Paja

Reetta Nykänen, Michail Kouratoras and Lauri Kainulainen set out to create “something visual with audio”. With very different backgrounds everyone had something unique to offer to the end result which was “Mothman” or just “The Moth”; an interactive audio-visual day/night scene of a forest with a flying moth.

For the visualizations we used Processing (processing.org), for audio we chose Pure Data (puredata.info). Interaction with the piece happened through a Basic Stamp chip connected to an Ultrasonic sensor and an ambient light sensor. The former was for distance measuring (the closer you got the bigger the moth became) and the latter switched between day and night (when it was dark, it was night).

The chip was connected to Processing through a serial/USB-connection. It sent out a four byte variable where only the two first were used; one for distance value and the second for light amount. Processing made visuals based on these and sent out the first unmodified to Pure Data (both running on the same computer) through an OSC server (Open Sound Control). The light variable was converted into a simple binary value to indicate night or day. Based on these Pure Data chose which samples to play and modified them accordingly.

No screenshots here, but the youtube video on the student presentations says it all.

For graphics and code go here:  http://lauri.sokkelo.net/files/moth.tar.gz. Sound not included due to huge size.