Anticipation

Final project, School for Poetic Computation Spring 2019

Video

Anticipation is a comedic interactive piece exploring unforeseen uses of the human voice as a musical instrument. As visitors approach the piece, set in a dystopian karaoke environment of badly hung glittery decoration, the artist / MC invites them to sing, whistle or make any sound into a microphone. Many elements seem off: the microphone is disconnected, while a crudely attached webcam whose lens is covered with tape appears to intermittently glow blue. What is going on?

The sounds provided by the visitors are transformed into small notes which are embedded into various MIDI jazz song standards, following the musical parts of the piano, bass or drums. The unintended and distorted results tend to approach both limits of the best/worse spectrum of appreciation — the resulting music is both unbearably wrong and unmusical, while being satisfying in its silliness and unnecessary complexity.

Materials

Cardioid microphone, Logitech webcam, Apple computer, Python, C++, and JavaScript software.