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Aaron Lieb04 . 09 . 09

Research Paper (WIP

)

Introduction

ProZeuxis will be a compositing system to generate visual effects for enhancinglive performances of any type. The system will be flexible and easily allow the user tocreate expressive visuals that incorporate aspects of the performance that will drive theeffects; including live beat detection, MIDI input, and motion tracking. Using these features,my concentration will be to facilitate improved improvisation capabilities for the visualperformer, or VJ, as well as the performers that their visuals are supporting. To do this,ProZeuxis will be based on an intuitive, tangible user interface that provides fluid controlsfor linking generative visual effects to the live sources of audio and video data. Thisinterface will be created by mainly using a ReacTable(ReacTable) surface on which a usercan create compositions of linked nodes. The interface will be designed to incorporateinteraction through the use of tangible markers with affixed fiducial symbols as well asmulti-touch, finger input.The ProZeuxis system will seek to improve on the performance aspect of improvisation when compared to other DIY and commercially available VJ systems thatalso use multi-touch and tangible interface components. These other multi-touch systemsfocus on controlling visuals much in the same way that existing hardware or softwaresystems have in the past. They create a virtual counterpart interface to reflect thesemethods, and extend the functionality onto a multi-touch screen, and in many cases,couple this with tangible controller knobs and sliders as well. The layout of these systems,however, still revolve around the existing methodologies of creating a live visualcomposition by layering banked video clips, and applying effects through the use of variously controlled parameters. ProZeuxis, while subscribing to a lot the same ideas asthese systems, will also try to depart from the way in which a composition is created in alive setting. Generative visuals that make use of ProZeuxis' uniquely data rich environmentwill replace the tired visuals of manually triggered video clips layered with predicableeffects and mix modes.

Rather than just looking at the VJ’s function as someone who will interact with alaptop running a clip triggering software, the general approach of the system will be to lookat the entire live performance venue as a space where an interactive installation piece hasbeen included. The VJ could be seen as a special character in this performance that iscapable of changing the interactive environment settings using the tools included in theProZeuxis console station. The other characters including all of the other performers, andin some cases the audience, would be capable of indirectly interacting with the systemthrough their tracked movements and analyzed audio data. In this case, the system needsto include all of the hardware and software components that are common between thoseused in both the worlds of interactive art installations and more traditional performancevisualization software systems.This interaction between captured performance data and parameters of a visualcomposition is a concept that is being explored by a relatively limited number of artists.The performance group DS

-X.org, in an interview in

VJ: Audio-Visual Art and VJ Culture

describe their approach of employing a number of software packages andprogramming languages such as;

Max/MSP Jitter and SoftVNS, SuperCollider, EyeConand Kalypso,

to create performance reactive visuals. In a

-X.org performance,...the content material is on the one hand the real-time picture, and on theother prepared and precaptured material that was filmed and edited... Sound isthe basis of our VJ work. The sound controls – directly or indirectly – theparameters of the resulting picture, the colors, size or position. The music styleis relatively unimportant. We use the music's basic parameters like beat,frequency, or volume to control the picture (Faulkner

100)

To subscribe to this level of technological sophistication, a ProZeuxis performance wouldinclude the necessary task of setting up equipment that would render the stage as a largescale interactive piece, doing this will provide the real-time audio and video data that couldthen be propagated to many visual nodes within a performance composition. This mantraof computing performance data once to reuse it many times, will be a common theme inthe system's design considerations. This approach will help make ProZeuxis able to

augment any type of performance as an audio-visual reactive space through efficientusage of the captured performance data.In the past decade, the computing power of laptops as well as the developmentof new and sophisticated programming languages has made it possible for individuals tocreate a wide array of interactive art pieces. There are two problematic aspects that seemto plague the success of many of these works. The first issue is a general lack of reusability. In many cases the software designs and hardware setups of these pieces arevery uniquely tied to one another, so that much of the development effort cannot be easilyreused for a new installation piece that would achieve a different artistic goal.The second issue is that many of the pieces are designed with the idea that thegeneral public should be allowed to interact with the piece freely. In some cases this canbe a very positive thing, but a lot of times, a piece might be much more successful if itwas demonstrated by a performer, uniquely trained to interact with the installation piece. Inthis way, the entertainment quality of the piece could be enhanced by not disclosing asmuch about the system to the general observing audience. This separation between theperformance group, using the installation more ubiquitously as a tool, and the audiencewho is only allowed to participate in a more limited sense, creates an atmosphere wheremore mystery and surprise can be included in a given performance.Part of the development research supporting the ProZeuxis will be to addressthese concerns of creating a more adaptable system with reusable, modular components.These components should also be constructed in such a way to provide for the maximumamount of expressiveness achievable within this type of interactive performanceenvironment. In order to include this new level of expressiveness within the framework of the system’s capabilities, as well as the types of visuals that can be created, we look toArnheim’s definition of expression in

Art and Visual Perception

,..as

modes of organic or inorganic behavior displayed in the dynamicappearance of perceptual objects or events

. The structural

properties of thesemodes are not limited to what is grasped by the external senses; they

areconspicuously active in the behavior of the human mind, and they are used