4th June - 10th June
Partner Company: Bittersuite
Brief: Re-design the acoustic properties of a physical space
Group: Ula Rodakowska, Sebastian Ervi, Kate Chernysheva
Partner Company: Bittersuite
Brief: Re-design the acoustic properties of a physical space
Group: Ula Rodakowska, Sebastian Ervi, Kate Chernysheva
Reflection
Last week, we managed to nail a lot of things in our experience which we were very happy about. However, there were some things that we needed to reconsider and change. Therefore, upon discussion and careful consideration, we started the week by making a to-do list. We knew we still had a lot to get done and a lot of decision to make. We were very excited, yet scared.
Our to-do list for the week. Developed collaboratively.
PREPARATIONS
Following last week's feedback from our peers about having their eyes covered, I suggested that this could be solved by placing our experience in complete darkness. Hence, we went on a hunt to find a perfect darkroom in the building where we could carry out our presentation and do the experience in. Luckily, we found our perfect room quite quickly. It was perfect in every way, the light-blocking curtains, the size and it even had a separate room where we could hide and control the experience from to make it mysterious Wizard of Oz style.
Some pictures we took of the perfect space we found. Taken by Sebastian and Kate respectively.
Next on our priority list was to solve the issue of smooth transitions between the sounds. To do that, we decided to consult with Sound Arts once again as they have been a great help to us before. Thankfully, there seemed to be a solution which was Ableton Live 11. We tried to program it the way we needed it to be using different add-ons, but unfortunately, it didn't seem to work. Hence, we decided to resort to our initial solution which was unity since Sebastian knew how to do it.
Downloading Ableton which we hoped would help us with creating the perfect sound gradient for our grid. First photo by Kate, other photos by Sebastian.
Meanwhile, we wanted to find out how the heartbeat would play at the same time with sound as we needed to be able to control the volume of two different applications on the same computer. We didn't manage to figure it out that same day and decided to incorporate the heartbeat into Unity. However, later this week Sebastian, as more experienced in terms of music production among us, came back to Sound Arts to discuss this once again which was a success and was able to borrow two keyboards that allowed us to control volumes for each application opened on the computer.
Figuring out sounds and MIDI controllers. Photos by Ula.
Then came Unity. Sebastian managed to develop our prototype from ProtoPie and bring it into Unity which significantly improved the quality of transitions which became practically unnoticeable. This was developed with Ula's help as she was mixing the sounds together for each square on the grid. Meanwhile, I had an idea on how we might present our experience. I suggested that we make it fully sonic and record ourselves beforehand and play it on the speaker in the main room while we sit in the small control room. Everyone seemed to like the idea so I began writing the script.
Final sound map developed in Unity by Sebastian. Screenshot by Sebastian.
Next stop: how are we going to figure out where people are if it's all in the dark and we will be in a different room? Easy - let's borrow an infrared camera and place it on the ceiling! Hence, we went to one of our favourite places on campus (CTL) and borrowed one to figure out how it works and experiment. At this moment I was very excited as I saw the pieces of our puzzle coming together: the room, the camera, the prototype, etc.
Experimenting with our infrared camera. Screenshot by Sebastian, photos by Kate.
Finally, the script was written and we needed to record ourselves. Firstly, I started recording myself in the storage room to see whether it would work. However, being the quietest room I found, it was still too much background noise on the recording. We have also considered putting the script into the AI reading machine so the voices people hear are neutral, but in the end, I really wanted it to be us people hear, so it is more personalised and people feel like we are there with them in the room which Sebastian and Ula agreed to in the end. It was very unusual to use a proper recording booth and we enjoyed it very much! One more piece of the puzzle was in the bag!
The recording studio where we recorded our presentation speech and instructions that will be playing inside the headphones. Photo by Sebastian.
Finally, we started setting up the room when the time of our booking came. The blackbox had a lot of things and was very messy so we got to work and divided the tasks. We worked very efficiently that day as we were very excited to see our idea come to life!
Cleaning the space and Sebastian filming our "backstage" process. Photos by Ula.
Holding the ladder while Sebastian attaches the camera to the ceiling. Photos by Kate and Ula respectively.
Checking the camera's range so it covers the space we need. Photos by Kate and Sebastian respectively.
The space is almost ready. We mapped out the corners of the grid using chairs as we still needed to charge our tape with light so we wanted it to stick it onto the floor as close to the presentation time as possible. Photos by Ula.
Charging the tape before the presentation which we used to map the grid in the dark. Never thought that tape could be charged! Photo by Kate.
Presentation day & Feedback
Ula and I controlling the experience from the little booth inside the black box. Photos by Sebastian.
Although there were a lot of last minute difficulties, everything worked! I believe that our experience was great and I am very proud of what we have achieved. We went through a very long and chaotic process and something beautiful came out in the end. Our peers as well as John and Steph were very impressed with our experience and so many people were interested in experiencing it even after we finished. We managed to get a lot of things right such as the sounds, the grid design, the glasses etc. However, if we were to do this again I would definitely want to fit in more testing of our experience with other people as we didn't have much time left to do it which resulted in a lot of uncertainties and stress. Steph also mentioned that the next thing we could look at would be the details of how people are guided through the experience, what are the instructions in their headphones, how are they brought to their starting point in the grid, etc.
Final Outcome
A video of our experience created by Sebastian.