orbiter - interactive sound environment
marcus • September 11th, 2007
The orbiter is an interactive sound environment by Vera-Maria Glahn and Marcus Wendt.
It invites you to reach for the stars and play their music!
Documentation
These videos can hardly represent the surround sound quality of the installation, but to get an impression please use headphones and/or a good audio setup!
Download Documentation
Screencaptures / Play
» Polar Scene A / Polar Scene B
» Solar Scene A / Solar Scene B
» Sawtooth Scene A / Sawtooth Scene B
Photo Sets
» Kunsthochschule Kassel, Setup
» Kunsthochschule Kassel, annual exhibition 2007
» Microarchitecture Lounge exhibition at Tendence07, Frankfurt/Main
Description
The Orbiter takes possession of all senses. It is a place for visitors to lay down and relax, watching the firmament above them. With a small gesture, just pointing upwards, the visitor can insert new stars into orbit with unique visual and musical characteristics. The player is enveloped by the instrument; the music filling the ears, the body and space.
The dream of reaching for the stars is as old as mankind itself. The mathematics of planetary orbits, the perfection of natural geometrical forms fascinates scientists and artists alike. Even music principles as tonality or phase displacement are based upon computational ideas and find correspondency in the Orbiters structure.
The music is played on concentric circles, with higher tones on the outside, bass notes nearer the centre. The bigger you let a star grow before you pull back your hand to insert it into orbit, the louder it plays. Like the stars orbit on the large ceiling screen above the player, the surround sound orbits in the room on 4 high-tone-channels, supported by a bass box and a solid bourne sound speaker underneath the player`s couch, making low basses physically sensable.
Each version of the Orbiter features various scenes with different graphics, sounds and behaviour. Some create an illusionary nightsky firmament, playing more melodic or ambient sounds. Others experiment with the possibilities of graphical abstraction and rough synths, allowing you to even play drum’n bass-like sounds.
The installation is based on custom-built software using latest gaming and computer vision technology, performing real-time analysis of a camera image of the player as well as generating 6-channel-audio and video signals. The video analysis is written in C++, instructing SuperCollider for the audio generation, Processing for the graphics.
