Indigo
ITP Alums Michael Simpson and Yeseul Song's project Indigo was profiled in Comm Arts.
From Comm Arts:
Michael Simpson/Yeseul Song, designers/developers
Mimi Yin, instructor
New York University, Interactive Telecommunications Program, school
“My favorite part about this project was the usage of light to create an ambient mood.” —juror Isabel Kantor
“The real-time visual graphics seemed to create a pretty compelling and surprising canvas. I appreciated the variety and interest created with
a limited color palette and grid.” —juror Josh Goldblum
Overview: Indigo is an audio-visual performance designed for a 120-foot-wide screen. The screen acted as a backdrop as live electronic music was created onstage. The music was transformed into data on the fly, and signal processing techniques were used to isolate recognizable elements of the sound and map them to visual elements on the screen.
• Indigo was shown at the Interactive Telecommunications Program’s Big Screens Show in 2017, hosted at the IAC Building in Manhattan.
• The project needed to fill almost 9.5 million pixels over a 120-foot-wide screen.
• The project was created using C++, openFrameworks, Open Sound Control and SoundFlower.
Comments by Yeseul Song:
Describe the purpose of the project and its target audience. “The project was designed to be shown at an event hosted at the IAC Building in New York. The IAC Building was designed by Frank Gehry and comes equipped with a magnificent screen that is 120 feet long and faces the west-side highway. Indigo was designed to be displayed on that screen and performed in the hallway for the event, which was attended by several hundred.”
Describe any special interactive features. “The audio-visual system we created reacts to any kind of sound. The system analyzes the sound and generates graphics accordingly. The system interacted with the music we were creating during the performance. The performers interacted with the piece, not the audience.”
What was the response? “The audience found the experience to be immersive and meditative. People appreciated the contrast between simple and complex. We believe that we made good use of the big screen and the architecture of the IAC Building. Instead of trying to say too many things, we focused on creating a ‘space’ with consistency in the color theme, music and dynamics of the graphics—we believe it worked.”
See more here.