Drifting

2022
Drifting, the fourth project of the Brushing Series, is a sound art performance piece incorporating a DIY-made Brushing Interface and a performer in 8-channel audio. The Brushing Interface is a DIY-made interface that can detect the position/pressure/brushing sound in realtime. This piece aims to deliver the nuanced and sophisticated materiality of a brush through an intersection between sonic timbre and brushing gestures by creating a deep timbre space on a finite two-dimensional surface. The deep timbre space is constructed by timbre transfer from the brushing sound inputs and other realtime synthesis, which are mapped with brushing positions and machine-learning-based gesture detections(rbfi for position-based mapping and MuBu for machine-learning-based gesture detection).

In a broader creative process, this work have involved a feedback loop between the design/building process of the interface and embodied art-making. The design/building process provides artistic affordance to the interface that is realized through the embodied art-making process. The embodied art-making process provides inspiration and design directions to the interface. Throughout the process, this constant feedback loop enabled this notion of a deep timbre space to be consistent throughout the entire piece, gesture, sound, and the hardware/software media system.