abstractmachine

• Machine: Sound Object Undulation Processor
• Concept + Design: Douglas Edric Stanley

The Sound Object Undulation Processor (or S.O.U.P.) allows for the visual as well as aural spatialisation of video images. Projecting onto the floor within an installtion equipped with an 8 or 10-speaker configuration, these video sequences can be spatialized through this switchboard device. Images are entered into the S.O.U.P., mixed, remixed, and spread about the floor using various movement algorithms, for example movements taken from the Broyeur. Movements can also be recorded by users in real-time, allowing for complex live video mix-loops, created by dragging sound/images in and out of the S.O.U.P. center (thus affective it’s volume/spatialization) and then letting the loops play back over and over under modified again.

The code from this switcher has been used within several student projects at the Atelier Hypermedia and has been repurposed into some of my current work. It interfaces easily with a Max/MSP patch specifically written for it.

The above illustration shows a demonstration of S.O.U.P. being used to re-edit Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Vertigo”.

• Workshop: Hypermedia Design
• Artist: Douglas Edric Stanley
• Location: National College of the Arts, Lahore
• Date: 20-28 February, 2000
• Partners: Olivier Litvine, Alliance Française
• Video: Workshop Lahore

A precursor to Concerencence was conceived during this workshop in Pakistan where I designed the first of the abstract machine programs: The Object Machine which takes video feeds and converts them into “blocks” which can then be arranged in video mosaics as fully functional algorithms.

A video was made of this workshop at the NCA.