USC SpringFest

The Dream

For my MFA Thesis, I partnered with USC Iovine and Young Academy of Music Technology and Innovation to imagine a music festival of the future.

Even though music festivals are fully immersive experiences, rarely, if ever, do they consist of interactive experiences. I envision a music festival of the future that uses cutting-edge interactive technology to facilitate playing with and physically embodying music.

The Inspiration

My design intention was to make players of the experience feel spontaneous creativity, and to feel as if their body is merging into the surrounding aesthetic environment.

Jackson Pollock’s style of Abstract Expressionism abandoned representing nature, mythology, and religion, and tried instead to convey his inner life. Pollock stopped painting on an easel entirely, instead laying his canvas on the floor. He developed a technique called “drip painting”, splattering the canvas with several different layers of acrylic paint. Upon first glance, Pollock’s paintings appear to be haphazard and devoid of form, content, or meaning altogether. Upon closer study, however, these paintings contain complex compositional patterns. Painstakingly crafted one layer, one texture at a time, often over the course of several weeks, each piece is a symphony of rhythmic paint strokes. About his process, Pollock has said:

When I am in my painting, I am not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well...I can control the flow of paint; there is no accident…(Pollock 544)

Drip painting can be thought of as an attempt to synchronize the painter’s brush with the painter’s spontaneous imagination. One observes their own emotional state, drawing on instinct, to uncover the underlying patterns of composition onto their canvas. This method of synchronizing with one’s subconscious inner thoughts and feelings blurs the boundary between the artist, their thoughts, and the work that they create. 

In order to realize this experience goal, I built a real-time flowing system of data that processes information from a Microsoft Kinect version 2 sensor. Data runs through a real-time graphics programming environment called Derivative TouchDesigner. TouchDesigner processes skeletal and infrared data from the Kinect into visual content, and then communicates via Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol with Ableton Live. Ableton Live activates time-sequenced loops of audio in-sync with the visual content created in TouchDesigner. The players’ movements are then UV-Mapped onto a 3D model of an object in physical space, and projected onto the immersive walls surrounding players. Players are engulfed in an audio-visual space generated by their own movement. They embody this sensory experience. They animate it and it animates them.

The Execution

In order to realize this experience goal, I built a real-time flowing system of data that processes information from a Microsoft Kinect version 2 sensor. Data runs through a real-time graphics programming environment called Derivative TouchDesigner. TouchDesigner processes skeletal and infrared data from the Kinect into visual content, and then communicates via Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol with Ableton Live. Ableton Live activates time-sequenced loops of audio in-sync with the visual content created in TouchDesigner. The players’ movements are then UV-Mapped onto a 3D model of an object in physical space, and projected onto the immersive walls surrounding players. Players are engulfed in an audio-visual space generated by their own movement. They embody this sensory experience. They animate it and it animates them.

An audience of several hundred USC students from all backgrounds as well as a select group of industry sponsors will be able to experience this iteration on March 30, 2019 at USC SpringFest, a music festival annually conducted by the University of Southern California. In Collaboration with the USC Iovine & Young Academy of Art, Design, and the Business of Innovation, I will installed a 20’x20’ implementation of my work in the context of a music festival featuring musical performers and the visual art of classmates.