Aural Plasma in a Virtual World

April 10, 2009

Aural Plasma.

Much of the time, in most circumstances, I close my eyes when I play and perform music. The removal of the visual gives a focus on the aural. It gives a kind of permission that pulls me in to a comfortable place where I can be, do and act. A familiar kind of sonic plasma feeds and guides my senses and responses and slows down time. Closing my eyes helps me to experience synchronicity with this place quickly and directly. Sometimes, in some situations, visual cues are necessary ... and I have become more adept at remaining immersed and in tune with aural plasma while also having my eyes open. In these cases I find my eyes might close for 'power on' moments to keep the umbilical cord connection to the deeply aural. My fingers, hands, arms, breath, movements, vocal chords ... and whatever instrument, object that I am resonating ... all of this together is a sonic extension of my blind connection to the plasma of that aural world.


This aural world is one I am intimate with and feel at home in. It gives me access to a multi-faceted attention state that is encompassing, global, temporal, detailed, energizing, hi-fi. Those of us who have had the pleasure of working in aural tradition over a lifetime are perhaps less visually oriented than others. Perhaps our sense of the temporal has different nuances. I am not sure about this. Maybe it is one way to think about it for now.


I have been thinking about the many aural traditions of music-making and their possible relationship to what we are doing in the visually focused world of Second Life.


After playing in Second Life for about 16 months, I could manage sometimes to get to that deep aural plasma ... moments when my virtual sonic responses were relatively in sync with the shifted temporal space that I can experience in good moments of playing in a non-virtual situation. It's a narrower world for me yet, but perhaps that is a judgment to think about.


With virtual instruments such that the Avatar Orchestra uses, we performers of sound mostly use the mouse to click on specific control areas on our computer screens to determine the sounds we are making in real time. Just the mouse held in one hand, moving the cursor over screen areas. The other hand operates at times the arrow buttons to move the avatar to disperse the sound in the space.


Sometimes I can close my eyes for very brief moments, but closing my eyes seems counter-intuitive to being present in this virtual reality world ... maybe. I realize I am searching for that aural comfort zone, and that I will have to allow it to stretch its definition, find a new neural pathway in my brain so it can connect with what is present in this virtual world.


I am not yet getting a sense of a distinct feel for the physical connection to each sound I make, or to the distinct sounds that others make, like I can experience with instruments and other players in non-virtual situations.


I still need to keep my eyes open to play the virtual instrument controls on my screen, to move my avatar to distribute the sound within the virtual environment, and to keep my avatar from falling off a platform, or colliding with another performer or object. But if it is possible to become familiar enough with the homogeneous keys of a piano or accordion, I think there might be just a bigger shift needed to mind-map a way to find a link between the mind, the computer screen in such a way that I can find that encompassing, temporally altered acoustic plasma space, only in an audio-visual sense - perhaps with developing interfaces not unlike a more sophisticated Wii.

Mind stretching in tendrils out past blood, bone, muscle skin to other worlds in sound. Ha.

Tongue Tied

April 8, 2009

Waiting for that new kind of music. Listening for that new kind of sound. Open for that new kind of communion. It's going to be familiar. It's going to tie my tongue and slow my heart down and do the laundry.

PwRHm - A new Second Life collaboration

PwRHm is a piece made by Humming for a performance by the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse in a concert hosted by the Deep Listening Institute Women and Identity Festival in New York City April 17, 2008.

The composition is based on the 50 Hz and 60 Hz AC current in Europe and North America respectively, to acknowledge the collaboration that brings artists living in those 2 continents together as the Avatar Orchestra. In the photo above, Humming is seen with the HUDs (Heads Up Displays) representing the 4 "instruments" for the piece that were built by Bingo Onomatopoeia. These 4 instruments formed the basis for the sound of the piece, which explores the relationship between the harmonic series of the 50 Hz and 60 Hz cycles (the 5:6 ratio, or a just minor third) along with some of Bingo's field recordings of electric motors tuned to both series.

The visual aspects of the piece were a collaboration with Goodwind Seiling (Sachiko Hayachi), who designed the set and 'receivers' for the virtual instruments - beautiful spheres emitting coloured particles that indicated the pitches and volumes that were played by the performers.

In the photo below (by maxxico), from a rehearsal of the piece, AOM members Fernsing Llewelyn (Cathy Lewis), Zonzo Spyker (Viv Coringham), Goodwind Seiling, Miulew Takahe (Bjorn Eriksson), Maxxo Klaar (Max D. Well) and Humming can be seen playing early versions of the HUDs and receivers alongside two giant water tanks that Goodwind built for the set. Part 2 of this blog item will talk about the collaboration with Goodwind and the performance.

Poppies everywhere

Hmmmmmm.

Since visiting Goodwind Seiling's installation, I have been dreaming of poppies and thinking about the experience of art installation in the virtual world. It struck me that Second Life provides such an obvious path for visual artists to invite a different kind of engagement with their work. Seeing Humming, as the avatar, inside the core of the installation, encased in the soft womb-like bubble, triggering the sounds, being mesmerized by the slowly shifting patterns of the screen ... something quite different seemed to be taking place at the intersection of Humming and me, the flesh and blood being sitting at this computer. Seeing such inviting and compelling images let me imagine what it actually might be like to BE Humming, sitting in a soft amorphous floating bubble, tiny being inside a world of shifting velvety poppy petals.

The image of Humming, in her mostly blue water textured clothing, inside the poppy-filled dome seemed out of place somehow. I decided to go back to the installation and think about letting Humming become more visually in tune with installation in the short period of time that I had to be there. The theme of dissolving, losing identity, is what compels investigatation. So why not dissolve in a world of poppies? Why not let the art transform the avatar and make visible the impact of the art?

Poppies - Goodwind Seiling's Installation

I have just made another visit to the artist Sachiko Hayashi's new installation in Second Life, which runs until the end of February at HUMlab HUMlab (209, 185, 25). Sachiko's Second Life avatar is Goodwind Seiling.

The photos above were taken inside the main part of the installation, which is a large geodesic dome, the planes of which are formed from the most exquisite photos of red poppy petals. The planes shift and change in geometric patterns inside the dome, and as they are touched, delicate sound samples are triggered. Entry into the dome is through red semi-transparent bubbles, placed on the 'ground' outside of the dome. Inside the bubbles, avatars are transported to the inside of the dome, where they are suspended, with the illusion of being gently propelled or floating inside a safe, soft, comfortable and very organic womb-like space. Some of this must be because of the quality of the images. Although it is not perceptible here on the blog platform, inside Second Life the images are very soft and velvety. Like a kind of hush.

At the opening of the installation on January 18, Goodwind took me on a tour of the installation, and explained how it worked. I was most intrigued by the construction of the planes, and wanted to know what they were made of visually. I am not sure I would have guessed they were photos of poppies. Goodwind/Sachiko, let me know that the poppies are from her garden in Sweden.

If you are a Second Life avatar, you might want to visit Goodwind's installation before it closes. It is well worth the experience.

Worldpeace Jammers Jam

Hmmm. I have just logged off Second Life from a lovely improvisation session with Junivers Stockholm and Tuttan Zatelan of the Worldpeace Jammers. Junivers, who is in Sweden in First Life, set up an improvisation space that includes a wall-mounted series of Tibetan bells whose sounds are looped from First Life bell samples.

I had logged into the space before the session was to start, to tune in, and to see how the virtual Cello (made by Robbie Dingo) would work in the sim location. I spent some time in silence, then started the bells ringing, listening with no bells then with bells to the spaces ... the digital soundspace created by the virtual temple room, the imaginary First Life space that this digital Second Life space suggested, the space in my First Life studio at my desk and listening through eMac speakers, the space created by the impact of the listening on the virtual Humming in the virtual space, on me - the entity behind Humming, and on the quantal reality that is the composite of all of these listenings and more.

After I felt tuned to some sense of this 'space', I discovered that the Cello would not play while the bells were sounding, so I tried an Avatar Orchestra Metaverse HUD instrument made by Bingo Onomatopoeia for a beautiful composition titled Rue Blanche by Miulew Takahe. The HUD sound consists of a series of sine tones moving up the harmonic series. The series was perfectly in tune with the tone of one of the central Tibetan bowls, and it was interesting to play with this, gradually stopping all of the other bowls from ringing to leave just the one, while gently playing with the sine tones.

Junivers, Tuttan and a few other Worldpeace Jammers arrived, and we started playing with the Tibetan bowl ringing - it rang for the entire session, which lasted about an hour or so. Junivers played a First Life guitar fed into his computer and processed by delay. He also briefly played one of Robbie Dingo's virtual flutes. Tuttan also played virtual flute, and for a short while, another member played virtual cello. I decided to play a First Life instrument and to sing a bit using the Voice Chat function on Second Life. Very interesting. This improvisation's soundworld thus consisted of a virtual Tibetan bowl whose sound was a sampled loop; an electric guitar played live through a computer's software processor fed into the SL platform; a virtual flute and cello whose sounds are real flute and cello samples controlled by keyboard HUDs; and a live flute and voice played into a Mac internal mic and fed into the Second Life platform. Played by people on at least 3 different continents.

The music was alternately meditative, melodic, atonal, harmonic, rhythmic, eerie, atmospheric, illusive ... many things. The listening, however, was astute and deep. Four people who have never met in Real Life, and very little in Second Life, connected through these atoms of space, in far flung geographic locations, with who knows what in our private rooms, and in very different timezones ... fascinating that we were able to find, immediately and without talking about it, a sense of connection, engagement, respect and curiosity and play good music together.

Hmmm. More to explore.

Raindrop Shell - work in progress

Above: Two photos of Humming Pera encased in a raindrop shell object, attached to her spine.

Moving is a bit interesting, as the 'object' does not seem to move as fast as the avatar. This is a nice effect, that, coupled with the scripts for stationary avatar movements, creates a sense of coming in and out of hiding within the raindrop. Amorphous.

What sounds will come out of this work? What sounds that are possible within the platform?

Musings on Touch and Sight

As I ponder how to make performance and sound installation works as an 'avatar', I am exploring places of touch and visualization ...

Touch, vision, feeling, sound, excitement, action … what is the relationship between how they exist in our minds and their manifestation in body? That we can experience a sense of touch through digital sound, idea, typing words, being in the same thought process at the same time with others in another time zone … how real is it? Is it touch? If the shared experience compels higher adrenaline levels, more fluids to run through the body, the heat of performance, laughter, inspiration, excitement … what is the difference between experiencing these things in the same location, and far apart? Is there a difference?

I want to get to a better truth about this, and not get sidetracked by the 'virtual' aspects of the Second Life World ... the way places, objects and avatars 'look'.

I have started to make a 'shell', currently resembling a large water drop, to encase performing avatars as I develop a potential work for Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, partly as a process of trying to answer a question about avatar function. Avatar arms, legs, feet, hands, fingers, eyes, ears ... have no functional purpose in making movements or sounds, or determining how we ... people ... move through and act in the Second Life world. The controls available to us do not depend in any way on the avatar having specific body parts, or any body parts, for that matter. The arms do not bring, the hands to not touch, the legs do not propel the avatar, the eyes do not see, the ears do not hear. All of these things are accomplished with our mice and keyboards signaling the SL platform controls, positioning the camera and microphones. So why not lose the arms and legs, the eyes and ears?

I wonder about the extent of the limitations I might impose on myself as a creator if I become mesmerized by the fiction of the 'humanness' of the avatar beings. I wonder if I can access new places of touch in the mind that are more authentic to the virtual world by loosening the parameters of physical human likeness, and physical human limitation.

I don't know.

So I make these shells to cover the obvious virtual body and its human-copying parts; to free myself to conceive of movements, relationships, touches, colours that have some authenticity and relationship to the technical and imaginative realities of the simulated spaces I am working in, and offer some frameworks for group interactions and improvisations. It would of course be simpler to be able to create totally free form and amorphous avatars to begin with, but that is another story ...

Avatar Orchestra and The Heart of Tones

The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse has been working with composer Pauline Oliveros, aka the avatar Free Noyes, the past few weeks in a Second Life realization of her composition The Heart of Tones. This piece was originally written in 1998 for the great trombone player Abbie Conant. Accompanying instruments focus on the beatings that occur in minute deviations from a central pitch played by the trombone. The Avatar Orchestra's brilliant instrument designer, Bingo Onomatopaia, has created a rich HUD (Heads Up Display) for the Second Life version of the piece. The Heart of Tones HUD is used by each member of the orchestra to 'play' with live trombone sounds fed into Second Life through voice chat. The sounds produced by the HUD are sine tones, with variations in frequency, timbre (achieved by adding upper harmonic sines), volume and duration. The frequency variations are in 9-cent increments, which is .9 of an octave. This work is giving the orchestra some new ways to think about listening and sounding together virtually, and with the sounds of live trombones, played by guest artists Sum Noyes, Sarah Weaver aka Dreamwaker Freenote, Toyoji Tomita, and Jen Baker, feeding into the virtual performance space. We will be premiering Heart of Tones in 2008. It is quite a wonderful exploration, and Pauline's rehearsals with the orchestra have been fun and illuminating. Stay tuned ...