Coding, Sounds and Colors

On the poetics of artistic suicide

I have not updated this blog in several months now: various reasons, some more personal than others, have taken a role in this. I felt though the strong need to write again here.
No, I won’t show any code this time. Simply because there is no algorithm for the kind of artistic pieces I want to point your attention to.
Rather, I want to talk about what I consider one of the greatest performance acts of recent years. Italian street artist Blu has recently erased all the murals he had created in his very own city of Bologna during the last twenty years. The manifesto and the words explaining the reasons behind this decision have been left to Wu Ming, a collective of writers active since the mid ’90s.
You can read everything here. (There is an english translation as well.)
In an impressive act of artistic suicide, at the same time creative and destructive, aesthetic and poetic, Blu has reminded us that art has still the power to challenge and raise questions concerning urbanism, commonalities, public spaces, recuperation, power.
By subtracting those walls to a since too long ongoing process of cultural and economic reappropriation by a repressive establishment, he has left big “grayboards” for all to take part in the everyday struggle for freedom. The brush is in our hands, and it’s leaking.
These phenomena of reappropriation are not particular to street art.
“Coding”, the topic of this blog, is nowadays a buzzword everyone wants to pronounce. A piece of cake shot with low depth of field and Instagram filter everyone wants to taste. The latest golden egg chicken, or whatever. With various blogs and online magazines feeding you the latest technological wonders and the new emergent trends in this or that artistic field, where has the sense of exploration gone? How can we bring it back, and make it challenging once again, freeing it from the multiple petty boxes the corporate machine wants us to frame it?
Can we bring digital art “in the streets”, or will it always be confined to our smart and self-reassuring conventions and gatherings?

After a few hours from its repainting, the following writings have appeared on one of the gray walls left

“La felicità che mi era sempre stata negata.
Avevo il diritto di viverla quella felicità.
Non me l’avete concesso.
Allora peggio per me, peggio per voi, peggio per tutti.
Rimpianti si, ma in ogni caso nessun rimorso.”

For a little while, we had a glimpse of a Blu sky.

openFrameworks: a primer

Since a couple of weeks I have been looking at openFrameworks, an amazing C++ toolkit, which is used to do amazing things. Until now, I have only showed code in Processing (basically Java), and SuperCollider: C++ is a beast in its own, though, and in future posts I will try to talk about pointers, memory allocation, the way classes are defined, etc. For now, I’ll just briefly explain the main idea around this simple project. Basically, the webcam is taking frames, converting them into textures, which are then mapped on meshes, which are then deformed, etc. to get very interesting shapes, colors, etc. You are not seeing any change in the frame grabbed simply because I am not in the video, and the camera is fixed :).
Here it is what you get

You can download the source code here. (You will need to put the texture .png file in a bin/data/texture folder).
In the following posts I will try to talk about more basic examples using the techniques in the project above.

The Molecular Music Box in SuperCollider

Via Reaktor tutorials I came across this video. I have already talked about generative systems that create rich patterns (see here, and here), and how simple rules can give rise to emergent complexity.
Watch the video to know what the simple rules are in this case (and to see why it is called “molecular” ), or look at the following SuperCollider code, which, I must say, took me a bit more than I thought

Notice that you can very easily change any of the rules (duration length, scale used, etc.) with a few keyboard strokes: the power of a text based programming language!
I have sent the output of this to the Grand Piano instrument in Ableton Live 9.
Here is the result for 4C3

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and here is the one for 9C14½

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Objects manipulation in SuperCollider and Synths generation

In the last post, I wrote about some object oriented techniques in Processing which simplyfied our code, and gave the possibilty to reason more abstractly. Also SuperCollider is an object oriented programming language, and in this little example below I want to explore a situation where we can really take advantage of this: it somehow belongs to the category of “things one (or I?) can’t really do in Max/Msp, Reaktor, etc.”.
Here’s the simple situation: suppose we want to create 100 different percussive sounds with FM synthesis, with random waveforms as carrier, random harmonics for the modulating signal, etc., and play them randomly. We don’t want to change the sounds later, just play them. So, the first strategy we could adopt is the dirty and cheap no-brainer approach, which works along the following lines: well, what I will do is to create a SynthDef, i.e. an audio graph on the server, which is “big” enough to encompass the various possibilities of sounds, store the various randomly created combinations of waveforms, frequencies, etc. in an array, and poll these data when needed. The SynthDef would look like

Setting the parameter waveform will choose among the waveforms, freq will determine the frequency, etc. A big array (or dictionary, if you prefer) with randomly generated values, and I’m done!
Well, yeah, this approach will work, but it’s quite ugly, and, more importantly, inefficient: indeed, for each Synth created, a copy is kept of the two waveforms, only one of which is heard. So, for each percussion sound, we allocate twice what we need. Remember that there is a difference between not having a sound generator on the audio server, and having one which is muted, since in the second case, the sample rate computations are performed anyways.
Let’s think about this situation from a different angle, which makes more use of the language capabilities of SuperCollider. What we really need are different percussion sounds: they are different enough to be considered not as different instances of the same SynthDefs, but rather as instances of different SynthDefs. Instead of having SuperCollider creating different Synth instances, we can tell it to create different SynthDefs! Indeed, consider the following code (assuming a given choice for the range of the parameters)

First, we are defining names with which we can refer to the SynthDef: this is easily done, since a name for a Synth is a string (or a symbol), and we can obtain each of them by concatenating a string (in this case “perc”) with the counter index. Next, we define different SynthDefs: the beautiful thing that makes this work in a nice way is contained in the part

Remember: SuperCollider is object oriented, and in most cases, even if we don’t think about it, we are dealing with objects. Indeed, when we write something like SinOsc.ar(440), we are actually creating an object of type SinOsc, and sending to it the value 440 via the method .ar (which stands for “audio rate”), which provides the necessary computations to produce audio on scsynth, the audio server. Since SinOsc, Saw, etc are an “extension” of the class UGen (more or less), we can make a list (or Collection) with objects of this type, and use the powerful collection manipulation methods provided by SuperCollider (in this case the method .choose). Since both SinOsc and Saw react in the same way to the method .ar (this is an example of “polymorphism”), we can have it follow the method .choose, and pass everything in the round brackets. In this way the SynthDef itself will only have one copy of the choosen waveform per name.
This way of reasoning might look a bit abstract at the beginning, but it’s based on a simple concept: everything that require repetitive actions is best left to a programming language! Moreover, since SuperCollider is heavily object oriented, it gives really serious manipulations possibilities, as we have seen. We used already an incarnation of this concept when we built graphical interfaces.
Finally, the percussive sounds can be played via something like this

Here’s the complete code

I have added some reverb and delay to taste.
Notice that this code illustrate only the tip of the iceberg concerning what you can achieve with an object oriented approach to structure your code.
No audio this time, since it is not that interesting.

Colliding particles and the power of abstraction

This code is a nice playground for some advanced aspects of Object Oriented Programming (OOP): it is simple enough to be interesting, and show the power and elegance of a more abstract approach to programming. What does the code do? It generates a number of bouncing particles which disappear when colliding with each other. Pretty simple. Now, in general, when you have to test a condition for an object against the totality of objects present, you may run soon in annoying cycles which can obscure the code itself, making it less readable, and which would be best avoided. To do this, I need to introduce one easy, but extremely important observation on how function in Processing (and Java, and many other languages) work: “Objects to a function are passed by reference“. Remember this, write it somewhere, do whatever but don’t forget it. “Oookay”, you say, “but, what does “passed by reference” even mean? What’s a “reference”?”. In OOP, objects are instantiated as initialized references, which means the following: suppose we have a class Ball (with empty constructor), and the following piece of code

In plain English, the code above says: create a label p which labels an object of type Ball, then create an object of type Ball, and attach to it the label p. In other words, p is *not* the object*, but it is just a label “referencing” the actual Ball object. Indeed, if we add the following piece of code

we are asking to create a new label q, referencing to the same object p is referencing. Now, as soon as we modify the actual object which is referenced, these modifications will reflect on the behaviour of p and q. For instance, suppose that the class Ball has a field a, of type integer, which is initialized to 10. Then the following code

will return 10, and then 15. In other words, changing p has changed *also* q, and the reason is that we are really not changing p, but rather the object p references to. A bit confusing, right? Neverthless I bet you have seen this behaviour before, if you have ever used (and who hasn’t) arrays.
Indeed, this piece of code would give the same results;

Okay, we are ready to talk about “passing by reference”**. Suppose you have a function

and suppose we evaluate it on p, as in f(p). What happens is that b becomes a reference to the object referenced by p (as in b = p). So, if you modify b inside the scope of f, then you are really modifying the referenced object, and hence also p. Of course, the same is true for arrays, so be careful with what you do inside the scope of a function, when arrays are involved.
Supposing this is more or less, clear, the question remains: why caring about this for some stupid balls? Well, this simple observation allows to define something like this

Wait, what’s going on here? Am I defining a class Ball in which one of its fields is an array of objects of type… Ball?! Like, isn’t there gonna be a nasty recursion type of end of the universe OMG!!
Calm down, nothing’s bad gonna happen. And the reason lies in the simple observations above: objects variable (and arrays) are defined as reference, and they need to be initialized. In the case above, we are asking for a label balls which is a reference to an array of type Ball: at this point we are *not* calling the constructor Ball( ). When it will be called, though, the array balls will reference to the same array referenced by the label (or variable) _balls. Here we are using that objects are passed to functions by reference (the constructor, in this case). Nice, uh?
Notice that, on the other hand, this piece of code

will give a nasty recursion, since we are indeed calling the constructor inside itself.
Ok, still, what do we do with this?

Here’s the Processing code

Let’s look at the Particle class. Among other fields, we have others, an ArrayList of type Particle, which refers to the ArrayList _others passed to the constructor. The variable others is used in the method collide, which tests the distance between the instantiated object and all the particles in the list others, and returns the value true if a collision happens (the condition dist(x, y, p.x, p.y) > 0.0 ensures no self-collision). Also, notice the “enhanced” for loop, which is pretty elegant.
Now, the magic appears in the main code, namely in

partls = new ArrayList();

for (int i = 0; i < num; i++){ partls.add(new Particle(random(0, width), random(0, height), partls)); } The first line initializes the variable partls as an (empty) ArrayList of type Particle. In the for loop, we add to partls some objects of type Particle by passing to the constructor the required fields: x, y, and others. Since objects are passed by reference to the constructor, this means that, at the end of the for loop, for each object instance of Particle the field others will reference to the same ArrayList referenced by partls, which, by construction, is an ArrayList in which each element is exactly the object Particle created in the for loop. The reference partls gets modified at each iteration of the cycle, and since we are passing it by reference, this modification will reflect also on the variable others. Pretty cool, uh? This is quite a convenient way to manage collisions. Indeed, in the draw() function we have first the usual (enhanced) for loop which updates, and displays the particles. Then we check for collisions: if the particle collides with any other particle, we add it to a remove list. We need to do this, instead of removing it on the spot, because otherwise only one of the two particles involved in a collision would get removed. Finally, we have another for loop, in order to dispose of the colliding particles. Everything is pretty elegant and compact, and most importantly, the code is more readable this way!
No video this time, since it’s pretty visually uninteresting.

*Not 100% true, but pretty close.
**There exists also the notion of “passing by value”.

Polygonal Camera

It has been a while since my last update, and in particular since my last Processing code! So, here’s something very simple. Basically, it’s a grid of points connected by lines, which form the edges of polygons. The points move almost periodically: each of them undergoes an oscillatory motion, to which I’ve added a bit of noise, to make things more interesting. The polygons, which during the motion change their shape as the vertices move, are colored. Here comes the nice part: the color of a single polygon is given by taking at its geometric center the color of the pixel of the image obtained by capturing a frame via the webcam. In this way, the colors are “smeared”, but you can still somehow discern the webcam input. Here’s the code.

Warning: Kids, don’t code the way I do! In this case I was particularly lazy: indeed, a more elegant way to do it would have been to create another class, say Grid, and hide there the polygon making, etc. The code would have been more readable and reusable, that way. But as I said, lazyness.

Here’s a little video of what you get

(If it doesn’t work, you can download or stream this )

Drones, drones, drones

Who doesn’t like ambient drones? Ok, I guess some people might not like them.
Here’s a little code in SuperCollider to generate a kind of feedbacky ambient atmosphere. It does look involved, but it isn’t. The main thing is using Wavetable synthesis : what the method .sine1Msg does is to fill the buffer b with a sinewave (of 512 sample “period”), and its harmonics, whose number and amplitudes are specified in the array parameter of the method. Then we can “play” the wavetable with Osc.ar, which is a wavetable oscillator. Moreover, for added noisyness and ambience, I have added a bitcrusher with randomly varying samplerate and bit depth, and also a sample player playing the buffer c, which is not too loud, and just contributes to textures. You could modify it easily to load multiple samples, and choose between them. The last part involves a nice trick I learned here : basically, you stack a certain number of short time delays, and use a feedback line to simulate a reverberation effect. In particular, if the feedback parameter is 1, you get an “infinite reverb”. Very cool. Be careful not to keep feeding input in this situation, otherwise you will get the usual feedback headache! 😀

You can listen to the result here

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Tides on the Sea of Tranquillity

A quick post, since it is a while I’m not updating this.
Here’s a short track, “Tides on the Sea of Tranquillity”, built around one of my favourite UGens in SuperCollider: GrainBuf. GrainBuf is a buffer granulizer which is very flexible.
The idea for the track is quite simple: there are four granulizers, which get activated at a certain point, whose parameters are controlled by the loops in the Task. In particular, the position parameter for each of them is “lagged”, so that at each change it will start from the middle of the buffer, and reach the new value in a given time. Also, the spread, pitch, and pan are jittered, to give a spacey feeling. The other important part is that the rate for the grains are controlled via the .midiratio method, which allows to vary the pitch according to a temperate scale, hence giving some harmonic consistency. To end, everything is passed to a feedback delay line with a simple compressor.
One technical point: make sure you load buffers which are mono in GrainBuf, otherwise it will fail silently! Some times ago it took me ages to figure this out (I know, the documentation says so…).
Enjoy. 😉

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A sequenced fx machine

Ever wondered how to make a sequenced fx machine, where the effects cut each other out (like dbGlitch, say)? Here’s a very simple example

which uses the Ugen Select.ar, which functions as a “one-to-many” audio switch*. The delay part works as a simple beat repeater, and the other effect is a bit-crusher. After instantiating an audio bus, you can then delegate the sequencing to a Pmono

Whatever you send to ~rep will be processed by the fx SynthDef (be careful with the order of execution, or use Group to be on the safe side). If you have already SynthDefs for the single effects you would like to use, it is more convenient to send the audio to single busses, and then add a SynthDef at the tail of the synth chain containing a Select.ar Ugen which will choose among the different effects. You will have to run additional Pmonos to control the various parameters, though.
Notice that this approach to sequenced fx machines is quite expensive, since the various effects will run constantly on the server.
Anyway, in this simple case it sounds like

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*You can use a similar approach in Max/Msp, Reaktor, etc.

First L!vE K@ding session!

As promised, here’s my first live coding screencast! The video unfortunately turned out to be not very good: ffmpeg on Linux failed me miserably. I thought it was worth sharing anyways, so, here it is. 😉
Some comments: I have used some SynthDefs that I have already prepared and some samples that I have loaded beforehand. This is achieved by the tabs “initialize” and “synths” that you see in the video. This is not a “blank page” approach to live coding, but it’s what I have realized works for me, since I am more interested in improvising patterns than the actual sound synthesis (which I also did in this session, by the way). In particular, one of the SynthDefs which I am really liking is \looper, a custom made looper which allows me to capture audio from other synths and control its parameters to get nice glitchy patterns. I’m really liking it. On the other end, \pad_fm is a very simple pad with fm modulation. Of course, if anybody is interested in these SynthDefs I will certainly share.
Oh, also almost everything happens in ProxySpace.
Enjoy 😉