Sistema Reactivo de Transmutación y Amplificación de Energía Electromagnética para la Producción de Estímulos Lumínicos y Sonoros (Reactive Transmutation and Amplification System of Electromagnetic Energy for the Production of Light and Sound Stimuli) is an experience that transforms the participant’s hands into “electromagnetic-audiovisual transductors”. This project was supported by FONCA Young Creators Grant 2018/2019 in the New Technologies category. S.R.T.A.E.E.P.E.L.S. was presented at San Ildefonso College (Mexico) on October 27th 2019.
This installation aims to create a reflection about our perception and the discrete presence of the electromagnetic fields. S.R.T.A.E.E.P.E.L.S. was fully developed using the Bela environment and Pure Data. This project can be divided in three main parts: sounds, visuals and interaction.
The main focus of this project was to create an experience that emphasizes electromagnetic energy as the principle and the result of an interaction with the public. The first step was to listen and record the electromagnetic fields. Using a Bela board and different kinds of inductors, a provisional “electromagnetic sound recorder” was created in order to document the fields found on everyday electronic devices (PCs, cables, cellphones, lights, toys, etc). This created a sample library that was used for the final work. This sounds are processed in real time in Pure Data using granular synthesis, delays and reverb. This previous processes manages to maintain the essence, textures and dynamics of this recordings. Laser visuals.
A custom Bela/ILDA interface was developed to drive a RGB laser with audio signals, this allows to create sound reactive visuals like an oscilloscope. The visual representation is created using a Pure Data code along the processed sounds with the interaction of the participants. The colors and shapes correspond to the characteristics of the current sounds. Currently I’m working on this interface as a Bela add-on for future laser projects. This part of the project led to experiment with different codes/processes to create laser visuals using the Bela platform. Interaction with the system.
The whole system is integrated and manipulated in an wood box with an interface based on a single wire. The wire allows the public to interact with the installation by grabbing, stretching or bending it, this adds a level of expressivity to the manipulation where the result influences on the visuals and the sound processing. Each interaction with the system is unique due the constant changes on the variables involved, even the number of people near of the box have an impact due the capacitance measures of the wire. The decision of using a single wire as the interface is based on reducing the number of processes and elements between the users and the phenomena.