City Symphonies

City Symphonies is a project that re-imagines what the sounds from vehicles could be as electric cars becomes more common and internal combustion engine cars are phased out. Many electric cars produce artificial engine sounds to make them sound like a gasoline-powered car, but this concept proposes sound generation that depends on a car’s relationship with other vehicles and the surrounding environment.  The simulation of the vehicle movement was performed with Processing, and MaxMSP was used to connect audio signals with each car. Sounds are emitted depending on proximity with other cars and pedestrians. Complex chords would be heard at denser intersections, and single notes would be heard in sparse traffic areas. This is an interesting idea that replaces the traditional honks and engine revs with a musical score unique to the place and time. The new sounds seem like something from outer space, and to me, they replace one type of cacophony with another. I don’t quite understand how the tone frequencies are chosen, though. Should there be another aspect instead of it solely based on proximity — like more aural harmony if traffic is flowing safely and more cacophony if an unsafe traffic condition begins to appear?

Angles Mirror

This 7 ft x 7 ft interactive triangular “mirror” creates an image based on linear rotation instead of reflected light, and uses a system involving motors, a video camera, a microcontroller, and software written in C++. The space surrounding the person is shown as horizontal lines, and the yellow arms pivot with various angles to produce a 3D image. It’s interesting to produce a “mirror” image using this method with arms that have a fixed hue/brightness instead of using reflection or color, and the resulting image changes based on the position of the viewer. Also, using these yellow arms as rotating pixels to form new shapes brings additional insight into what our eyes will interpret and process as an image.