Wii/nd Chime is an instrument of reminiscence. It signifies a shift from the physical realm, to the virtual and the simulated. The sonic languages of both the wind chimes and the 8-bit video-game sounds are combined into a system of interaction, which invites people to discover the potential ofthis new hybrid object.

In an attempt to address the issue of the fake entering the realm of the real, I turned towards the notion of the simulacrum and the process of simulation leading to a reality without reference to real signs (Jean Baudrillard, 1994). In simulation, nothing is represented with respect to real signs; they are replaced by other signs, parallel to the real, yet totally fake. This process represents a new approach to the real world via the digital. In Wii/nd Chime the simulation takes places as the faking of the appearance of the original wind chime. However, the actual medium we use (Wiimote) is being explored to reveal its nature and its past. In that sense, Wii/nd Chime is a hybrid object, partly faking the original object, partly reminding us of the medium's history and potential.

more info available at: http://artemispapageorgiou.wordpress.com/

Artemis Papageorgiou is an architect whose work includes landscape design, video artworks and re/inter-active installations. Her professional practice includes collaborations with architectural studios in Athens (Greece) and Metalocus magazine (Madrid). Her main interest revolves around landscape (infrastructural, hybrid, transitional) as an active, over-time, re/inter-active ingredient of urban life. Artemis is currently an MFA candidate in Computational Studio Arts, at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she explores concepts of re/inter-activity and space. Her work has been exhibited in various exhibitions in Greece and she has recently been funded by Knowledge East to build one of her interactive installation projects, Y-Fasma.

Contact: artie2stars@gmail.com

Collaborators:

Benedetta Piantella Simeonidis (system interaction design in Max/MSP)

Lucas Vickers (sound interaction design in Max/MSP, Absynth, Kontakt)

Debra Swack (sound samples)

Jeremy Keenan (design of initial Max/MSP patch)

For this week we intend to build a prototype of the installation and create a fully working max patch. We will start with sound samples and once the patch is working we will experiment with notes, importing virtual synthesizers. The following week we are going to focus on sound effects and the ways to convey the emotions we would like to evoke with the piece.

thursday 3 july (today):

* finish the prototype TODAY, with any kind of samples. I will chop some from deb's samples. i want to play the wiimote.

friday 4 july :

* we meet here and we experiment with aaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllll kinds of sound samples we have come up with and we decide which is best.

* research the wiimotes and WRITE STUFF.

* discuss the sound system more, what kind of object we need in max to import real time notes from a VST.

* make the volume change smoother so we have a completely working skeleton for the program.

sunday 6 july :

I READ AND WRITE A LOT. we work on the max object that communicates with virtual synths.

monday 7 july : in max:

** figure out a good way to do the following. - don't need to change Channel for now (leave it at 0) - program each wii so that it picks a different note value - use the Acceleration to determine the value of velocity, 127 max - use the change in axis/and or acceleration to trigger a bang for note on (currently I have a button)

* This is important The red box that says “1 - Absynth 2 - Kontakt” defaults to 0, but it needs to be 1 or 2 for anything to play.

*user testing

*nintendo wii i want to play

tuesday 8 july :

keep working on sound and initiate BEHAVIORAL system, like what happens after a while people play around, and also according to acceleration, whether the sound starts to collapse into 8-bit game sounds (idea by Taeyoon) to give a nostalgic feeling about game controlling devices.

wednesday 9 july :

we experiment with final form of the thing.

thur-fri-sat- WE PARTY :)

• brainstorming: team talking about stuff and the idea about the fan solidifies

• we sorted out the system and decided upon schedule-materials-resources-software

• rain falling and watching the game with lucas and alex… and then walking over the brooklyn bridge and eating mexican food!

without lucas, we girls worked on max patch and started cutting wood for the frame of the wind chime!

• behavioral approach to wind chime/ a question mark on the fan » will it confuse the users? alternatives: use of motors to imply wind (to draw a curtain, to move candell sculptures?)

• what is the feeling/message I would like to convey?

Hello Artemis and friends This is Reid. I found something on a blog that may be of interest to your project, if you already know of it or are using it please excuse this message! Its a program called junXion that was created by STEIM.

“junXion v3 is a Mac OSX data routing application that can process any Human Interface Device (joysticks, mice, touchscreens) and MIDI device data using conditional processing and remapping, with MIDI events as its output”

I found it on this blog which has general instructions on how to use it. I would have emailed it but I could not find any of your email addresses!

THANX REID!

• built the wiind chime frame of wood!

• http://www.cycling74.com/twiki/bin/view/Share/DarwinGrosse for tomorrow

• where should we place the final installation? what does it signify near the entrance and what in a remote area?

• tried pair the 5 wii remotes with osculator » just got the addresses out of it as it takes up to four wiimotes

• got them to work according to their distinct address through an object we found inside the aka.wiimote named p_device_address

• lets get a fully working Max/MSP patch today » we did!

• We also did some user testing, the first video example here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heZjWrgucMc

options: - how can we control the envelope of a sound sample in Max/MSP - Absynth?

- how can we recreate the course of the overtones produced by the metal tubes, which moves from inharmonic to harmonic? » we experimented with using morphing waves for the main oscillator in Absynth. The idea was to have the waves start in an inharmonic form and then over 2 seconds morph into a harmonic wave. A LFO (low frequency oscillator) was used to control the morphing. While this produced the desired results, the wave morphing was not retriggered by playing a note. Ideally every time we hit a note the wave would start in the full inharmonic form and morph into the harmonic sine wave. What occurred is that every 2 seconds the wave morphs from inharmonic to harmonic, back to inharmonic, and repeats, independent of when the note is triggered. If a note was triggered at the 2 seconds mark in Absynth, the note actually goes from harmonic to inharmonic which is not the desired result. It turns out that the morphing waves are great for recording one single note, but not for live performance which is what we are trying to achieve. (still testing)

- we examined the possibility of creating a vst~ object in Max/MSP. Absynth is loaded into Max/MSP as a VST plugin. MIDI signals can then easily be sent from max to Absynth, allowing for the live creation of notes. This test was successful! We are now working on creating the vst~ patch and replacing the recorded sound samples inside of our prototype patch.

- Benedetta is talking to herself, and to her imaginary friend Max, trying to smooth out the attack and the decay (the entrance and the exit) of the sound by averaging the acceleration. She is doing that because when the wii-motes are struck hard and the acceleration increases drastically, the volume goes up so high that the sound is clipped, causing digital distortion. There are different averaging formulas, simple average, weighted average, moving average, moving weighted average and she is experimenting with which one will give the smoother values while still keeping the wii remotes sensitive and reactive to the gestures of visitors. Here are one patch with 2 example of averaging and the patch that graphs out the original X acceleration value before and after being averaged. It is a step closer to smoother values and better sound:

- we managed to get the vst~ object in max to work with Absynth, in order to send MIDIEVENTS to Absynth, and also to control the parameters of the sound from Max/MSP, such as the Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release (and 16 more!) » aim: create a max patch that manipulates events in Absynth!

My goal for today is to create an accurate wind chime using Absynth. We messed around with quite a few options so far and know what it is we like, now I just need to figure out how to create that sound.

Once this is done I hope to get Absynth plugged into max/msp in a way that we can automatically pick which synth we want to play. things to research

Enable program list in absynth

Sound design + 8 bits + wind chimes

send a message to turn note on and off (if i send them right after wach other, does it sound bad?) If this is not possible how does 5 note polyphony sound?

Can I retrigger the morph each time the wave is set off? I don't think so, not in polyphony

Find an 8bit VST filter we can use

http://destroyfx.smartelectronix.com/ (FILTER)

Potential VSTs
  nbufferoverride
  geometer

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/903.html (SYNTH) http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2406.html (SYNTH) http://www.ymck.net/english/download/index.html (SYNTH)

In case we want to go pure synth styl

1 - Found a good recording of wind chimes for Kontakt (a sampler I have). We can use this instead of Absynth. It sounds better since it's live recordings. 2 - I made a patch in Max / MSP which triggers midi notes in kontakt or absynth.

You can toggle which instrument you want to play, change the note, and change the velocity.
I think in Kontakt the attack will be taken care of by providing a good velocity number (more on this below)

3 - Researched 8bit filters to make the wind chimes sound video game ish

*down sampling the recordings to 8bit don't make it sound video gameish at all, so I found some filters we may want to use

*the patch I made really takes a handful of parameters. - Channel (will allow us to switch to a different recording in Kontakt if we decide we want to do this) - Note (each wind chime will get a different note number. We can fine tune this once we figure out what instrument we will use - Velocity (0-127, how loud the note is)

* we managed to get max/msp to send midievents to Kontakt and play samples (uploaded in Kontakt as notes) whenever the wiimotes are triggered. ++

* benny downloaded the tetris song ++band now she is working on isolating the A button on the Wiimote from the others, as in the aka.wii remote object the buttons are triggered all together, even if you isolate one.

* lucas will cut the tetris song into 5 notes to import into kontakt, and then create one set of digitized sounds in order to create TRANSITIONAL sounds from the chimes to the video-game sounds! ++

* i used the laser-cutter (yeiihh) to cut our final support surface for the final object!

* designed the amazing poster

* downloaded the tetris song and cut the forst 12 seconds in five parts

* figured out how to receive 0/1 from one button of the Wiimote, as the aka.wiiremote obejct is designed to receive a bang from the p_buttons object, whenever any of the buttons is hit. we had to get the number sent by each button (button A sends out the byte number 8) and set a boolean function inside this object, as follows: when you see 8 then bang and with that bang trigger the different parts of the tetris song/ a different part for each wiimote.

* trying to figure out a way to play the sounds from kontakt, by sending the midievents there, and not from Max because it makes the sounds clip.

* managed to get 4 channel sound out of the speakers (whose address is 3,4,5,6). However, we are not able to direct the sound of each wiimote to a separate speaker (Lucas?) but we can direct the tetris song parts. ++

* i am building the final sculpture

* acceleration and installing the sound samples + calibrating the sound, the transition, the times, everything.

* upload everything to the mini mac!