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EDIT: I have some newer, better webcam audio visualizers and some utility patches available now. Click Here: http://sintixerr.wordpress.com/quartz-composer-downloads/
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For all of you who have asked for this, I’ve made my Artomatic Quartz Composer based webcam audio visualizer available as a free download.(Keep in mind, this is only for Mac OS X users – Quartz isn’t portable).
You can download it here: http://jackwhitsitt.com/Artomatic09-final-whitsitt.zip
(Im calling it “WAVIQ” for short…Webcam Audio Visualizer In Quartz”…since it needs some sort of a name and I dont feel that creative about it.)
A quick overview:
The composition has two inputs – the webcam and an audio source. If you have a built in webcam, it will default to that. Likewise, if you have a built in mic (most laptops do), the composition will default to using that as your audio source. You can change these by going into the patch inspector for the Video and Audio patches and selecting “settings”. (In the case of the audi, double-click the macro patch “Audio Source” and then click on “Audio Input” to get there).
The only other settings you’ll be interested in are the Increasing Scale and Decreasing Scale parameters found in the Audio Input patch. These affect how fast the values for movement, color, etc. get bigger and how fast they get smaller. This will affect how the composition responds to different music. Also, keep in mind that in the audio settings of OS X itself, you can change the mic sensitivity. This will affect how the composition responds as well.
You can also find a basic tutorial to get you started on tweaking this in the links below.
Thats it. Drop me a line with any questions and have fun with it. If you do end up using it, I’d love to hear about it.
Thanks!
Jack
- Tutorial I wrote explaining the basics of how this works:
- Stop-Motion Video Example of how I’m using it at Artomatic:
- Screen-shots of my Artomatic Art Installation:
Histogram of major words in the US Stimulus Bill. Big Grey blob in the second "mountain peak" from the left represents "Health" in the Bill. You can see it takes a disproportionate place in everything.
Originally uploaded by sintixerr
This is a follow-up to a previous post and is philosophically related to this post.
On the subject of these “data visualizations as art”, I’ve been trying to better articulate why I think they’re art and how I’m trying to evolve my process.
What it comes down to is that there seems to be two pieces to developing the visualizations:
- Choosing the right structure and things to measure about the text or data…what makes sense to compare to what. How do you reduce the noise and non-dependent variables? Each type of text you’re measuring and each circumstance has different relationships. There is a lot of science to this part, but it’s not completely predicatable. There is art.
- How do you visually best enhance and needle out the important details, contrast between points, etc so that they can be “seen” in the noise that doesnt matter? This is all art. Understanding how color, shape, contrast, etc all work together and how to use all of those to present a dense amount of information without being overwhelming is tricky and depends on the skill of the one creating it…
It’s my belief that playing to what we understand as people’s abilities to process and comprehend aesthetics in art involves exactly the same techniques and takes advantage of the same aspects of peoples brains/senses as good visual data analysis. So, if you’re doing data analysis, you start out figuring out #1, and then move to #2 based on #1.
What I was trying to do with these stimulus images – and the last of my security visualizations – was start out with concepts of what I’d like for #2 (how they would “feel”) and then figure out what I needed to do in #1 (massage the data) to get there…while still remaining true to the underlying information.
Next up (and once I learn more Objective C), I’m going to try and read in the stimulus bill to Quartz Composer and combine my recent interactive/music visualizations with the Bill. We’ll see if that goes anywhere interesting. :)
Also, Artomatic returns to DC this year. I very well may be displaying this stuff there when it comes around. This or the music/webcam visualizations.
I haven’t blogged in a couple of weeks and didn’t think this is what I’d be writing about first, but so-be-it! :)
I filmed and edited this video of Artomatic’s “Art in Fashion” show last Saturday. It was a lot of fun – a good cap to the party-in-the-rain capital pride parade (which isn’t my thing, but Paivi and I went because that sort of event is always done with good humour and fun).
The voice Ive mixed in to the song (obnoxiously at first – dont worry, after the first minute or so it quiets down) is of Andrea Collins shouting “Don’t you think the hotter the better??” (It was funny to me at the time)
Enjoy.
Just to let everyone know, Rebecca famous (and infamous, I hear) asked Angela and I to help out with moderation of the Artomatic forums on artdc (probably because we’re -always- there gabbing). That’s cool. :)
She actually said the funniest thing in her email to me:
What I really like best about what you do on the forums is get people to think and interact instead of flame and run. And you both do so with much humor, but with the all important “go fuck yourself” at the ready. We appreciate that. :-)
That’s a compliment, right? Right? :)
Anyway, there’s a lot of good information about Artomatic and DC art in general on the board, so if you haven’t visited, you should. Becoming a member is free.
Check it out here:
http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?board=37.0
First, I finished the python code I was working on that will allow two -color- images to be merged into one color mosaic. The color transformations it has to make to fit in the smaller picture to the larger one seem to result in some pretty wild effects – I’m digging it. I’ll clean up the code and post it here tomorrow.
As far as social stuff goes: Angela Kleis’s blogger night at Artomatic was pretty cool. I don’t want to post a lot of thoughts on that yet (I will tomorrow), but it did reinforce the fact that a lot of event management will have to be done at the June 6th ArtDC Artist’s tour dinner. Unfortunately, people have short attention spans and the time each artist speaks will have to be managed and expectations set ahead of time. 5 minutes seems to be about the “max”. We’ll have to bring a timer or something. It’s going to be a -really- interesting night, though, and a lot of fun.
More info on the upcoming dinner can be found in this thread:
http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?topic=8997.0
Pictures of Blogger’s Night can be found here in a set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sintixerr/sets/72157605133432629/
Finally, Erin Antognoli took a couple of great shots of my space while I talked about it to what was left of the crowd:
Last night was fantastic. It started off kind of quiet, but even at 6-something, plenty of people were milling about. The number of people there was perfect. Enough to feel well-attended on all 9 floors, but not so many that you couldn’t move around.
Early on, I had a lovely conversation about art, politics, technology, cataloging, and other sundry topics for about 20 minutes with a woman whom I found out later was a friend of Rebecca.
Not many of my most recent “friends” made an appearance, but I did see quite of few of my old and good ones. Justin Marino, for example, and his girlfriend were there. It was funny, but in the time (years?) they’ve been together, this is only the 2nd time I’ve met her and I was wearing the same scary paisley shirt in both cases, heh.
Similarly, another friend – again, Justin-Bryce – came to chat for awhile. Justin and I grew up near to each other in Daytona Beach Florida, met at Duke University during a middle school summer program, and have had many various adventures together. We’ve even worked for the same company here in DC. Twice. His girlfriend is actually on artdc (which I found out last night) as craftpunk….whom Id had suspicions about, but no confirmation 
This was the first time Id seen Justin since he became one of only 45+ people since 1950 to cut his esophagus open swallowing a sword.
Throughout the evening, I was entertained and interested in watching people interact with my art and really As more and more people cam by, I started seeing a pattern. Some of them saw the “big” picture. Others just saw the small ones. So, I put some tape down on the floor in the shape of a “1″. Then made a straight line of tape closer to the piece with a “2″. The reaction to the piece was SO much more interactive after I did that and the response improved even further. (Ill post a pic of that Wed of this week.)
Notables:
- A couple didnt want to buy my piece, but asked if I did commission work and enthusiastically repeated (more than once) that they’d be in touch. I doubt they well, but I was happy to have that kind of interest.
- One girl walked up and down my tape line then went to grab 5 other people to bring them and show them the piece from another side of the floor completely.
- One couple spent 5 minutes just talking about it.
- Etc.
The best time, though, was spent with Secret Sean, Kerri, Brad, Erin, Michael, and other artdc’ers. Secret Sean and Kerri, and particular, spent a great deal of time with us. It really made the night.
(Especially on the metro on the way home. Because….thats the way we roll)
We also made a stop at Miss 5 NE C3′s space to see what kind of art she had brought to the table (after she trashed -everyone else’s art- at Artomatic. It’s too bad her attitude was so bad, I would’ve thought better of the art. (Can find the thread here: http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?topic=9112.20)
