What is the concept of “Spatial Sounds”?
M&E: With the Spatial Sounds installation we tried to build an interactive experience machine that builds up a physically tangible relation with the visitor. When a visitor moves around the machine it reacts, very directly, both in a gesticulative and an auditive way. While playing with the machine there’s very little time for contemplation, we are aiming directly at the visitors emotion. We hope that the vi-sitor will find himself in different unexpected relationships with the machine varying from attraction, joy, seduction, fear and anger.
Tell us about your experience of shared creativity.
M&E: In 2000 there was an opportunity to create a new work for the Global Attic festival in Rotterdam. Marnix invited Edwin to create an interactive sound-based installation starting from his experience with his installation Open Head that uses video. While talking about the interactivity and sonic qualities that the new installation should have, we decided to develop a totally new installation. Only the shape of the installation remained sort of the same. The collabo-ration was very inspiring and successful. We continued collaborating and realised two performances: Intervention with Pneumatics and Machine Winks and recently the installation Push/Pull. Physical per-ception, experience and control/dis-control are common themes in our individual work. Although we come from different backgrounds we have similar interests focused on direct physical perception and experience. Where De Nijs has a more object-based approach, Van der Heide has a more instrument-based approach.
The audience often feels your machine behaves like a guard-dog. Was that intended? What did you try to achieve?
M&E: We never worked on the association with the watchdog, the fact that people do that is just a proof that people easily project human or animal behaviour to an interactive machine. One of the aspects of the installation is that the sensors can only detect what’s happening in front of the speaker. This is very comparable to the fact that we can only see what’s in front on us and don’t have eyes on our back. The speaker is both sensing its environment and reacting to its envi-ronment. In many interactive installations you see a separation be-tween the “input interface” and the output, which is generated totally independently. An example of this is navigating in a projec-tion with a joystick. You move the joystick but the reaction comes from the projection. The speaker in Spatial Sounds both detects you and reacts to you.
M&E: We play a game of attracting and repelling between machine and visitor and are aiming directly on the visitors emotion. This is how you eventually end up with rather basic emotions like fear but also with emotions like tenderness (if you treat the installation friendly).
Can you describe the sound?
E: In my work I’m interested in an approach to music where the sound is the content and not used to communicate content. A lot of music is composed by events or notes. The sequence and the combi-nation of the notes form the composition. I’m more interested in an approach where the composition takes place inside of the sound itself. The sound for Spatial Sounds is generated in real-time in the same environment that is used for the interfacing and interaction (Max/MSP). The parameters of the mode of interaction, speed of rotation, change of direction, presence and distance of the audience are used as parameters for the generation of the sound. This way it’s possible to create a direct connection between the movement of the installation and the sound. The sounds are purely electronically produced and don’t make any use of pre-recorded material. They have no intended figurative meaning. They are meant to create a strong power of expression for the installation.
What is the purpose of technology-based art? What is its’ position in the art world today?
M: My “roots” are the visual arts and for me there’s very little dif-ference in making “traditional” art or art based on technology. As an artist I always get inspired by the things around me. We're having more and more technological devices around us, which define the way we look at the world. From that perspective it’s very normal for me to use a computer and it’s specific qualities.
E: My original interest in technology comes from modular analogue synthesizers and the real-time possibilities they give over the gene-ration of sound. Soon after that I got disappointed in the digital synthesizers because of their limited freedom of real-time control. I started to program my own synthesis environments of digital signal processors before real-time sound generation could be done on con-sumer personal computers. Besides this I’ve developed a strong in-terest in using the computer for interaction and generative processes.
