"Infinito" is an art piece where spatial dimensions are made explicit through the spectator's interaction.
The genesis of this work is related to one of the most basic questions of the conscious human being: Where are we and which is our role in the universe? From this point emerges the main challenge of this work: Is it possible to represent the infinite?
“Infinito” is a work that sets out the challenge of simplifying and shaping the universe’s complexity, summarizing millions of light years in 8 meters, representing infinite spaces within finite spaces, and taking the recursiveness to the linearity.
Each experience is personal, unique, and has no time limits. Each user controls in real time the display and sonification of their experience. In order to arrive to an answer for our questionings, and to understand our behavioral patterns in known and unknown scenarios, we register the movements of each user, which reflect their decisions, and the time they take to complete each one of the scenarios in a trip through the infinite.
Concept, Composition, 3D | Juan Pablo Colasso
Software | Christian Clark y Agustín Colasso
Software, Sound design | Marco Colasso
Concept Support | Virginia Arigón
Journey
System
The system was created using Openframeworks to process the input of three PS3Eye cameras. All image acquisition was made using infrared lighting and proper filtering. Then we also used Unity3D to process the user tracking data and to control camera movements. Unity 3D was also used to render the final projection, and to send scene object's information to an audio-synthesizing application developed in Max.
3D Environment
The 3D environment was modeled and textured using 3D Studio Max, All textures and particles were generated based on photos of naturally generated fractal kind forms as corals, pollen, plants and animals,
Soundscape
“Infinito” soundtrack is generated in real time with a software capable to react to the animations of the screen, the movements of the spectator and the acoustic characteristics of the room where is exposed.
With the idea of composing reactive music for micro and macro worlds, covering the entire spectrum of mass and energy known, we decided to use a wide palette of sounds that goes from the simple to the complex, selecting a set of low and high frequencies oscillators that primarily use sine waves and pink noise as playback source. The range of frequencies used in the composition is chosen from the acoustic analysis of the room.
Figure 1: Table with the room measurement values and selection of notes and frequencies suitable for the composition.
Another special feature of this work is that most of the sound synthesis does not occur in the digital field but in the acoustic field. The movement of sounds in space and the interaction of the waves with the room are fundamental aspects of the composition.
Figure 2 and 3: Flower Array. Frequency response and polar pattern modeled for 76.5 Hz.
Figure 4: Graphical User Interface of the Max Patch.
Based on the End Fire technique, we developed a unique array of speakers for sound diffusion called Flower Array, programming in MAX a dynamic sound spatializer that basically works by switching phase and delay of the four channels, in this way we are able to control the directivity of low frequencies sounds in a range of 360 ° around the speaker arrangement.
Periodic movements at variable speeds (LFO) in this controller, allow us to play with sound waves generating effects rarely noticeable with conventional diffusion systems.
Data
All tracked data reveals very interesting common preferences among all users.
This pointcloud graph represents the total amount of positions where the 2559 spectators were at 500 milliseconds intervals.
This graph represents all pathways for the 2559 registered users.