Extreme and scattering bright
Oct. 25th, 2007 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pallas_athenaWhile in York yesterday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
velvetdahlia, speedlime and I noticed some amazing colourful projections on the facade of York Minster. Hell, even the test patterns looked cool... but later the entire thing blossomed into a psychedelic glory of moving colours.
So I got chatting to the guys setting it up, and it turns out it's an interactive art installation by Usman Haque. "Interactive??" I said, intrigued. They explained that they have four microphones suspended from nearby trees to pick up sounds from the crowd, and the projected patterns of light will respond to those.
Obviously the next question was "So what happens if I sing?"
The mikes weren't connected yet, but they let me sing into the little Mac laptop they were running it from. I sang a few phrases of plainchant, and watched the falling rainbow-coloured drops of light grow into bright slow-moving rivers. I love stuff like this-- light, art, interactivity-- and the fact that this installation, with its newly written software, was projected on the centuries-old facade of York Minster just made it that much cooler.
The guys from the council invited me back to sing for the opening tonight with TV cameras and such, but the bus and train schedules didn't allow it, so I declined with some regret. Instead I'm blogging it, saying: If you're at all near York, this lovely installation runs from 26 October to 3 November, between 6pm and 11pm every night. Go, look, make sounds and marvel.
velvetdahlia, speedlime and I noticed some amazing colourful projections on the facade of York Minster. Hell, even the test patterns looked cool... but later the entire thing blossomed into a psychedelic glory of moving colours. So I got chatting to the guys setting it up, and it turns out it's an interactive art installation by Usman Haque. "Interactive??" I said, intrigued. They explained that they have four microphones suspended from nearby trees to pick up sounds from the crowd, and the projected patterns of light will respond to those.
Obviously the next question was "So what happens if I sing?"
The mikes weren't connected yet, but they let me sing into the little Mac laptop they were running it from. I sang a few phrases of plainchant, and watched the falling rainbow-coloured drops of light grow into bright slow-moving rivers. I love stuff like this-- light, art, interactivity-- and the fact that this installation, with its newly written software, was projected on the centuries-old facade of York Minster just made it that much cooler.
The guys from the council invited me back to sing for the opening tonight with TV cameras and such, but the bus and train schedules didn't allow it, so I declined with some regret. Instead I'm blogging it, saying: If you're at all near York, this lovely installation runs from 26 October to 3 November, between 6pm and 11pm every night. Go, look, make sounds and marvel.