrum of human emotions from hope and love to obsession, denial, and pain, especially at the close of his difficult life.

Music video for artist Cheju of Boltfish Recordings, by Evan Raskob (PixelPusher).

Art installation “Emotional Contagion,” part of artist Tina Gonsalves’s “Chameleon” Project, developed in association with Dr. Hugo Critchley, world-renowned social neuroscientist Dr. Chris Frith of The Wellcome Department of Neuroimaging at The Institute of Neurology (IoN) in London, world leading affective computer scientists Prof Rosalind Picard and Dr Rana Kaliouby of The Affective Computing Group at the Media Lab, Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA..  Shown at ICA London, and the Wellcome Institute, London, and others.

Emotional Contagion is a public, projection-based installation whereby people send text messages via their mobile phones that encourage virtual people to change emotion.  These emotions affect the other virtual persons around them according to algorithms developed in collaboration with Dr. Critchely and Dr. Frith, mirroring how emotions are unconsciously transmitted through crowds of real people.

Developed software system for creating and performing colorful visuals on the LED walls and ceilings of Fairchild Publication’s cafeteria in a landmark New York City building on 750 3rd Avenue.

Robert Whitman’s Turning exhibition at Pace Wildenstein Gallery, New York.  Many of the sculptures in “Turning,” as well as the “Baker Moon,” a sculpture of the Moon commisioned by arts patron Richard Baker III,  include 4′ and 6′ hemispheres projecting video of planets and moons from within.  These self-contained sculptures are weatherproof and designed for installation outdoors originally by architect Walter Smith.

‘Sympathy’ for the Devil’, involved shooting a 12 foot long set of burning lips and huge pyrotechnic effects. ‘Undercover of the Night’ took library police surveillance footage and transformed it into an abstract montage of collisions and twisted metal. For “Honky Tonk Woman” we animated a figure challenging the famous tongue to a duel, riding it like a bucking bronco, piercing it but eventually getting eaten by the giant lips.

Contributing Directors: Lance Bangs, Mark Logue, Willie Williams, Marcus Lyall, Mark Norton
Animator: Murray Johns