The Dawn of Collage!

       There are a few factors that must be present for collage to exist sustainably. First of all, there's got to be paper. Vellum can hold a lot of gold leaf and gems, but we'll consider that a type of assemblage, since collage is really about thin, layered sheets of plant fibre. Secondly, there's got to be a lot of paper lying around. It can't be too precious or no one could bear to chop it up. Finally, collage needs an elaborate system of visual sign-language that it can absorb and respond to. Just like any art, collage thrives in the cracks of complex social structures, especially the nooks and crannies of luxury and leisure, since it technically does destroy other resources in order to exist. 

One of the problems with tracing collage history back to its birth is that paper decays pretty quickly compared to other media. So I can't show you the Chinese collages that appeared around the same time as paper itself(~200BC). The oldest thing I've found is some really lovely 10th century Japanese chigiri-e

During the Heian period, Japanese manuscripts started to include chigiri-e, a torn-paper overlay method. The most famous example is are the heavily decorated manuscripts of the works of the 36 Immortals of Poetry. Here are some examples from the Nishi-Honganji collection: 

from the 1st volume of collected poems of Ōnakatomi no Yoshinobu (921–991), Artist Unknown

two pages of the collected poems of Minamoto no Shigeyuki (?-ACE 1000), Artist Unknown

a page from 1st volume of collected poems of Lady Ise (10th century), Artist Unknown

Eventually manuscript decoration moved towards painted scrolls, and chigiri-e became less common, but it is still practiced  today. 

Next week, we'll be jumping all the way to the Victorian era. While there are many cultures who meet my 3 collage criteria in the intervening period, the records are scattered or have decayed.  If I find anything I haven't found before I'll post about it here. 

Update: Found some Persian Court pages style from ~1500 where panels are mounted on a patterned "album page". Close 2 collage but not quite... I'll keep checking it out! 

See you @ the club!

Paige

Fruits of the Farr This Week

Hi All! Just thought I'd share some cool things I found at the FARR this week! Enjoy! 

Laureat Malois in Code of ethics for original printmaking (2000)

 

from Early Canadian Pottery , 1971

from Rachel Whiteread

maquette by S.J. Witkiewicz from 13th International Biennial of Tapestry, 1987

from Henri Matise: A Retrospective, 1951

I'll keep posting all the cool collage work I find! I've only gone through one shelf so far...

 

Hi, everyone! 

I am the FARR fall resident! My name is Paige.  

The next six weeks at FARR are all about collage. Every week on Monday I will write a little about the medium's history on here, and every Friday, Collage Club will make something totally new out of the FARR archive. I'm really excited to see what we come up with every Friday 6-9 at FARR! (The "we" I'm talking about would ideally include you and all your friends) 

Anyways, on to the blog post content. This is just an introduction, so no facts 2day. This week is all about starting points. What's the state of my collages, your collages, FARR's collages right now? 

FARR has some great collage work in their zine section, here are some examples for u to look at:

from MAD zine (N7433.7L86 2012)

from Anothernet  by Jeremy Dabrowski  (N 7433.7 D33 2011) 

Etter Patui zine ( NC143. B877 2007)

New Civilizations: A Book of Collages by Chris Foster (N 7433.7 F678 2011)

As for my collages, I recently figured out where to buy National Geographics in Montreal (churches and their garage sales) so I'm set, just cutting stuff up, getting ready for you all to come to Collage Club on the 30th. Here is a Club Materials preview: 

Here are some of my collages from an ongoing snake-related project so you get a sense of what I'm all about:

I'm so excited to be FARR's resident and make something really cool with all of you, and the archive! Thanks for reading, watch this space for next week's post about early collage history! Also check out the tumblr I made to for the club, I'll be posting collage works every day from all corners of the internet! 

- Paige 

Plant Sounds Pt. V

PROJECT 
__________________________________________

Plant Sounds Pt.V

 

thank you <3

 

Plant Sounds Pt. IV

PROJECT 
__________________________________________

Plant Sounds Pt. IV

me and the plant-plant and the circuit

 
The project was a success. Though now that everything is operational (more or less) there's a ton of potential for future research. One thing that is apparent is the rate of change within the plant. It functions on a different time scale, one that is much longer and more difficult to perceive without the use of these instruments. It is too young in the project to say conclusively what exactly is going on and which variables (humidity, light, temperature, etc.) make the most significant changes within the plant. Isolating the variables and plotting the data will help narrow the speculation. Also, this project has been fixated on a single peace lily. Experimenting with other species would provide some interesting reaffirming or contrasting data. 
 

The circuit could be optimized and augmented with higher precision. The addition of a higher bit-depth ADC and perhaps a FFT integrated chip would also refine the incoming signal. On the creative end of things, adding capacitance measurements to the circuit would make the plant much more interactive — basically turning the plant into a theremin. That bit has been done before, but the addition of a theremin-style interactivity to the existing circuit would make it unique.
 

All in all, the project has been enlightening and a worthwhile experience. Thanks to those who came and experienced the sounds of flora! It was great to share.

SPECIAL THANKS

Marc-Alexandre Chan
Fine Arts Reading Room

Eldad Tsabary 

Ooleepeeka Eegeesiak 

IEEE Concordia Student Branch

James Bourque

FARR presents: PLANT SOUNDS

this is tomorrow! come join us 

<3 farr="">

Plant Sounds Pt. III

PROJECT 
__________________________________________

Plant Sounds Pt. III

Plant Sensor Prototype Mk. III

IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! !  IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! ! IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! !  IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! !  IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! !  IT WORKS ! ! !  THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! !  IT WORKS ! ! !  THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! !  IT WORKS ! ! ! THE CIRCUIT WORKS ! ! !

Marc touching the plant — SCIENCE

After acquiring two exorbitantly priced Silver/Silver Chloride (Ag/AgCl) electrodes, remapping and overhauling the schematic (twice and then some), and being told several hundred times the theory behind a Wheatstone bridge (much to Marc's enjoyment), the circuit actually works as planned. Now, it may not be perfect and requires regular tweaking, but it works. Marc and I shared a celebratory high-five while the stress of our previous defeats washed away.

There is still a sizable amount of 60 Hz EMI plaguing the signal. For the time being, a simple attenuation of 60 Hz within Max/MSP will be sufficient. In the future, some refinement of the circuit design may help to prevent the interference. 

! ! ! In any case, I really dislike 60 Hz now. From this point on, my music will never use A♯1/B♭1 ! ! !

Now the final steps of the project are underway. The signal's qualities and characteristics need to be collected and delivered to Max/MSP. In order to do this, we are using an Arduino interface to translate the signal into serial data — an analog to serial bridge. Using Arduino is a new experience for me, but thankfully Marc is hip with it's language. The output of the Arduino will be decimal intergers as strings (10-bit values, 0 to 1023). I also still have to transfer the circuit to my own protoboard and solder it all together. Big thanks to the IEEE for letting me use their breadboard (and wire, solder, expertise).

Arduino code snippet

Max/MSP is capable of interpreting serial data live.  In this way, I'll have real-time values and, in effect, real-time audible changes in the sonic outcome. I've never dealt with serial data before, so there is some learning and testing in order to cultivate something representative and clear. Though with a series of numbers being fed into Max/MSP there is a great deal of potential for automating parameters (delay times, frequencies, filter values, and on and on). For the purposes of the project, too much ornamentation of the audio signal is, I feel, in poor taste. The peace lily probably doesn't know how to play music or modulate frequencies or control reverb times or create sick-ass beats, after all. Further research on this will tell.

The project has evolved with each stage, and it's much different from where it originally stemmed. Little did I know how massive of an undertaking this project would be. It all begins with a question: "Can a plant make a sound?"
 
The short answer is "yes". 

Lots of Love,
Thom

(soon to come are audio examples and the actual installation)

"This Is Just One Voice" Performed March 27th 2015 at Studio 7

After many days of programming and practicing (+50 hours all together), I designed and learned to play a new instrument in Max/MSP. Its debut performance took place on March 27th 2015 at Studio 7. Thank you to all who came out to the performance. In this post, I will share the recording of the performance, and discuss the design of the instrument.

First of all, here is the performance:


The instrument's design is relatively straightforward from a macroscopic perspective. My voice is taken into the computer through a microphone where it is processed by three main sections before being distributed to four speakers which surround the audience.

The first stage, labelled "Live Recording and Loop Playback" is an Ableton Live set controlled by a grid controller. At this stage I am able to record loops such as the opening "this is just one voice", the singing in the middle, and the final "I invited people to abuse my gravity". This is the only processor using premade software; when I started the project, I imagined that I would be recording and rearranging words and sentences on the fly to make new poetry from one recorded original. As I started practicing with the instrument, however, I realized that this was fairly uninspiring; simply speaking the derived poem would have the same semantic content, with the additional prosody of my voice, and it was nightmarishly difficult to keep track of which word was associated with which button on my grid controller. Ultimately, I think the performance was improved by my decision not to extensively use this stage of the instrument.

The second stage is labelled "Frequency Shifted Delay with Feedback". This processor has a very dynamic gestural sound, and adds an inharmonic electronic quality to my voice. It's controlled by a QuNexus keyboard device which sends three streams of data to the computer based on which note I press, how much pressure I am applying to each note, and the position of my finger on the key. By varying the way I touch the key, I can elicit sharp attacks or steady drones from this stage. As with all stages of the instrument however, it doesn't make any sound unless I speak/sing into it from the microphone.

The third stage is the granular delay. This complex processor chops the incoming stream of vocal sounds from the microphone into tiny fragments, called grains, each of which has slightly different properties which are stochastically generated from within ranges set on my tablet computer. I used this processor in the performance to generate a variety of textures from my voice. The sound of the line "when many voices speak at once" near the beginning of the performance is a typical granular sound effect. One of the parameters of each grain is which speaker to play from; with four speakers to choose from, the output of the granular delay really enveloped the audience, who sat in the middle of the four speakers.

Finally, stages two and three form a feedback loop, each one feeding into the other by an amount set on my tablet computer. I didn't use this feature of my instrument much in the performance, but it offers some interesting possibilities to iteratively process the sound of one processor using the other.

The first performance with this instrument was a success, and I look forward to continuing its development. Both of the processors have room for improvement without changing their function considerably, and as well there is the possibility to add additional processors in the future. Programming aside, I have a lot of room to hone my playing technique with this instrument. I hope to also use it in collaboration with other vocalists and poets, and potentially also with instrumentalists and other laptop musicians. While I developed the instrument intending to use it with my own voice, its design is such that it could operate with any audio signal, be it a mic'd acoustic source, or any other electronic source.

Thank you to Thomas Christie for sharing the March blog with me, thank you to Studio 7 welcoming me into such a great performance space, and thank you so much to the FARR for the opportunity to work on this project and document it on this blog. It has been a joy to discover Max/MSP during this project, which I was only able to afford thanks to the residency honorarium. As well, it was fascinating to interact with the Reading Room users to develop the poetry, which was one of the most important aspects of the performance at Studio 7. I couldn't have accomplished any of this without the Reading Room.

My gratitude,

Travis West

Plant Sounds Pt. II

PROJECT 
__________________________________________

Plant Sounds Pt. II

60 Hz and a little something extra

 

Interfacing with the plant is proving to be more difficult than anticipated. While the current prototype was picking up some kind of signal, there was a considerable amount of 60 Hz interference. This is because the plant virtually acts as antennae. There was a small, irregular signal overlaid the 60 Hz, but we couldn't conclude if it was noise interference or the plant. Nicely enough, interacting with the plant did cause reactions in the collected signal, mostly in the form of amplitude variation. Although these tests weren't a complete victory, it did bring to light some potential fixes.

60 Hz PROBLEM

To rectify the issue of 60 Hz interference, we may go with an instrumentation amplifier. A Faraday cage would be ideal to isolate the electronics and the plant, but then the installation would just be a box. It just wouldn't be the same.

ELECTRODE PROBLEM 
The electrodes we are currently using are copper-based and super ghetto (soldered by yours truly). Switching to silver-chloride electrodes may prove to be prosperous — as almost all biological electrode systems use Ag/AgCl electrodes (oops... my bad). Ideally, I would have micro-electrodes capable of measuring intracellular ionization. 

PLAN B

Wheatstone Bridge

We have started to develop the alternative circuit that would measure micro-voltages with a different approach. The new method detects a micro-voltage across a varying resistance of the organism within a Wheatstone bridge. The data will be collected and output through Arduino code. Max/MSP (the software being used for the soundscape) has the capacity to read, format, and interpret the serial data. In this way, it will be a mixture of 'audification' and 'sonification'. Charles Dodge is well known for working in this style (see attached video). 

Today we will finalize the schematic and decide on the required electronics. There may be some difficulty augmenting the existing circuit with the Wheatstone bridge, but Marc is a bona fide champion in this regard. ONWARDS & UPWARDS!

Charles Dodge — Earth's Magnetic Field (1970)

Lots of Love,
Thom

(more info on sonification)

Plant Sounds

PROJECT 
__________________________________________

Plant Sounds

The plant kingdom is, at first glance, one of silence, where these stationary beings seem static and uneventful. Internally, however, plants are rampant with activity. Their molecular factories turning water, light, CO², minerals, and so on, into the air we breathe, the nourishment we eat, the medicines we need, and the energy we burn and thrive off of. Our dependency upon these microscopic factories is clear. But rarely do we contemplate a plant's capability to sense and react, and even less so do we consider them capable of generating electrical signals.

Plant Sounds is a navigation and investigation of the interior dialogue of a plant. By translating the electrical micro-voltage fluctuations generated by flora, the signals can be used in the production of a soundscape. This soundscape is the direct outcome of the plant’s functioning, unique to it’s circumstance and external stimulus, as interpreted by a custom-made electronic instrument. 

The viewer should be able to directly interact with the plant through physical touch and vicariously affect the produced soundscape. These fluctuations are processed and sonified through a computer-based program to create complex and unusual sonorities. In effect, the viewer is confronted with the awareness of a plant by the conjured auditory responses. The plant would no longer seem docile and silent to our presence, allowing us a glimpse into it’s inner-workings.  

Plant Sensor Prototype Mk. I

The largest undertaking of this project is interfacing with the plant. Marc-Alexandre Chan, a masters student of electrical engineering at Concordia, has been pivotal in developing a prototype device capable of measuring and capturing these miniscule signals. Without him and the resources of the IEEE on campus, the project would be nearly impossible to realize. 

It's been quite a few weeks of working together to reach the current stage of the prototype. Along the way I've been noticing that engineers like Marc are artists in their own right. Designing the prototype requires a creativity and logic that is truly commendable, and turns concepts and ideas into something tangible.

Marc running tests like a boss

The device, as it stands, is a highly sensitive, extremely low-noise amplifier. The initial theory is to connect to the plant using two copper electrodes with a conductive gel; one electrode connected to a leaf, the other connected to the soil and roots. This signal is then amplified and the resulting information is sent to an audio card to be converted from analog signal to digital. Once converted, I can begin messing with the signal to create some kind of sweet, sweet soundscape.

Because the electric signal of a plant is almost non-existent, potential noise interference is the largest contender to deal with. With our current tests, the performance of Prototype Mk. I has been more than adequate for the intended audio result. However, the plant itself has yet to be tested with the current prototype. Once the plant is all hooked up, it will be a real treat to see what kind of frequencies/sounds it generates! Might lead to a strange world of plant-preferred musical scales or compositional styles or some static, unchanging sonic realm... well... who knows?

The week to come will be busy with tests and trouble-shooting. Schematics will be made available once there is a certainty that the prototype is capable of capturing the plant signal. Check out the video to gain a little insight into the bizarre and not-so-different-than-us 

world of plants.

Lots of Love,
Thomas



— for more of my work, check these —

soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/thomchristie

instagram:  @the_nerve https://instagram.com/the_nerve/

Practice Session Recording and Description of the Instrument

It's been splendid, but my residency at the FARR is officially over. Thanks to Danielle Sanderson, Serry Malik, Sophia Borowska, Emma Sise, Emma Ligntstone, and Emilie West for interacting with the display, and I'm sorry if I misspelled any of your names. The poetry that has been inspired by these people, and anyone else who interacted with the display but didn't sign the guest book will be a vital part of the performances for this project as it moves forward.

While my residency is over, my project continues. I'll be performing at the last Studio 7 this year, and I invite everyone to come and enjoy the show; there are always a ton of great performances by music, theatre, and dance students, and other emerging artists, and I will be playing the instrument I'm developing for this project. For those of you who can't make it, I will be uploading a recording of my performance shortly afterward.

Until then I will be continuing to actively develop the instrument, practicing with it, and playing with the poetry which I've written over the course of this month. Here is a demonstration of the instrument in its current form:





In this iteration of the instrument, which I consider to be very early still, I've used free VST sound effects in Ableton Live to process my voice in four stages: I record chopped up bits of my speaking which are played through a pitch shifter, a frequency shifter with delay, and a granular delay. The algorithm is very simple, and all controls are performed manually with a Launchpad and an iPad. I'm currently working to bring this basic functionality into Max MSP, at which point I will be able to program control structures based on analysis of the spoken voice, as well as controlling sound parameters manually.

At the beginning of this project, I thought that the focus would be on the performance, but I've realized this month that the design of the performance instrument is actually where the bulk of the work lies. Thanks so much to the Fine Arts Reading Room for this great opportunity to learn, and I look forward to posting once more this April with another sound recording.

Flying Fraility and Other Poems

Several brave individuals have interacted with my display and made poetry from my poetry. Here are the poems from the second week of my residency:

Here is my own new poem, inspired by some of the poetry made by FARR users, and made only from my original writing:

I invited people to abuse my gravity
weight and meaning smudges my ears
This one voice like
many voices
is mine
but the I tends to blur
semantic structures segregate
reading sentences and nonsense
this one voice deafens me
significance dissipate silently
many voices smudges me telepathically
fighting me
sound waves dripping frequencies
I dissipate silently

It's been fascinating to see the poetry others have written using only my words, and seeing the words from that new perspective. Here is a completely new poem inspired by the original, and its derivatives:

I invited people to abuse my gravity
My one voice's meaning
merely magnetic words clinging to a feeling
so many voices coming stealing
my words
reeling
where is I in this sliding shifting mess of readings?
my voice turned to so many voices' dealings
my magnetic words' inverted polarity
the I is dissipating in semantic disparity
like any word dropping unavoidably
its meaning falls automatically
not to earth's but to orbiting gravities
every body with a spiralling trail
its own comets tale
every word a flying frailty
falling into atmospheres of aliens
unknown memories and experiences
every word abused by foreign gravity
meaning something I never meant

Here is a picture of the display after I randomly shuffled everything around on Saturday:

Thanks for reading!

Chop, Slice, Process, and Abuse

The project (as conceived):

"The music in speech

slam poem / electroacoustic piece

live performable"

 — from my notebook

The project (as now proposed):

A live musical performance for one voice processed by a computer, where the composition explores a collaborative relationship between words, and music generated from them. Most electroacoustic compositions treat the voice as a source of sound, obliterating linguistic significance from it through heavy processing. In this project, language and electroacoustic music are treated more equally.

The display:

I set up the display on Monday February the 9th, with a description of the project and a piece of poetry which may or may not be part of the final piece. Along with these works of writing is a pair of scissors and an invitation for passers by to chop, slice, process, and abuse my words, rearranging them to make new ideas emerge. One of the simplest ways to process a sound is to record it, and then play its parts back in a different order; using nothing other than this kind of cut and paste it's possible to make very interesting compositions, which is exactly what the first assignment for all EAST students is. The display offers FARR users an opportunity to join in the fun, albeit with paper instead of sound recording.

The display after I set it up

The display after a week

Here are some of the poems FARR users have written using my words:

You can read more about my project in the reading room. All are welcome to interact with the display! Please come and play, even if all you do is shuffle things around randomly.

Next week I will post some of my poetry in response to the display.