Real-Time Aggregation

By: Randall Packer |

August 15th Project Documentation (only works in Chrome)

This micro-project explores social broadcasting as the organization of distributed media flows, spaces, locations, images, and sound aggregated in the immediacy and simultaneity of their performance.

Using the Third Space Network interactive video wall, software written for networked performance that combines the feeds of multiple artist-broadcasters, we will explore the real-time creation of an audio-visual mix that can be controlled from the Web page.

Each student will broadcast via Facebook LIve from their mobile phone, and the feeds will be aggregated in real-time to the video wall. Despite the differentiation between our live broadcasts, we will be constructing a simultaneous audio-visual event that can be experienced as a single work.

Students will seek a sound in or around ADM, to be captured over a precisely 15 minute duration. The broadcasts will begin in the classroom, then diverge to the various locations, then converge once again back in the classroom. Find a location where there is a distinct sound taking place, such as water flowing, traffic, café, conversation, or other ambient sounds. You can also record the sound of your own footsteps, speaking, or other miscellaneous sounds you might generate.

The objective is to be aware of the sound around you, sounds you might often take for granted. This assignment asks you to open your ears, to listen, to be attentive, to be focused on the kinds of sounds we might ordinarily ignore or tune out.

If you happen to see another student performing during the 15 minute duration, you can capture them as well, in order to incorporate what we refer to as “cross-streams,” in which two or more artist-broadcasters are interacting and capturing one another. In this way, the broadcasts will bleed across the grid of the video wall, making it more porous and homogenous.

After the 15 minute broadcasts are completed, we will review the results. The video wall can be controlled by the viewer to mix the sound. Since we will be performing while it is live, we will create a mix from the wall with the recorded archived videos, just as you saw in the example of NeWWWorlDisorder.

Once the project is completed, each student will write a blog post (due in class), describing your impression of performing and then viewing the aggregation. How does the aggregation change the way we perceive space? In our socially-mediated, distributed lives, how does the aggregation comment on how we experience the random juxtaposition of friends, events, media, etc., in the third space social media environments we interact in each and every day? Use the category “Micro-Project” for your post.

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