VISUAL DRUMS
Interactive instrument for live performance Culture Move (Sampled History) exhibition, Brent Museum & Archives, London. 2020
Visual Drums is an interactive installation that translates rhythm into geometric patterns. Audience uses the instrument as a digital percussion instrument that drives visuals instead of sound.
It was thought of as a fun way for people to interact with music and each other during a live show. Three people could tap the rhythm simultaneously on three iPads, their touches animating geometric arrangements projected behind musicians on the stage.
The instrument was created for the music performance opening Culture Move exhibition by Jaykoe. In this show the artist worked with percussionists from different cultural backgrounds within Brent Borough of London.
I wanted to play with the ideas of cooperation and cultural mixing that were central for the event. As the foundation I took Jaykoe’s Relational Demographics (Intercultural City I), a giant collage map of London made of pieces of traditional fabrics from different countries.
https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Collage-Relational-Demographics-Intercultural-City-I/175640/3187348/view
I used elements of ornaments from the map as constituting pieces for the geometric arrangements produced by the Visual Drum. Pieces that originate from ornaments of one culture could find themselves mixed with pieces representing another ornamental tradition and form a new moving unity. Visual Drum was designed to enhance music perception and enable active participation of the audience in the performance.
The screens of 3 iPads could be drummed on with left and right hands. Each iPad was sending signals about hand touches via OSC to a custom software patch written in TouchDesigner. The patch was translating this stream of rhythmic data into screen coordinates and geometric ratios for building visual compositions. I used Feedback TOPs to layer elements on top of each other.
