What would Ridley Scott do? He'd use theatrical lighting and fill the air with gossamer glitter...
Very long ago, I made a thing that should have been the catalyst for the rest of my life. It's the best thing I've made to date, regrettably it was about 15 years ago.
This thing has become legendary in my mind, a multi-media art installation at the Lyndon House Museum. The project made the first line of this review (which shockingly still lives online):
"There is a certain, unsettling sense of human feeling to the pieces in ''Eclectic Electric: An Exhibit of Electronic and Digital Art." The glittery, synthetic plants of Amanda Hanneld and Coby Cranman's ''Sentient Garden'' whimper and squirm like attentive puppies." -- Mary JESSICA Hames
Forgive me if I don't say "we" -- Coby was a stoner with other priorities and although I was gracious at the time, I don't mind taking full credit for the idea and execution at this point.*
So I'll have to ask you to imagine that it's 2001. We'd recently survived Y2K and 9/11 was still three months in the future...
As part of a class called Interactive Performance Multi-Media taught by mad-scientist Dr. David Zucker Saltz, I began using technology that was considered to be old then, a thing called MIDI, short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI is a technical standard that describes a protocol, digital interface and connectors and allows a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers and other related devices to connect and communicate with one another.[1] A single MIDI link can carry up to sixteen channels of information, each of which can be routed to a separate device.)
But MIDI is (was?) more than audio...
From Wikipedia:
Other applications
MIDI has been adopted as a control protocol in a number of non-musical applications. MIDI Show Control uses MIDI commands to direct stage lighting systems and to trigger cued events in theatrical productions. VJs and turntablists use it to cue clips, and to synchronize equipment, and recording systems use it for synchronization andautomation. Apple Motion allows control of animation parameters through MIDI. The 1987 first-person shooter game MIDI Maze and the 1990 Atari ST computer puzzle game Oxyd used MIDI to network computers together, and kits are available that allow MIDI control over home lighting and appliances.[55]
Despite its association with music devices, MIDI can control any device that can read and process a MIDI command. It is therefore possible to send a spacecraft from earth to another destination in space, control home lighting, heating and air conditioning and even sequence traffic light signals all through MIDI commands. The receiving device or object would require a General MIDI processor, however in this instance, the program changes would trigger a function on that device rather than notes from MIDI instrument. Each function can be set to a timer (also controlled by MIDI) or other condition determined by the device's creator.
Which brings us to the Sentient Garden.
Using artificial plants (sprinkled subtly with extra-fine glitter, duh), and a light-controlled environment (ahem, a GIANT cylinder made of black trash bags that had been quilted together with packing tape, kind of like a teepee suspended from the museum ceiling -- large enough to hold 4 adults at one time), I used stage lighting with orange and blue gels to to cast shadows on photo-sensors hidden in the plants, and used MIDI to command servo motors to respond when the photo sensors were activated by a human casting a shadow. I wish I could remember the software used to program the sensors and motors, it'd be good for a laugh if nothing else.
As a human approached the "garden", ferns would tremble, leaves would curl away, stamens would pull inside flowers.
It was a really cool thing that was really difficult to photograph because it was in the dark. But dad, bless him, did his best.
New goal: one-up 20-year-old me and make something really great. It's interesting to watch patterns emerge -- apparently I like interactive/responsive work and 3D environmental design. See also: stage lighting and glitter. Shudder to think of all the time wasted being an admin or project manager.
No spoilers, but some of the work we're doing for New Media might be able to measure up to the Sentient Garden...
Stay tuned. :D
*Coby Cranman DID supply sausage pizza with red onions to feed me while "we" worked -- an ingenious flavor combo that I'd never considered and an ingredient list that would probably kill me now.
