Lithic

My first multimedia project at Janacek Academy of Performing Arts and my first try at an installation.

The subject of the piece are stones, all collected at local former quarry Hády. I focused on the sonic and haptic qualities of stones, with a motivation grounded in phenomenology rather than geology. The stones attracted me with their visual purity and universality in meaning. A stone is usually associated with something rigid and stable - I question that with electro-mechanical excitation.

A constellation of stones create an interactive environment, an interface, through which the visitor is invited to shape a generative spatial sound composition via haptic interaction.

Capacitive field sensing is used to detect one touching a stone. A touch causes a reaction by mechanical excitation of the stones (vibrational motors, solenoid magnets and an acoustic transducer are used) along with an advancement in the composition. Moreover, piezo pickups are used to capture the sound of the stones.

During the project presentation, the composition lasted around 15 minutes, with around 15 visitors who actively participated. Hovewer, the interaction model was designed to function indefinitely in an installation (implementing a finite state machine). The technical execution was carried out using the Max environment communicating with the ESP32 embedded platform via Wi-Fi.

I crafted the project remaining loyal to the DIY ethos - it involved various technical challenges like drilling into stones. I like to think of the presented form as a prototype that can be refined in the future.

Below are some clips from testing the technologies used in the piece: