Turn Off Your Mind, Relax and Float Downstream: Simultaneous Opposites #50

SO#50 hasa relatively simple sources yet has some of the most complex imagery of all of the Simultaneous Opposites series. There is a serenity that can be found in the beautiful and relentless rush of sound and visual in this piece.

Since the mid 1980s I've been designing, developing, and using real-time digital cinema systems that allow me to navigate digital and analog materials I've collected. My collection techniques are those of a cinematic diary process. I then load them in my system, and record the process of examining them. Succinctly: I create and employ software engines to examine mediated artifacts forged at my zone of proximal development.

The Simultaneous Opposites Engine is the fourth such system I've programmed. I load two 720X1280 video clips into the system, which begins marching through both clips, jumping a couple seconds ahead and then behind, between each single-frame's display. The video's single-frame audio is also played back, in synch. The arc of each jump creates a temporal depth of field.

As the engine moves through the clips, I am able to deviate, manipulate and modulate both audio and video using three interfaces: a MIDI guitar, a MIDI foot pedal board, and the standard computer keyboard and mouse. Most of the interface programming I've done is to allow me to examine the visual and audial experience as it appears, repeating moments of interest, varying them to bring out their unique attributes, and jumping out of them once the interesting moments have been teased out. At the moment I have approximately fifty short (from a couple minutes to maybe15 minutes) such traversals, all recorded in real tim. Starting with the first traversal, the clips reflect the status of the engine at the time. The Simultaneous Opposites Engine is a work continually in progress, and as I extend and revise its functionality, the experience of its output changes.

Additional examples of Simultaneous Opposites traversals may be found at www.robertedgar.com.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• max
• msp
• jitter
• program
• single
• frame
• washington
• clouds
• sky
• video game