By Dennis de Bel
www.danos.nl
T2.01 Thoughts
When I first got in touch with the internet, there was, in my eyes one fatal flaw..the loading times. When I went to a page, loading it took minutes, causing me to lose interest, i never could imagine it could become a handy tool for whatever. In the past years connection speeds have greatly improved (100's of Kb/sec instead of 100's Bytes/sec). But the content of webpages became heavier alongside (if something is possible, it's done, although the techniques potential is never fully exploited, people tend to push the possibilities). So even now, it takes ages to download a movie (we have to get a HD version for our HD-television, duh). Streaming media promised to solve the problem of loading times, but still, the quality isn't all that. Overall, Media on the internet isn't LIVE. Older media as television and radio are live, and still alive (sidenote:data degrading, bitrot: fast development of soft- and hardware cause stuff to get obsolete and abandoned quickly> I can still listen to the radio with my 50 year old tuberadio (yeh the same they put behind glass in the beeld&geluid
museum/experience).
Internet versus Radio
I've been thinking about online streaming versus radio. A few notes and ideas.
Internet offers alot of information, maybe to much, you really have to focus on what you want (if you want to find something). You can easily get the 'door-de-bomen-het-bos-niet-meer-zien'-feeling.
Radio is just split into a few channels on which you can tune in. No information overload Oh Miles Davis is on..excuse me for a minute..
Anyway, In these ever faster, better ..ahem..times I want to exaggerate the non-live-ness of the internet. I want to use radio as the medium to achieve this.
Back in the day of no-internet, special radio shows were used to distribute/broadcast software for you PC [couldnt find a link..]. One could tape these broadcasts and put the tape in your (amiga for example) tape reader and run the software. My idea is to broadcast the internet through FM radio signals. Using a system of translation (html > txt2speech > speech2text > html, or just binary bleeps) users could 'listen' to the radio using a translator and for example their pc (maybe a printer? etc). This broadcast will only make a selection of webpages to broadcast acording to the 'stations' standards and regulations. By creating different channels, people could tune in to their favorite flavor and enjoy effortless, filtered information.
To Be Continued.
quicknotes:
-software through radio, to be recorded on tape (80's?)
-check: on demand televison etc.
Links
'software' analogue radio (?)> http://www.comsec.com/software-radio.html∞
games for the blind > http://www.audiogames.net/page.php?pagefile=_Click_here_to_view_the_articles_of_2004∞_
Hints&Tips
Alexandre+Stephanie: we-make-money-not-art.com and
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.isaacmao.com/venture/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=3&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dwe-make-art-not-money%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den∞ (hmm couldnt find the exact page, this is the closest i could get)
Marc: http://www.sonic-wargame.net/∞, ask me questions if you want more info on this project, i did a performance with it.
Sauli: Geert Mul, image comparision: http://www.geertmul.nl/Geert_Mul/MatchMaker.html∞ and http://www.geertmul.nl/Geert_Mul/MATCH-OF-THE-DAY.html∞
T2.02 Second thoughts
Notes after the first group critique.
Idea: Convert internet into radio waves and make a receiver/interpreter.
Internet > Radio
Radio > Internet
Tape > Radio
Radio > Tape
Inspiration: Tape > Radio Transmitter > Radio Receiver > Tape > Computer
Technical: HTML Speech-to-Text?
Think about:
-Using errors of Speech-to-Text to create interesting effects
-Delay vs. loading times
Content of my broadcasts:
-extreme narrow casting
-extreme locative media
Interview: I want to interview an oldschool radio pirate, refusing to go 'online', but keeps broadcasting the old fashioned way ;)
In general I'd like to play with the technical limitations, flaws and properties to come up with ideas on the content.
Oh and by the way, all electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light (in a vacuum, in the atmosphere, just a little bit slower).
(http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/amsat-bb/200112/msg00451.html∞, interesting)
(http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/waves_particles/lightspeed-1.html∞, funny page).
Hmm the funny page is inspirational to, according to the formulas, radio waves are pretty huge (several meters), what would it look like if you could see them? I'd love to make a radio visualizer with a light rope and a radio on which you can tune in on your favorite station to see wavelength of the rope change.
Pff here it comes...it just caught my mind that in the first semester I was also working on a wifi hotspot where people had to share information to be able to browse the web. I'ts well on its way, fits HOST, and could be a nice project to refine and hopefully finally finish in this thematic project? Check a demo out on http://web11.danos.nl∞ (login with any name, and when you login you can click on your username on the top left to go to your personal profile page).
Anyway, i'm not completely sure what to actually do now..
To be contiunued..
Quick notes on Interview
These days you can't choose how you want to
express yourself anymore.
The clips will be shown in the intervals of
existing TV programs, as a supplement or a perturbation, hopefully both
at the same time.
> (interventions , in public space or not, to get your message trough, even if theres no messsage, just for the atention, first the guy says arts need
a frame around it to get the message over, and later he doesnt care if one or a whole stadium sees his shit.)
> It's funny to see how he wants art clips to be scheduled as commercials, later on the interview he states he doesnt care about the amount of viewers. This is excactely the opposite of what the commercial companies think.
Syncopation in music is exactly the same. Again and again we are faced with
this dual task: we first have to create the space, deal with the timeframe
and produce it and then we have to politically adapt to such programming
niches by doing the opposite of programming. Not realistic, naturalistic.
>ok...naturalistism = dualism
>content is dependend on the schedule of the masses
The digital channels reveal an immense contradiction within the economic
powers that are now forming an alliance to set up a 'closed shop market.'
If corporations like Bertelsmann and the Kirch group form a monopoly
together with Deutsche Telecom, then that's a reality. Yet they do it in
an entirely virtual area, on the pay TV channels where there is no interest
from any audience yet. Once that changes-and they will make it change,
because such powers are capable of building freeways where no car
drives-they will be able to destroy the public TV stations too. And because
they will be unable to fill all this space aesthetically, they will
exploit it, ruin it and create a desert. They have always done things
like this on a virtual object, on something useless. The last time, ten
years ago, all the political media alliances happened in the symbolic
form of the debate about the German Television satellite. It has never
broadcast anything since and circles earth as a ruin.
>theme channel have a dull rotating programm (also see democratic coverage)
If these different, artist-run television stations collaborate, they create
a public. I can tell you from experience that the audience immediately
picks up on any authentic tonality. The homogeneity of program television
is intrinsically hostile to art. If all that's authentic and true, if all
material is robbed of its autonomy, there can be no art. Therefore the
synthetic principle of television and radio as we know it has to be
disrupted with the consent of the audience.
If some of the images are not in color, the imagination is stimulated much
more. Between either black and white or full color, it is also possible to
use color selectively.
>so, for art to have a public, it needs to be disruptive or deconstructive to
excisting media? I rather see a documentary on art(like art safari) on a late time or
at sunday or something then actual art, in the form of small disruptive clips in between programs, in that way
art will look more like (senseless?) commercials (like virals). Art is site specific, and maybe it does do its job in the form of small clips.
Links
Hobbyscoop:
http://www.hobbyscoop.nl/∞
http://www.xs4all.nl/~lennartb/basicode.html∞
T2.03 Mind the gap
After the first induvidual tutorial I realize that I must quit changing plans every time there's a critique. That way nothing good will evercome out. So I for now, I will stick to the original plan ;)
To lift my project to the nex level, I must really keep the starting point of my idea in mind:
-the '(non)live-ness' of internet
I'm interested in developments on the web concerning sharing, copyright, privacy, intimacy, data exhibitionism.
Offline, i'm interested in sound, data-encription/conversion and their errors, lo-fi and retro custom hardware.
I want to combine the 'hightech' web (developments) with my offline interest above. That's where my fascination for the BASIC-programs radio broadcasts is coming from:
Tape > Radio > Tape > Computer
The use of different types of media to create a flow in which one media can be transfered in- and onto one another.
About my internet to radio to 'internet' conversion: I want to over-exaggerate the delay and 'live-ness', so conversion from internet to fm radio isnt maybe so interesting. Just a conversion from HTML to Speech to 'HTML' again could be interesting enough. The question is, how live would my translation and broadcast be? If I want to put the emphasis on the non-liveness of the internet it wouldnt have to be so live... Anyway I could use for instance my browser cache of the day, and broadcast it in, what Timo mentioned, a 'Stumble Upon' way.
"StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more. Discover your web with StumbleUpon > I discover web sites based on MY interests, learns what I like and brings ME more. Discover your web with ME!)
Would this also be the ultimate form of narrowcasting? Broadcasting/publishing your browser cache?
To make it even faster errr slower..One could route your browser cache to use your floppy-drive, I always fancied making a 'floppydiskman', or a floppy disk player, so people could take a part of your cache home and listen of watch to it as if it were a cd...Sorry if your lost now.
Lets step back a bit a take a look at technical solutions:
First step:
-Read about 'interne't for the blind-tools'
-Use wget | festival to read websites
-Find a Speech to text tool
-Put the speech to text output into a ever refreshing page (header refresh 3000?) line by line so you can see the page dripping in/ growing.
Maybe I could use audio effects over the txt to speech output to play around with errors made by the speech to txt interpreter?
I really like to make the internet more physical, Im thinking of encorporating this idea in the HOST project. Thats where the floppydisk-browser-cache kicks in > On one end of the room where i'm presenting my project there would be a terminal to record the broadcasts, and on the other end there would be a 'player' to view the broadcast. The translation would generate some degration in quality of the original broadcast and space in between the two terminal would symobolize that process.
More later!
Links
http://www.stumbleupon.com/∞
Festival cmdline txt2speech
Kirsten Lucas
Thursday, January 31, 2008.
Michael showed a nice film in his techday, "Tout les memoires des mondes" and gave a nice view on pure physical data handling. It's nice to look at physical ways of data archiving and retrieving and take usefull or totally un-useful features and put the to use on digital data (archives). Like placing a note on the place of the object you took, so you know what was there before and where it is now.
Some Research Links:
Festival (commandline text2speech) > http://festvox.org/∞
Speech recognition > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognition∞
Speech recognition OSX > http://lifehacker.com/software/speech-recognition/hack-attack-make-your-macs-speech-recognition-work-for-you-215764.php∞
'The Internet HTML Synthesizer' > http://wfmu.org/~jhhl/sinth_mods.html∞
There's a cloud in my head
Since I want to work with errors, mis-interpretations, HTML, one (or actually two) person(s) just came to mind. Jodi. I visited their website (www.jodi.org) once again, and felt comfortable straight away (ahem)!
Some time ago they did a performance at worm where they ,as I told in the tutorial, made use of the 'Universal Access' voiceover option in OSX. They began making a mess by opening loads of windows copying this, paste there etc to create an (piece of) audio (crap) piece. Actually, I have it on CD I believe, will look into it.
In OSX you can also create speech commands for programs. From macrumors.com(1): "On OS/2, the system works OK without training. Basic training (a 10-15 minute procedure where you read a sequence of keywords into the mic) greatly improves accuracy. Full training (about an hour) makes it very accurate."
For my interview I'd like to let jodi say the special training keywords, so I can calibrate my system to use the complete interview to, for instance create a webpage which I can 'broadcast'.
Or maybe they could help my writing my essay ;).
The interview could become my broadcast.
Other broadcast idea's:
- Use stumble upon to generate a 'on-demand' playlist to listen to over the radio.
- Fm radio to HTML (hmm other way around...)
- Tape internet (archive)
- Browser-cache narrowcasting
For my project I'll focus on the media conversion/flow of things and error resulting of that (one medium going over into another, digital to analogue, will cause some disintegration).
I'm interested in the conversion between digital to analogue and back again, 'High to low density'.
In last tutorial lesson we talked about generating sound as the work, or broadcast/content itself. This..sounds nice, one could imagine converting html tags to music (or fm radio to html!). Though the first thing might be a bit 'easy' plus I recall Mark (2nd year) made the emotions of a server audible by converting the amount of http requests etc into sound. I should have a talk to him. [EDIT] Oh yeh, here it is, the HTML to SOUND browser: http://znc.ctrlaltdel.org/∞ [/EDIT]
I'll could take the Hobbyscoop(3) principle as starting point and pull it out of its original context and put it in a modern context and see what happens. So:
1980 : Radio > Tape > Computer
My way : Computer > Tape > Radio
I need some help on decision making.
Btw, a dutch translated version of this page can be found HERE∞
References:
1.http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=170173∞
2.http://www.stumbleupon.com/∞
3.http://www.hobbyscoop.nl/∞ and http://www.xs4all.nl/~lennartb/basicode.html∞, http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basicode∞
Oh just checked out the snapshots, those microfiches keep amazing me http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfilm∞!
Analogue compression <3
Represent speech on a keyboard: http://alt-usage-english.org/ipa/ascii_ipa_combined.shtml∞
Getting there!
[pre tutorial]
"I want to make music, but i cannot play an instrument"
so i have to make me an instrument (lead to some one to interview?).
i have no knowledge of making something sound nice, so the 'music' has to be really conceptually right. STRONG CONCEPT BASED SOUND.
I recently collaborated with Marc (oneManNation.com) for an installtion I made. I made the concept and provided the hardware and Marc composed a musical piece for the installation.
Since I want to make music with this project, I could provide a concept and collaborate with artist to compose/play the music resulting from this concept. One of my great wishes all time, is to compose something for an orchestra. Then the RADIO philharmonic orchestra came to mind. Also really strong in line of the digital to analogue conversion idea. I have some connections on the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. So I only need a concept. I somehow need to make a musical score, translate html to some sort of a (traditional, or new) score.. In the traditional sense, I have to learn about notations and if i make I custom score, I have to teach the musicians how to read it. I'm not so much of a teacher, also I have a bit of musical background ( I somewhat can read scores) so it would be logical to use a traditional score.
So now I need a way to translate html into a score; literal (ascii to notes and signs?), this might end up in a unplayable mess, but I can correct this with the guys from the conservatory. Or I could translate it symbolical which is harder for me since i dont know scoring that good. But html has some properties whch are comparable with musical scoring: ancors, links, repeat etc. Maybe a combination would be ideal.
Ill first check out a way to make a literal score. Lets scout some software:
free notation mac software: http://www.macmusic.org/software/view.php/lang/en/id/2216/∞
sibelius: got it on my pc
finale osx: downloading...
More Notationstuff, blanksheet music: http://www.synthzone.com/notation.htm∞
creating a .mus file MusicXML file from HTML?
rename html page to xml, search and replace some stuf (key, duration, octave, rest, pitch etc tags) and import in sybelius/finale.
musicxml howto: http://www.recordare.com/downloads.html#DTD∞
[/pre tutorial]
After the tutorial
The longer (1hour) turorial of last week did me well, I spend alot of time before hand and did not get anywhere, after the tutorial I got my stuff together and I sput out half my essay. I had a tutorial with michael which got me on my way. He said the magic word MIDI and after some work the technical solution was there.
direct 1:1> all html into ascii into midi
make only the human readable oddible: only text > ascii > midi
html>ascii values> midi notes> midi binary file>music notation program
in my research i discovered alot of text (ascii) to midi conversion programs, and projects wich turn complete websites into midi files. But they all don't take it any further then the computer, it all stays computer music. It are just technical tricks.
Games in concert (orchestra playing game music) take only games as source (often midi-like sounds) but in practice they just replay music already orchtstral (intro) music.
Hyper(con)textual Notation
Often, people have tried, and succeded, in translating digital to analogue media. There are several examples of people actually representing webpages as sound or music as you like. For example Peter Luinig's ZNC browser which turns webpages into sound and color. There also where quite some attemps, including my own, to turn the 'streets' into sound. For example Michael van Schaik's 'Akoestische Stad'. Something I notice in these projects (including my previous own attemps) is the fact that they present the project in the same context as they used for the translation. Using a computer, with occasionally a visual representation in the form of a projection or computer screen. Althought this offers the possibility of giving an insight in the way the translation works, but for me leaves out the essence of the digital to analogue translation. I want to take my medium, webpages, out of it's context to turn it into music by presenting my translation on a musical instrument, played by a musician. This could be seen as a practical reason, since I cannot play an instrument, but it also places me outside the role as musician, since I'm not. This is something other's like Luinig and Van Schaik might have, maybe accidently put on themselfs, which will in my case degrade the final project (no musical quality). I prefer to create a conceptual framework in which a musician can provide his musicality, createn a true piece of music. Some months ago I developed a installation with 8cd players using their repeat functions to create ever changing beats. As proof of concept I composed a piece of music, an endless loop. This proved the concept, but also proved I'm not a musician or composer, it became dull very quickly. I needed to take it to the next level to make it work. Recently (february 2008) I proposed to collaborate with the Singapouran artist Marc Chuang, also known as One Man Nation, to compose music for this installation. This worked out really nice, he understood immidiatly what I try to achieve, and composed I real nice piece which was presented at the exhibition 222volt in Dordrecht february the 22nd, Holland. I was so enthousiastic about this collaboration I asked more , very different musicians in my circle which all were really inspired by my concept and started composing, both visual and audible pieces the moment I did my proposal.
Performance
I'm talking with worm to get in contact with composers and muscians and to host my performance.
This is my own 'score' for the final performance:
Project: HOST.
Host an event over streaming media, like internet radio.
I felt like, instead of transmiting the radio over the internet,
transmitting the internet over (standard FM) radio. In order to
realize this, I needed to translate the digital internet into analogue
signals. This would be possible by using sound. The importance of this sound
would result in the sound becoming the actual work/piece.
The ultimate digital to analogue conversion came to mind when I thought about
the so called 'Radio Philharmonic Orchestra'.
This inspired me to create an unversal conversion which could be played by a pianist
using traditional musical notation.
location:
physical: worm
vitual: wormstation
announcement:
mailing lists,nettime
wormflyer?
audience:
passive, but room for questions
presentation:
- prints of musicalscores on the wall: to reveal structure (how does a website looks?)
- performance: how does a website sound? "Google search for conceptual music in C/HTML"
duration:
1. presenting: 5/10 minutes
2. hello world: 11 sec.
3. actual piece: 10/20 min.
4. questions/discussion
REHURSAL DAY
The global tendecies and problems all seem to relate to:
-work together with people (interact with te audience)
-the creation of narrative
-media manipulation, re-mediation
-meaning of context
Notes
As with the general tendencies, I also have to cope with:
-working together
-and the creating of meaning
I'll have to look at what to translate to make any sense:
-bloggroll /pianoroll
-generate content to play from basic page(1)
As the conversion is done now, youll end up with notes which are impossible to play. I feel like making use of this by:
-using the impossible notes to stimulate improvisation
-design an instrument to play these impossible notes
-use them to generate 'mistakes'
To give the audience an idea if whats going on:
-printer piano / player piano (toshio iwai)
-using feedback and 'realtime(2)' notation generation
Automate the conversion using LaTeX:
-http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8738∞
-http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~ciardo/latex.html∞
-WAV2MIDI.exe!!
(1) To create meaning, and content and more interactivity AND a wider audience I could try to: Create a basic page (much like the hello world example, but with more elements to if mistakes are made its easily visible) or use a very intricate page where mistakes by the player are easily made. > convert this page into notation > let it be played by the pianist > record the sound > turn it into html again >upload the page to show it changing (I could demo/fake this) to both the physical and virtual audience > turn the changed page into a score again > let the pianist play the changed page again > etc.
This will result in a slow (very slow if I have to convert the html>sound>html by hand...hmm nice) evolving minimal music piece, which I think is really nice.
The problem is that the unplayable, error sensitive notes are essential parts of the html structure (symbols like <,/,> etc). This would break the page on the first translation and will end the piece. If I make these notes playable, wouldnt the pianist make mistakes anyway? I could play it myself, or let the audience play, then it would be some sort of game, maybe acompany the piano with hints on which notes to play (beamer?(3)
(2) we talked about the live-ness of the web, in my opinion it is not really live,its simulated to give you the impression it's live. This is not so relevant for me, I can really just fake the live-ness (prerecord).
(3)Toshio Iwai on youtube.com
The final performance together with marc at worm (the presentation is on a monday)?
Late Notes aka Roundup
During the group critique it became clear my project lacked an edge. Although I found a musician and a location (it will be march 21 at the NAI during a Worm improvisation night). I still need to do my interview and come up with a meaningful conversion.
The location (Netherlands Architecture Institute) did inspire me:
Architecture <-> Web architecture.
I want to use web structure to become music. Since music is an universal language, I returned to the xml music format which is a universal web language.
To conclude:
What if I'd design, or remix an existing piece of music using the universal language of xml. The piece would come from a composer who worked according to the Golden Section method for harmony, also found in architecture. Result is an analogue to digital to analogue translation. What does this digitization do to the music?
Using the musicxml format, I'm planning to rearrange an existing piece using the HTML structure of the NAI website. I could also rearrange the piece according to the properties of the XML format when i convert it into musicxml. These are my two options for the moment
Notes on the comments on my essay
"...The speed by which you write through your associations is exciting but also leaves me out of breath and I think some connections you make could be less shallow..."
I was in a hurry writing the essay, you can see that yes. Ill take another look and restructure the txt. This is almost like brainstorm. Something to be worked out.
"...Most importantly: translation is not the same as transcoding is not the same as remediation; they have much in common but differ as well. Because your project is taking all three on board, I think it would help the essay and the broadcast if you work more on these issues..."
I take on too much in this version, which makes it a bit shallow. These topics are big enough to write a whole essay about. Actually I dont talk about these topics at all and the terminology creates some confusion. The problem is a linguistic one, not a substantial, I thought it sounded nice...remediation...Well I need to be more consistent and maybe outline the term 'translation' more at the beginning
"...In addition to that: although the text is 'aanstekelijk' it is not easy to see why you actually are so excited by these transitions and why you think they matter. Some snippets you give: 'The value of individual media' or 'I want to make music more special again'..."
I agree. these quotes appear from nowhere in the text al of a sudden. Ill motivate my statements in the introduction. I think they matter because they actually don't, i love to make useful things as useless as possible. Most new communication methods and techniques (new technologies) are praised to heaven but do they enhance the quality of communication? Everything seems to be about quantity and the quality suffers from that. You and your person get rated by the amount of friends you have on myspace , if you don't have a cellphone you're a loser(open9) How much friends can you have? Same with music. Vinyl sounds better than a CD...
[blablabla]
MusicXML beschrijft bladmuziek (muzieknoten) in XML. Uiteindelijk moet het ook mogelijk zijn om de muziek op internet te publiceren, maar er lijken op dit moment maar weinig browsers om te kunnen gaan met bestaande DTD's voor MusicXML.
MusicXML maakt op dit moment wel de uitwisseling van (blad)muziek tussen verschillende software programma's mogelijk. Zie ook: http://www.musicxml.org/xml.html∞