Reflex

Artist name:

Ben Bogart

Category:

Audiovisual performance

URL:

http://www.ekran.org/ben

Bio:

Ben is an artist working in installation, audio-visual improvisation and software development. His installations create content live in response to the its sensed environment. He works in an Open Source context and makes all the software he develops, that is of general use and available under the GPL. Physical modelling, chaos, feedback systems and evolutionary algorithms have been used to inform and engage in his creative process. Ben is the author of the pixelTANGO visual performance software hosted by the Société des arts technologues in Montréal, Canada. "Resurfacing" is Ben's latest project, produced in collaboration with Donna Marie Vakalis. The piece is a two screen interactive architectural installation that collects visual "artifacts" from its environment and allows the audience to sift through the collection. "Resurfacing" is made possible though funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. Ben is now a graduate student in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University and is a member of the international art collective Goto10. Serving as the Project Manager for the Pure-Data Documentation Project (PDDP), Ben is working on a curriculum for electronic media arts based solely around Open Source tools. Ben has presented work in Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Vancouver, Seattle, Helsinki, Bergen and Barcelona.

Statement:

“Reflex” is my latest improvisational work. It is a creative departure for me since it involves both the creation of sound and image simultaneously. “Reflex” stands out as a generative work since the equation used is not something I wrote nor fully understand. “Reflex” is an exploration of Pure-Data and is only possible in Pure-Data. Pure-Data is composed of two parts: a GUI and a DSP engine. These two parts communicate through a local network socket. What “Reflex” does is hijack the data that is transmitted from the GUI to the DSP and feeds the information back into Pure-Data to be used as raw material. Since the “input” is a coded version of what is happening in the GUI, there is an automatic connection between the image (the Pure-Data GUI) and the sound (the coded representation of the GUI activity as seen by the DSP). The socket data is interpreted in two ways; first, in a raw form that simply feeds an oscillator and second, in an interpreted form where the patch searches for certain keywords and extracts codes to be presented in the image and transform the sound. The image we view is both the logic and diagram of the program as well as the hidden communication that happens inside Pure-Data.

The generative process of “Reflex” works as follows:

1. Start with a simple patch that sonifies the socket data
2. In response to the sound, build the patch to transform the sound
3. Any changes in the patch effect the socket data
4. This socket data then gets fed into a future iteration of the patch

Software

PD