→ Pianoscope

I have always enjoyed performing in front of an audience, wherever it may be, whether in a train station, an airport, or a shopping center. The simple smile I can evoke on faces, the pleasure I can bring to others, delights me wonderfully and allows me to dream. I play for myself first and foremost, of course, but I equally enjoy sharing this moment with others. I am aware that this sharing can only have positive effects: letting their sensitivity manifest itself for a moment, making them dream or inspiring them, what do I know?






For my final project, I tried to imagine a concept that could facilitate this sharing, through a medium that allows me to express myself through multiple artistic mediums. I conceptualized a project in which the observation of my drawings and the listening of my compositions are possible simultaneously. Technically, my project is characterized by the projection of my plastic and vector drawings onto fabric. Interaction will occur based on the music played on an electronic keyboard. My object is a dome on which my drawings will be projected and equally visible inside and outside.



 

The space and location planned for the dome are crucial for the realization of the project. The location must accommodate a dome 6 meters high and 4 meters wide suspended in the void, attached upwards and downwards. In this case, the dome is located in an "aviation hangar."
This is a search for artistic immersion, a form of total art that combines music, visual arts, computer code, and form. The dome structure is entirely made of carbon and rests on its own weight.
A synthesizer is placed at the center of the ground structure, with a computer and a wide-angle projector placed vertically.  










Regarding the computer aspect, several possibilities present themselves to me. The option I have explored is ATOM, which is an open-source platform that provides access to VEDA. VEDA is a GLSL execution environment for ATOM. When I write GLSL code in ATOM, VEDA evaluates it immediately and displays the result in the background. This process allows me to modify a projected image based on what I play on my synthesizer.



ATOM interface with the GLSL plugin


This experience has allowed me to discover a new world: that of computer code. The ability to understand how to thrive in a virtual creation environment and to have the chance to learn to use a medium I had never exploited before has been an extremely enriching experience. Unfortunately, due to events in recent months, it was not possible to bring the computer project to completion.

The heart of the visual rendering of the Pianoscope relies on the GLSL computer language, with notes from the piano being processed in a program called Veda.

This program allows the use of various sources (images, audio, keyboard) to generate visual rendering, all thanks to computer code.

Thus, Veda acts as an intermediary between the piano and the projector. The attached YouTube video allows visualizing the image that the projector projects onto the fabric. This image is generated in real-time when playing the piano and is unique with each execution. It is an extremely flexible code, mainly based on mathematical formulas. It is a mixture of drawings combined with fractal generation. It is widely used in digital rendering and directly utilizes the resources of the computer's graphics engine.

In the final version of the project, Veda can be integrated compactly, taking the audio stream (MIDI) as input to produce a video stream (HDMI) as output. All of this could be housed in a small box such as the Raspberry Pi (a mini-computer intended for engineering projects).