Inspiration + Conceptualization
During my trip to Interiam, I was inspired by another piece(video shown below). Within the piece, the participants stand before a pool of water. By rotating the sphere in front, the audience initiates a vibration beneath the pool of water, creating patterns on the surface of the water through a process known as cymatics. In this project, we are asked to create something involving sound. As a visual artist, I am more familiar with the visual language than I am with the auditory one. As a result, I sought to combine this goal of visualizing sound with my experience at Interiam to create this interactive experience.
Interiam interactive installation
(video taken with permission)
Original Idea
Originally I wanted to combine Arduino and P5. I recall that we had the speaker that we can plug into the Arduino. I experimented by getting cups and big bottle caps to place on the speaker. However, the curvature of the speaker made it difficult for the shape to rest directly on the speaker. Hense, I borrowed a speaker from ER, which worked much better than the arduino speaker.
During this time, I also had the wild idea of buying petri dishes to place on top of the speaker. I purchased some plastic petri dishes from amazon to put on top of the speaker.
Ultimately, I wanted to have the water reflect the pattern on the screen behind it but also be distorted by the vibration at the same time. I ultimately decided on a circular form, which will hopefully fit perfectly within the petri dish and create a perfect light reflection around the border.
Coding + Learning Pt. 1
I also gave myself a quick crash course on sounds and vibration. I learned that the vibration producing the patterns relies on frequency, not pitch. I also learned that the patterns would only occur at a frequency of 20 - 200 hertz, so I later set the frequency parameter to be within that range.
One of the big problem I ran into is that I did not know how to get sound into Arduino in the first place. I learned about the basics of sound through Daniel Shiffman's videos.
Big thanks to @Colorful Coding on YouTube for providing the foundation for this code. On top of that, I changed the code so that it maps the frequency instead.
Coding Pt 2.
After I had the basics down, I needed to confront the big challenge: how do I make the frequency of the vibration change based on the location of the mouse(or in this case my fingers) within a circular shape?
To do that, I consulted Chatgpt on how I can turn the coordinates into cartesian coordinates, which I mapped the frequency and pitch to.
And while testing the shape, the circular form reminded me of a sun. I thought: what if I made the background turn into bright red everytime the mouse moves outside of the circle, alluding to Ra the sun god in Egyptian culture?
Setting it so that everytime the mouse moves within the circular, the background turns black and the pitch+frequency changes. The radius of the parameter still needed tweaking here.
Engineering/Building
Wanted to give a huge thanks to Phil for helping brainstorm with me. We talked about how it might be possible to build this. He gave the very helpful suggestion of using metal screws and pieces to prop up the different platforms.
Step 1: laser cut
Step 2: drill holes
Step 3: get bolts and screws
Step 4: assmeble
TESTING
Through testing, I realized that I needed to put tape on the petri dish to make it have more contact with the speaker below. This allowed for much more visible patterns.
Shots of Structure
FINAL
*sound warning
Reminder to turn on sound on the bottom right corner of the video