State of my Thesis.

I haven't posted in my blog in over a month, which really isn't a good thing; it kind of reflects my personal blog posting habits, which tends to happen very, very sporadically; it isn't unusual for me to not post on my blog for months at a time and then come out with five blog posts in the course of two days.
Admittedly, I haven't been particularly chuffed about this thing, so far; while I do love things like speech synthesis and linguistics, I don't find it to be an interesting art piece. Much of my favorite art is irreverant, absurd, ephemeral, pretentiously mysterious and nebulous or deliberately simplistic and minimal. I want to make something along these lines, but I feel like everything's being pushed further into the realm of pragmatism. I feel like anything I suggest to focus the project is pegged as being "too all-over-the-place", no matter what I say, even when it seems as though I'm making a simple, concise suggestion.

So far, this class has just made me feel really nervous and self-conscious. I like criticism; It's just really difficult for me to handle it coming from five different sides and actually respond verbally. My flaw is probably that I can sometimes think that a single bit of criticism means that the entire project is a failure, and having that come from all over the place makes me really nervous. I think if this class was taught via AIM or e-mail--allowing me to just think about the bits of criticism for a few minutes-- I could probably do really well. =D

Throughout all my changes, I have focused on one single concept--music conversion--but I've never been able to stick with a single idea. I think aloud; I switch from one thing to the next constantly until I settle on something. The idea of a thesis is really cool, but it's difficult for me to make one, as I'm a perpetually indecisive person. I can literally spend two hours trying to decide upon what I'm going to eat at a given time.


Anyway, with all this in mind, I've basically scrapped all traces of objectivity from this thing. As a precursor to my final thesis(which will hopefully have more of the things that I stated above), I plan on focusing entirely on how language is interpreted digitally. I'm going to be using ASCII values for frequencies and a built-in text-to-speech synthesizer as a source for waveforms and envelopes, with the volume of the speech synth itself providing the envelope for the musical sound. I will be typing out the sounds in realtime, with an objective for performance being a conversation with the text itself. The text will be displayed on a projection, and my final presentation will either be a playback or a performance. I would really like to perform it for the class, but I think I might need to convince Rees about that. =D

Rough outline.

-Elevator Pitch: English language as method of electronic musical composition

-Precedents: Musique Concrete as originated by Pierre Schaeffer

-Process:

Timbre: Layer 1--waveforms based upon ASCII
Layer 2--Found Sounds literally representing word etymology

Pitch:etymologies placed into different categories representing specific notes; words averaged into single notes through sentences; final key determined by average etymological contexts

Tempo:Lengths of sentences

Note length: Number of syllables/length of words

Envelope/Velocity: Use of consonants, vowels

-Initial Prototype: transcript of paragraph into musical composition

Updates.

-Thesis Statement: alternate uses of text in electronic musical expression: How language itself can be converted into music

-consonants and vowels determine envelope, velocity
-syllable-count as note duration
-http://www.ubu.com/papers/bessa01.html Ubuweb: In Search of the Originative Poetics of Concrete Poetry
-http://www.johncage.info/workscage/worklist/ronsenmus.html Lists and descriptions of John Cage Compositions throughout his lifetime
-http://www.itcfonts.com/Ulc/2711/A.htm the origins of letterforms
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrophonic the method used to build the modern Roman alphabet and the NATO Phonetic Alphabet; symbols associated with words that have similar sounds

-http://www.etymonline.com/ Etymological dictionary with a respectable collection of printed sources
-The word sounds themselves could be collections of actual sounds based upon their etymolology layered over ASCII waveforms: a contrast between their digital representation and their non-digital origins

-Tempo determined by lengths of sentences; pitch of each sentence effected by the average of etymological contexts, pitch further effected by the average of etymological contexts in a paragraph--subject can be conceivably determined by listening for the sounds themselves

-synaesthesia method being done away with; too subjective and complicated

Never mind that last post.

Rough ideas I need to consider:

-verbal synaesthesia; user polling to get an average of what colors people associate with certain words
(I may either write an applet to gather data from users over the internet about this or manually poll--for the sake of prototyping I may go for the former simply to get a large-ish number of voters)

-color associations averaged, converted into RGB values and then into musical values

-grammar treated visually; Rhythm, repetition, variation; colors of words compared to the colors of their synonyms and antonyms; how will that corellate to timbre, pitch, etc.?

-observation of patterns of speech and conversational rhythm

-timbre; waveforms possibly generated from words(RGB values --->ADC values)?

-construction of grammar; linguistics research and analysis through programming(I have been working on a lyrics generator in my spare time, but haven't worked on it in a few weeks; I plan on continuing work right now in the hopes that the principles I accumulate from randomly generating grammatically-correct sentences will help in their analysis as well)

-for now, my choice of content will go out the window; I am focusing entirely upon language conversion into sound

Okay.

After discussion with Rees, I have decided to modify my thesis once again.
Although I am still fond of the subject matter of differing visions of the future throughout the 20th century, my idea was about as conceptually unwieldy as my MIDI surveillance was financially cumbersome.

However, I do plan to incorporate the single idea that has been consistent throughout my revisions: The programmatic conversion of one form of nonmusical information into another form of audial information.
In this case, the thesis focus is almost solely on this idea. I plan on writing a program that will analyze the subject matter of up to 5 documents and convert them into MIDI information that will be sent to an analogue synthesizer to be played while an oscilloscope displays the resultant waveforms and frequencies. Like my previous efforts, this will be a projection installation piece.

I have a possible conceptual framework for the whole thing, but I'm not sure if I should use it or not.

Through the use of scientific theses processed through the analog synthesizer(one of the basic tools of the sort of popular scientific aesthetic that we experience every day) I would like to make a statement regarding the popular aesthetic trappings of science and how they, in their generalities and archetypes basically further mystify the profession to the general public. Is it designed to increase the importance of science? Is it actually helping or harming the profession?

Before elaborating any further, I am planning on presenting these ideas to the class today--a conceptual user testing session, if you will--so I can try to actually start something without having to make two weeks of progress and then having to revise my concept all over again.

Hm.

FAQ.

1.What is your thesis Elevator Pitch?
An analogue reinterpretation of string theory in the vein of Wendy Carlos' famous reworkings of Bach masterpieces.
2.What are your personas?

-Phillipe:A 32-year-old Web-designer from New York, he is an analogue synthesis enthusiast that also enjoys the early conceptual artworks of Vito Acconci and Nam June Paik. Although he doesn't find science particularly interesting, he goes to the gallery in the interest of seeing somebody else espouse their love of the synthesizer through multimedia art. As such, he finds the kitschy trappings, sounds and setup of the exhibit fascinating(in addition to its juxtaposition with the idea of string theory), but isn't particularly curious about why string theory is juxtaposed with said 70s analogue kitsch. Furthermore, as a graphic designer, his interest is first and foremost invested in the aesthetics and composition of the piece itself.

-Sylvia:A 25-year-old graduate student from MIT studying to become a quantum physicist. Tipped off to the exhibit by her friends at the Media Lab, she presents the opposite case of Phillipe's: a scientist more interested in its scientific content than its synthesis content. Although she finds the allusions to 70s science programs interesting and the idea of speech synthesizers superimposed over the voices of well-known physicists hilarious, she is nonplussed by the synthesizer language conversion of the theory treatise itself. She'd much rather listen to some Irish Traditional Music.

-Jean-Michel:A 59-year-old synthesizer musician from France known the world over. He was told about "Switched-on Everything" through his American manager during a visit to New York. He replies with a short, punctuated "Ha!" at the idea of it, and then plainly says that he hates the idea. He's lived through it already, and he'd much rather return to his green laser instruments and laptops.

3.What is your production schedule?
Because I really don't work very well with a very specific schedule, I plan to have three phases:
1.Spring 2007-mid-Summer 2007: Research and Conceptual Refinement
At this point, I will not only be refining the idea itself but also researching String Theory and the history of analog synthesis. I will be developing the synthesizer language itself based upon the aural aesthetics of 1970s electronic music while looking into methods of programming said converter(At the moment, I've settled on Processing and its proMIDI library). I'll most likely be beginning development of the program itself. I will also be following the organisational methods put forth by the Prototyping class.
2.Mid-Summer 2007-Fall 2007: Development
By Mid-summer, I plan to go full-speed in terms of creating the project itself. I will be compiling and editing interview footage, dubbing the interviewees with synthesized voices, finishing the conversion program and gathering materials for the final presentation.
3.Fall 2007-Spring 2008:Administration
By the end of Fall 2007, I plan on fine-tuning the developed project while also negotiating with the school regarding the use of television sets, speakers and space. I will also be preparing final explanatory documents.

4.What's the Point?
My "point" is two-fold:
1.In juxtaposing the ideas and aesthetics of analog electronics with the ideas of String Theory(particularly the ideas behind the First and Second Superstring Revolutions, in which String Theory was being interpreted as a possible "theory of everything"), I plan on juxtaposing two contrasting yet equally nebulous views of the future: The "certain", utopian future of modernism versus the "uncertain", dystopian future of postmodernism.

2.I would like to explore the sonic possibilities of language. How can I make a language as succinct as Morse code yet with a larger sonic vocabulary? How would a composition sound if there was verbal meaning controlling every single waveform in place of an arbitrary note?

5.First-Stage Prototype
My first stage prototype is basically going to be a sentence converted into my tentative analog synth language manually-constructed using Pro-Tools. I also plan on beginning to program MIDI using Processing.