Audiovisuals effects for Creative Sound Space House of Music, Hungary
Audiovisuals effects for Creative Sound Space House of Music, Hungary
Audiovisuals effects for Creative Sound Space House of Music, Hungary
2022
2022
2022
Rhythm Cart is part of the innovative audiovisual exhibition Creative Sound Space at the House of Music, Hungary. It's a custom-made electro-mechanical device, operated by hand to play sounds of different rhythmic musical instruments. The tempo is driven by the speed of the hand-cranking.
The installation also features an interactive projection – each instrument is represented by a different animated object, and the environment reacts to the tempo changes in real time.
Development
I was responsible for animating the ambient elements of the projection and processing incoming sound and tempo MIDI data visually.
First the goal was to create a sensation as if we were travelling down an infinite road – similar to rhythm games such as Guitar Hero. I achieved this by making a spline mesh with a material that is fading at a certain distance to the camera. I animated its control points to simulate movement in various directions, while the camera in fact remained perfectly still aside from slight rotations.
The different instruments were represented by simple geometric shapes in the development stage: they light up when a MIDI message is received. These shapes move along the same spline, synchronized to the incoming tempo.
For the final version, the instruments were divided into separate lanes, which ultimately remained invisible. However, it's interesting to observe how their movements were calculated with the lanes still visible.
Another interesting addition was the particles scattered throughout the space. They act like stars: to highlight when the tempo is increased, they elongate as if a hyperspace jump was performed.
