While a concern for human experience and reflection lies at the heart of my work, electronic technologies play a central role in what and how people experience these works. I use electronic sensors and computers to amplify and transform human actions and physiological processes like heart beats and breathing, to render our experience of ourselves as seemingly magical and enchanted processes.
Since 2003 I’ve worked with a variety of bio-sensing systems, including the Waverider biofeedback hardware and software; UFI sensors; Angelo Fraietta’s ‘Dumb-Controllers’; and Vernier heart-rate sensors, and have commissioned computer programmers to develop dedicated applications to record and transmit data from these sensor devices, using the Open Sound Control protocol.
Software
Cycling 74’s Max/MSP (now Max 5) is the main application I work with in creatingmy interactive works, usually in combination with bespoke analysis and visualisation systems running on separate computers using Open Sound Control to transmit and receove data between applications.
Signal Scaling and Conditioning in MaxMSP
‘gk.scaler’ is a Max5 abstraction that uses a combination of Klaus Filip’s logarithmic scaling abstraction ‘!llog’ and Greg Turner’s ‘spring2’ which simulates spring and inertia effects on incoming data. Works on OSX and Windows.
Fuzzy Logic GUI’s for MaxMSP
In 2009 I commissioned Greg Turner to create some Max objects for composing and working with fuzzy logic opperations in MaxMSP. My aim was to develop a set of tools that would allow me to control sounds and visuals according to a combination of continuosly variable inputs (i.e. heart rate average AND heart rate standard deviation). One of the key functions I was looking for was a way to smoothly (and simply!) cross fade between sound textures (or video images) according to one’s position along a given set of axes (i.e. x, y, x).
The result of this work so far is ‘fuzzyvar‘ and ‘fuzzyexpr‘.
We are presently looking for people to help us beta-test these objects, so e-mail me if you would be interested in taking part in the beta-testing of these objects (george at georgekhut dot com).