TBAG Interactive Album

CITY BREATH

Andreea-Cristina Mircea

2022

<H1> CITY BREATH </H1> Can be seen here: https://andreeacrisnina.github.io https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vdCRv0GuZgGR6qqL2N6-kw7jib7jF_rO/view?usp=drivesdk <H3> Concept </H3>

Drawing inspiration from the chaos and energy of big cities, the project aims to create a captivating and immersive synesthetic experience that challenges the viewer to explore the connection between sound and color. The title plays with the idea of a "city break", while also referencing the concept of breath, which is essential to both human life and the life of a city.

<H3> Technical choices </H3> <H4>Audio:</H4>

Tools: Ableton Live 11, XO Plugin, GarageBand, Reaper

Reaper: for mixing the stems exported from Ableton GarageBands: recording the sounds on the Iphone + fast multiplying the breath recording Ableton Live 11: for the composition, editing the sound, sound synthesis, FX XO Plugin in Ableton: for percussion

<img src = "img/xo.png"> <H4>Graphics:</H4>

Tools: p5.js in p5.js online editor and with VSCode

<H4>Workflow:</H4>

I began my process by recording various sounds, and allowed my creativity to guide me from there. As I listened to the sounds I had captured, I noticed a common thread running through them all - the bustling, noisy energy of city life. With this in mind, I worked to develop a structure for the sounds, and then turned my attention to how I could bring a visual element to the piece. It occurred to me that the amplitude of the sounds was the key to creating an engaging, rhythmic experience for the listener, so I began to consider how I could connect this to other parameters. In the end, I utilized exactly the two parameters I had anticipated using when first approached about the project.

An early sketch would be here:

I was also open to the possibility of unexpected pleasant surprises in the process. For instance, the breath sound that turned out to be the centerpiece of the composition was originally just a breath I accidentally recorded while attempting to capture a voice.

<H3> Artistic concept </H3>

Right from the start, I had the concept of "losing myself" in the soundscape I had discovered after recording various sounds. Initially, I thought of using my voice and blending it to the outdoor sounds I had captured, but while recording the final vocal track, I stumbled upon a crystal clear breath. This accidental discovery led me to shift my focus towards the breath, which symbolizes the essence of life, soul and even humanity. I think it like this, it could be highlighted even stronger the connection between life and surroundings in a big city.

I also added a message right at the beginning, in order to prepare the viewer and not have the audiovisual piece just start randomly.

<H4>Audio:</H4>

In my sound piece, I aimed to explore various sounds that captured my attention, such as birds, traffic, wind, and voice. While working on it, I noticed a common thread among them, which inspired me to highlight that particular texture. My goal was to blend the sounds in a way that would blur the line between what is real and what is artificially created, almost making it indistinguishable. To achieve this, I created sound pairs that have similar textures, such as wind and synthesized sound.

<H4>Graphics:</H4>

For the visuals I tried two things:

go for an aesthetics I would like: something that looks almost like a handmade drawing at times
explore abstractisations of geometries that would be connected to the city, to crowded areas etc.
play with colours:

<H5>Colour palette</H5> <img src = "img/colourpalette_mircea.png">

Recently I am pretty attracted to this colour combination in illustration so I tried it out in coding too.

<img src = "img/screen_01.png"> <img src = "img/screen_02.png"> <img src = "img/screen_03.png"> <img src = "img/screen_04.png"> <H3> 4.Learning and reflections </H3>

This project is very interesting for me because recording things randomly around me is something I like since a very long time. I feel City Breath and this course made me feel more comfortable working with Ableton (which previously I had mostly used for playing live instead of a piano for example) and also explore more sound grains and textures from recordings. As a method, I tried myself to use more recordings instead of "only" midi instruments because that part was new for me in Ableton.

I spent many hours trying to realize what was missing and I got to percussion: then I remembered during quarantine I bought XO plugin for drums which I had never used. I had a lot of fun exploring it as well! Unfortunately, I feel some stuff are not manageable there (as I am passionate with weird traditional rhytms that the interafce doesn't allow) however, I do definetely like it and I will use it again. The mixing was hard because of the different textures (that's why I also moved from Ableton to Reaper). In Reaper I added a compressor to the main out and balanced out the stems individually.

I am happy with the result.

On the coding side, I tried to keep my code clean and even if I used timekeys, I got deeper into ways how to organize the code better and finally understood how to write functions. It might be a simple code but I really feel accomplished with it. Also, I did the pretty first page! :)