I will perform a commissioned AV work in collaboration with the Spanish composer Ramón Prada, also know as Vittus, for LEV Festival [Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual ] on April 27th 2012 at the Teatro de la Laboral, Gijon, Spain. The work interweaves classical composition incorporating live piano and viola, with field recordings and abstract electronic tones/rhythms. For real-time video generation I used live sound analysis combined with time-line triggers – often shifting the connections between musical voices and abstract visual signifiers in the hope of creating non-predictable synchronies. These shifts are also triggered by rhythmic aspects of the composition.

Teatro de la Laboral [performance space for LEV/Vittus]

The sixth edition of LEV aims to present current work connecting visual arts and electronic music – in particular those using live cross-modal strategies to create synergetic relationships between sound and image.

Flickr Stills can be found HERE

Songs of Milarepa I at Encountering Data, Stony Brook University

Songs of Milarepa I-IV at Encountering Data, Stony Brook University

The Encountering Data event held at Stony Brook University, New York, between January and February 2012 comprised of a set of lectures, performances and an exhibition of artworks.

‘The ability to perceive data in multiple formats – image, sound, touch – adds immeasurably to the possibilities of understanding and inspecting the massive sets of data that researchers in all disciplines are constantly accumulating. Thus, addressing the problem of data demands that conversations take place across a wide range of disciplines. Encountering Data showcases recent works in computer science, art, physics, music, mathematics, and intersections thereof.’

Songs of Milarepa II at Encountering Data, Stony Brook University

Songs of Milarepa III at Encountering Data, Stony Brook University

I contributed a set of prints to the show using data obtained from sound analysis and arrived at from the measurement of EEG readings. Rather than attempt to derive hard-edge scientific visualisations, these works explored the possibilities of datasets as material for the construction architectural forms and volumetric structures.

Here’s the text taken from the show:

Songs of Milarepa I-IV

Paul Prudence’s work moves in the opposite direction [from transforming images into sound] – generating image from sound, through the visualization of audio data. The Songs of Milarepa series are generated using parameters derived from real-time audio analysis [frequency and volume] of Eliane Radigue’s electroacoustic drone piece ‘Songs of Milarepa’. Frequency modulates an array of surface textures, while the volume parameters are used to construct a 3D mesh on which the textures are projected.

Songs of Milarepa IV at Encountering Data, Stony Brook University, New York

EEG Diptych, Encountering Data, Stony Brook University and EEG Pendant Device

While visually similar to the Songs of Milarepa, this diptych utilises real-time EEG [Electroencephalography] readings from the wireless EEG Pendant device. After Fourier Transform processing in BioExplorer [software] the data is sent to VVVV where Beta/Alpha states are visualised at textures on shapes informed by time-based averages which generate the shape [mesh].

A Flickr set of larger photographs of the prints can be found HERE.

Surface Tension | Synergetica Studiolab lecture slides

For the closing event of Surface Tension, an exhibition themed around water at Science Gallery in Dublin, I gave a lecture and then a performance of Hydro Acoustic Study. While much of my lecture concentrated on the aesthetic and technical considerations behind my piece, some of the time was also given up to exploring and discussing phenomenological aspects of the optical effects of light penetrating water – particularly during sonic transduction.

Other presentations were given by Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand (who invited me to be part of the night) on ‘Hydrosophy – from Electrolysis to Quantum Sensibility’ and Dr. Raoul Frese on ‘Photosynthaics: Bio Solar Cells’.

A Flickr set of photographs from Surface Tension – Synergetica Studiolab (including selected lecture slides) can be found HERE.

Structure-M.11, a real-time visual performance work, was initiated and completed during Guestroom Maribor – a one month artist residency organised by Pekarna Madalenska Mreže and MKC Maribor in November 2011.

Recordings were made of industrial processes, ventilation and water cooling systems, mechanical apparatus in the industrial areas of Maribor, Slovenia. I was also interested in exploring the quasi-musicality of discarded industrial equipment and broken machinery and the inherent percussive sounds they can generate.

Based on insinuations of a sound collage/composition, made with these field recordings, real-time visual material was generated denoting activations and operations disassociated from sonic origin – a parallel Universe for these nearly extinct sounds to reside once again.

Structure M.11

At the end of the Residency I gave a presentation of the process involved in making Structure M.11, including a sonic psychogeographic overview of the territory covered during the field-recording explorations. Photographs of the sites visited and final residency sketches for the piece can be found HERE.

Visual Music workshop using VVVV at MFRU’11, Maribor, Slovenia

Much of November 2011 was taken up by a set of performances and a visual music workshop in Maribor, Slovenia during the MFRU/Kiblix festivals.

As part of the Optofonica showcase I gave a performance of my collaborative piece Hydroacoustic Study with the sound artist Francisco Lopez. The work was updated and an entirely new section of audio and visual material was added specially for the show.

To compliment the performance I was also invited to give a visual music workshop using VVVV. Covering a wide range of topics such real-time sound analysis, beat-detection and OSC/MIDI control, students learned to create generative visual music systems from scratch with little prior knowledge of VVVV to perform a VJ set at the festival closing party.

Visual Music workshop lecture slides at MFRU’11, Maribor, Slovenia

Day 1 of the workshop included an introductory lecture on the history and philosophy of Visual Music from early Colour Organs to recent work made using computational methods. A selection of clips from classic works in the field were shown and discussed including Allegretto by Oskar Fischinger [1936], Synchromy by Norman Mclaren [1971], Light by Jordan Belson [1973] and Pixilation by Kenneth Knowlton & Lillian Schwartz [1971].

A Flickr set of the photographs of the festivals can be found HERE.

In the last month I spent some time revising Parhelia a real-time visual-music piece originally made last year and performed at Electrovision, London. In the work sample based mechanical sounds are used to orchestrate a family of concentric forms in space. The scenes suggest the workings of a mechanism where geometric component parts interact with one an another triggering corresponding sounds (and vice-versa).

The patching schematic involved became quite large so it made sense to create a set of modular sub-patches running from the main control patch. Isolating specific tasks as modules allows them to be re-used and scaled accordingly for use in new work.

Parhelia VVVV Patch – Paul Prudence

The image above shows the main patch and 15 sub-patches that make up Parhelia layered together. A much larger high-resolution screen grab can be found HERE, in which you can see the specific organisation of nodes within Parhelia. I’m particularly interested in the aesthetics of patch schematics generated by the constraints of visual programming and how personal patching styles drive the structures in visual programming languages.

Parhelia has been featured at CreativeApplications.net.

Talysis II is finally documented with an online video.

‘Talysis II is the first piece in a series of artworks exploring the process of video feedback to create auto-catalytic self-generating artworks. Mimicking the classic analogue video feedback process, this software simulation creates complexity from an economy of means. A simple shape (a square) is passed around a loop of renderers. Transformations of the square are applied to its conveyance around the loop resulting in a multitude of feedback species, geometric tessellated formations, that transform and reconfigure over time. The strict symmetries, quasi-hyperbolic surfaces and parabolic forms generated from this machine monologue allude to the works from Perceptual and Op-Artist movements of the 60’s – Caption included at Optofonica Museums Night, Amsterdam, 2010.

Exhibited at:

Art.ficial Emotion 3.0, São Paulo, 2006.
Playgrounds AV Festival, Tilburg, 2007
Zero to Infinity, London, 2008
Bridges, Budapest, 2009
Optofonica Museums Night, Amsterdam, 2010

Patch Schematics – The Aesthetics of Constraint for Creativeapplications.net

I recently wrote guests posts for the the well-know technology/art sites Creativeapplications.net and Creatorsproject.com:

Patch Schematics – The Aesthetics of Constraint, written for Creativeapplications, explored the self-organising aesthetics of visual programming languages. The article also looked into ways in which programming patterns might be applied to create optimised modular, reusable and readable software. Click HERE to read the article.

Re-Conditioning Our Perceptions With Phenomenological And Sensorial Artworks, written for Creatorsproject, examined the work of a collective based in Amsterdam called Optofonica:

Optofonica is an ongoing project and experimentation lab devoted to the investigation of ephemeral art-science—inter-media artworks often employing advanced sound spatialization techniques. Much of Optofonica’s interest lies in the exploration of the phenomenological and sensorial manifestations of light and sound, including areas such as nanophotonics, psychoacoustics, hydrodynamics, and quantum chemistry. Click HERE to read the article.

In May 2011 Alice Vincent of Wired UK wrote a positive appraisal of my work, with particular reference to Rynth. Appearing on both the UK and US online versions of the magazine the feature was titled ‘Heard of visual music? This is what it looks like’.

Alice was professional enough to call me to talk about my work. She asked about the technical side of software programming for generative art, and the sound design involved in my projects, in order to get an overview for the article.

From the feature:

‘With recordings from radiators, ancient theories on the cosmos and a lot of rather clever programming, Paul Prudence makes ethereal, one-of-a-kind projections.

The images seen in this video and in our gallery below are from Prudence’s latest project, Rynth. They are created through a combination of coding and algorithms based on maths and geometry to turn sound data into images in real-time. 

Although capturing shots of Prudence’s performances make for inspiring viewing alone, it is seeing it in action when sound, vision and technology collide that is the best way to experience his work’

Into The Videodrome [Interview with PaulPrudence] in Belio #32 Neo Psychedelia

I’ve been interviewed by a number of publications and online organisations in the last 6 Months. Most recently I sent Pasquale Napolitano answers to his set of questions for publication on the well-known Italian based digital culture blog, Digicult. The interview, Paul Prudence’s Natural Structures, concentrated on aspects of data visualisation, data transcoding, and personal aesthetics.

Towards the end of 2010 I was interviewed by Pablo IA, for an article published in the 32nd edition of the Madrid based art and design magazine, Belio. The article, ‘Into The Videodrome’ presented a group of three artists, positioning their works as neo-psychedelic. I was questioned on aspects of visual music, ’syntheasetic art’ and the aesthetics of symmetry. Since the interview is only published in print, here’s a link to the full text version online.

Also in 2010 I was interviewed by Elif Demirci [also known as Datafobik] for the Turkish site, Muhteviyat.com. Derivating from the usual email textual approach, the answers I gave were in the form of actual recorded answers and uploaded as MP3 files. Elif questioned me on the ongoing science-art convergence and my recreational research weblog, Dataisnature.

Related:
The ghost in the machine – interview with Paul Prudence. In 2008 I was interviewed by Sarah Lugthart for Rapture as a warm-up to the artist talk I gave at Playgrounds Audiovisual Art Festival in Tilburg , Holland, in the same year.