Introduction

The inspiration journey came from regular field recording the multispecies in lake such as Brokewell park, Burgess park and Hampstead Heath in London. Hence its generated as computational art with the audio-visual communication in waves of resonating light. It is to highlight how audience could see & hear their lives and recreate balanced rhythm together.

As a relationship on medium of light and multi-layer, it let wave of light to penetrate through multi-layer and create spatial & rhythmic experience to viewer. Shadow follows light, which means not only viewer becoming seeing the light but also they can create shadow and see them through their eyes or seen through other audience. Regarding with this, in my installation, audience could join with “Shadow Play” as well. There’s backside space where audience can join to create shadow and play with it. They can’t see the shadow through their eyes, but it can be seen through other viewer or reflected in the wall, which is used as 4th layer of screen. Hence, there is interplaying momentum when viewer becomes to join as spectacle and another viewer look around them.

A website regarding concept and storytelling exploring some other aspects, fieldtrip and sounds introduction about spatialization were previous research step as well. It can be looked around here:

https://www.joyfulmediaartistagnes.com/work/wave-scape

Concept

I’ve thought of telling stories of multi-species living in a lake and communicating through waves, which could be both seen and unseen material. To highlight and better communicate with the audience on how they could really see/hear/feel in an immersive way to think beyond “protecting multispecies lives in the lake, which is becoming smaller recently refer to London city council, Brokewell Park and burgess park.

The aim of the storytelling was to co-create the rhythm among us as humans, multispecies especially in the lake through my experience, and nature. Since we are living in the world with a rapidly changing environment and pollutants. It was important to explore and think beyond ‘How could we as audience and artist help find balance among humans, nature, and animals’.

Hence through the interactive installation ‘Interplay through wave’, I’ve generated the space and sensory experience for us to feel the story through the form as a wave, the medium through the light in spatially fabricated multi-layered fabric screens in dark space.

According to BBC ‘What is ray of light made of ?' it proposed that when the light passes through the thin slits, it behaves in the same way that water waves do when they pass through a narrow opening. They diffract and spread out in the form of hemispherical ripples.

My aim and progress during fabricating the piece was always together with thinking on ‘How light could intermingle together with wave?’ and ‘How could sound and visual with wave involve more through audience?’. Through diverse exploration of computer vision-based input such as Kinect, I’ve figured out how to combine the human movement with footage with audiovisual art. The core metaphor was distance and movements between humans and nature/multispecies. Since we’ve experienced distancing society, which we’ve gone through so far, it is telling our well-balanced rhythm and distance between humans and nature such as the lake as well. If we go too close, the lake is being polluted by our activities which make multispecies being harmed. I’ve pulled out that story through my installation to explore and let the audience imagine the co-rhythm.

Bodily Interaction / Movement of footage

It embodies a computer vision-based interaction both visible and hearable experience. It uses sensing technology as Kinect to detect audience movements. The projected wave reacts to the audience’s movements and position in space and generates audio-visual waves through their bodily interaction. Particularly, sound resonates with their footage movement. Since the Kinect is located on the floor, it detects footage of the audience. When they move around and come closer to a certain distance, the sound resonates and circulates through space with 2 speakers using ‘reverb’ and ‘spat’ for sound spatialization in Max/MSP.

There are 2 versions of audiovisual in Max/MSP.

• Co-creating wave with audience

• Co-creating realistic wave collage

In ‘Co-creating wave with audience’ version, when the audience position detected by Kinect is bigger than the number stated below(depending upon the size of the room. I stated it as 200), it resonates with reverbing & spatial sound and visuals. This max/MSP patch is created for an audio-visual installation. It aims to co-create the rhythm of waves by human and multispecies living in the lake. Particularly, the light of wave penetrates through the multi-layered fabric as both spatial and sensory medium. The audience joins to regenerate and interact on the audio-visual waves with their movements through an immersive experience.

In ‘Co-creating realistic wave collage’ version, collage visual with realistic wave formed by human, multispecies, and nature represent how they intermingle together with rhythm. This max/MSP patch is created for an audio-visual installation. It aims to co-create the rhythm of the wave by human, multispecies living in lake, and nature in intermingled collage.

Future Development

There is more space and room to develop for my installation in screen size, number of screens and the number of speakers for a more immersive experience with the audience in a dark room. That was my very first original plan for this project as well. I am satisfied with the current installation, and also wish to explore more with natural light as medium and natural architecture as a space to embed into media art. In order to do that, I would explore the relationship and interaction among light (natural sunlight, LED, and projector), space (created by screens, existing as original architecture) and audience. It aims to create unique and spatial ways to deliver stories to the audience and give them the possibility of energy in their perception to produce the story to the world as well. In addition, there is a broader viewpoint to research and deep dive further regarding physics and worldview, which could embody multiple audiences.

Self-Evaluation

I have been very satisfied with the project with all the plans and processes that I had all together with embracing current circumstances. The happiest journey was communicating with the audience through my audiovisual installation in both physical exhibitions and online broadcasting. My main interest explored through light as medium and form as the wave through the project. The aim of delivering the story with 'generating co-rhythm' among humans, multispecies, and nature' through immersive media and space was well done during the exhibition. I learned a lot and was more than happy during the whole process, work in progress, preparing for installation, rehearsal, and degree festival.

Special Thanks

Graditude to Prof. Kwanmin Lee for supporting me to step toward my dream.

Thanks to Rob Hall for kind helping hands.

Thanks to Jonny and Rupert Earl for the great video recording.

Graditude to my family for giving me lovely cheers.