Bill Hsu
ABSTRACT
Flow Forms is a structured audio-visual improvisation for 2-3 musicians, utilizing live acoustic and electronic sound and interactive animations. Video is projected on stage, above/behind the musicians. The visual component of Flow Forms is an enhanced diffusion-reaction process that interacts with real-time audio. Complex abstract patterns develop out of the diffusion-reaction process; the system is also able to coalesce into well-defined symbols and forms such as crescents and stars, all while moving in a fluid-seeming manner consistent with the underlying diffusion-reaction process. Patterns are hinted at, but may dissolve into abstraction before the viewer's cognitive processes can grasp the underlying structure.
The audio from the performance is analyzed; high-level tempo, spectral and other features are extracted, and sent via Open Sound Control to the animation environment. The musicians clearly affect the overall coherence and behavioral trends of the liquid forms. They are improvising with each other, and with the generative visuals.
This piece is a recent installment in my Linguistic Margins/Visual Atolls series of audiovisual improvisations.
- Hsu, W. Some Thoughts on Visualizing Improvisations/Improvising Visualizations. In Inspirational Session on "Visualisation of Music", 6th Sound and Music Computing Conference, 2009.Google Scholar
- Hsu, W. On Movement, Structure and Abstraction in Generative Audiovisual Improvisation. Proc. International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, 2011, 417--420.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Flow forms
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