As The Ring continues to evolve, reflecting on its development reveals opportunities to refine, expand, and elevate its impact as an immersive audio-visual installation. From overcoming technical challenges to exploring new creative dimensions and exhibiting in more suitable environments, the future of The Ring holds potential for key adjustments and growth. Below, I discuss key aspects of its ongoing transformation and how these align with its ambitions, including the possibility of showcasing the installation in a multi-channel format at events like Amoneus.

Troubleshooting and Technical Refinement

One of the persistent challenges during the installation’s journey has been technical reliability, particularly regarding its LED animation and control systems. Previous iterations revealed vulnerabilities in the hardware, such as microcontroller malfunctions, which impacted the intended immersive experience. For The Ring to reach its full potential, addressing these challenges is a priority.

Future iterations will benefit from proper testing protocols and improved design architectures. For example, implementing modular systems that allow for easy troubleshooting and replacement on-site will minimise downtime. Additionally, having backup hardware readily available can mitigate unforeseen failures during transportation or setup. Such refinements will ensure the installation operates seamlessly, allowing the creative vision to shine through without technical disruptions.

Expanding the Scope: New Audio-Visual Games

A key element of The Ring’s appeal is its ability to transform participants into performers, using their movements to shape soundscapes and visuals. Building on the foundation of the Entry Scene and Scale Game, I aim to develop a broader series of audio-visual games. These new games will enhance interactivity and expand the creative possibilities for participants.

One concept in development involves introducing percussive elements that respond to gestures, enabling participants to create dynamic, rhythm-based compositions. Additionally, integrating adaptive visuals that react to movement speed and proximity can deepen the connection between sound and light, resulting in a more immersive experience. These new games will challenge participants to explore not just the installation’s features, but also their own creativity and physical expression.

Extending the Sound Design

Sound design is central to the immersive experience of The Ring, and there is significant potential to make it even more sophisticated and diverse. Incorporating percussive elements is a natural next step, enabling participants to trigger beats or rhythmic patterns through specific gestures. The tactile quality of percussive sounds can enhance engagement, adding a visceral dimension to the installation.

Beyond percussion, expanding the range of MIDI CC parameters controlled by the gloves will provide more nuanced sonic manipulation. For instance, allowing participants to adjust reverb, delay, and distortion dynamically will give them greater creative agency. Pairing this with harmonic complexity, such as customisable scales and tonal palettes, will enrich the auditory experience, making it more versatile and expressive.

Finding the Right Environment

Exhibiting The Ring in environments that support its immersive qualities is crucial. While previous showcases in club settings offered energy and spontaneity, the chaotic soundscape and limited control over space created challenges for both the installation and the audience experience. Moving forward, The Ring would thrive in venues that allow for a more focused interaction, such as gallery spaces or dedicated areas within larger events.

Gallery spaces offer controlled acoustics and lighting, enabling the intricate details of The Ring to be fully appreciated. If presented at high-energy events, having a dedicated, quieter area would allow participants to engage with the installation without external distractions. By carefully selecting exhibition environments, The Ring can deliver its intended impact more effectively.

Taking The Ring to Multi-Channel Formats

One of the most exciting opportunities lies in showcasing The Ring in a multi-channel audio setup, where sound can move spatially around the audience for a fully immersive experience. Multi-channel formats elevate the auditory dimension, creating a 360-degree sound field that interacts with the visual elements in real time.

Platforms like Amoneus provide an ideal stage for this next phase. Known for its focus on innovative and immersive installations, Amoneus fosters a space for cutting-edge art to thrive. Submitting The Ring to such platforms opens the possibility of exhibiting it in a format that aligns with its ambitious goals. A multi-channel setup would allow participants to experience sound and light in an entirely new way, enveloping them in a dynamic interplay of movement, sound, and visuals.

1. Experimentation: Trying New Things

One of the core goals of this iteration of The Ring was to integrate new features, particularly synchronizing LED animations with the sonic elements. This was an ambitious addition that aimed to enhance the audience’s immersive experience, creating a seamless connection between sound and visuals. However, as with any new feature, it came with significant technical challenges. The animation relied on a network of microcontrollers to drive the LED strips, a system I had never tested under the constraints of a live club environment.

2. Technical Malfunctions and a Cyberpunk Rescue

The day of the exhibition turned into a chaotic rush to fix critical failures. Several microcontrollers burned out during last-minute adjustments to the power supply. This forced me to drastically scale down the visual aspect of the installation, reducing it to only eight LED strips. On top of that, during transportation, the remaining microcontroller responsible for the animations was damaged, rendering the visuals almost entirely dysfunctional.

In a dramatic turn, a friend saved the day by delivering spare Teensy boards I had ordered as a contingency. His arrival at the club on a bike, handing over the parts while I wore a gimp mask as part of my costume, attracted the attention of the club’s security. The situation, as surreal as it was stressful, felt like something out of a cyberpunk novel. After explaining that the “suspicious” bag contained microchips, we were allowed through. Despite our efforts, the animations remained glitchy and erratic throughout the night. The sound elements, however, worked beautifully, salvaging the overall performance.

3. Budget Constraints

The exhibition proved to be an expensive endeavor. The cost of replacing burned microcontrollers and purchasing spare components quickly added up to hundreds of pounds. Budget overruns due to technical malfunctions underscored the importance of contingency planning and financial flexibility when working with complex installations.

4. Navigating the Stressful Club Environment

Electrowerkz, with its multi-floor layout and pulsing energy, was an exhilarating but challenging venue. The sheer volume of attendees made it nearly impossible to track the order of audio and video recordings during the event. The constant movement of people added a layer of unpredictability to the interaction with the installation. While the chaotic environment suited the experimental nature of The Ring, it also highlighted the difficulty of maintaining control over the documentation process.

5. Overemphasis on Technical Aspects

In hindsight, I recognize that I placed too much focus on the technical and visual components of the installation, to the detriment of the sonic elements. While the soundscapes and interactive scales worked well, they didn’t receive the same level of attention during development, which might have enhanced the overall experience. Striking a balance between the auditory and visual aspects is a key takeaway for future iterations.

6. The Impact of Deadlines

The tight deadline compounded the stress of preparing The Ring. Late nights and last-minute fixes led to technical oversights, such as the power supply issues that caused microcontroller failures. The pressure of time emphasized the importance of thorough testing and preparation well ahead of an event.

7. Loudness Interference

As mentioned in a previous blog post, the loud club environment created a significant challenge for the installation. Despite being placed in a chill-out area, sound from a nearby speaker interfered with the experience. Wireless headphones helped mitigate this issue, but it was a far cry from the intended multichannel audio setup.

The chapter “The Body as Musical Instrument” explores the concept of the human body serving as an integral musical instrument through embodied interaction, gesture, and physiological engagement. This framework synthesizes phenomenology, body theory, and human-computer interaction, examining the physical and technological extensions of the human form in musical performance.

Body and Gesture in Musical Contexts

The body’s involvement in music extends beyond tactile manipulation of instruments to a profound interplay between physicality, sound, and space. For example, brass instruments engage the player in a feedback loop, where acoustic resistance informs and adapts the performer’s physiological response, creating an interactive system of sound production and embodiment (p. 2). This phenomenon is tied closely to proprioception, the body’s innate sense of position and movement. Proprioception bridges conscious and unconscious motor control, allowing musicians to refine gestures and adapt their performance dynamically, as seen in how instrumentalists use diaphragmatic control to modulate tone or avoid injury (pp. 3–4).

The concept of body schemata, as discussed by Merleau-Ponty, highlights how the body integrates tools and instruments into its sensory and motor systems. For instance, the example of an organist illustrates how performers do not rely on the objective positions of pedals or stops but incorporate these elements into their extended proprioceptive field, creating a seamless interaction between body and instrument (p. 5). Musicians thus engage instruments affectively, using gestures that are intrinsically tied to their expressive intent, rather than merely mechanical actions (p. 6). The concept of Body schemata with involvement of digital technology, as I understood it, can be explicitly spotted in the video below.

Embodied Interaction and Technological Extensions

Technological advancements have amplified the role of gesture and the body in music, creating opportunities for innovative embodied interactions. Biosensors, such as EMG (electromyogram) and EEG (electroencephalogram), detect physiological signals directly from the body, transforming muscle movements or brain activity into musical control inputs. These devices exemplify the transformation of the body into a musical medium, a development highlighted by early gestural electronic instruments like the Theremin (pp. 7–9). I found particularly interesting the note about posthuman hybridisation of the body with technology. These advancements align with Donna Haraway’s concept of the cyborg, where human and machine interact to form hybrid entities, expanding the expressive potential of the human body beyond traditional boundaries (p. 6).

Paul Dourish’s perspective on embodied interaction further situates these developments, emphasizing that interfaces should not merely represent physical interaction but actively become mediums of interaction (p. 8). In this context, technologies like biosensors and motion capture systems enable performers to seamlessly integrate their physiological and gestural inputs into musical creation, fostering more profound connections between body, instrument, and sound.

Gestural and Physiological Performance Practices

Recent works demonstrate the evolving interplay between body and technology. Atau Tanaka’s Kagami (1991) transformed muscle tension, detected via EMG signals, into MIDI data to control digital sound, establishing a direct and intuitive connection between gesture and sonic output (p. 13). Marco Donnarumma’s Ominous (2013) extended this approach, using mechanomyogram signals to create interactive soundscapes shaped by whole-body gestures, effectively molding sound like a sculptural material in space (p. 14). These examples emphasize the transition from static instrument manipulation to adaptive systems where performer and instrument co-evolve (pp. 16–17).

These practices challenge traditional control paradigms by fostering adaptive configurations in which the instrument responds dynamically to the performer’s physiological and gestural inputs. For instance, in Ominous, the interplay between the performer’s muscular activity and the neural networks driving the instrument illustrates a symbiotic relationship, blurring the boundaries between human control and technological agency (p. 16).

The integration of gesture, body, and technology redefines the concept of musical instruments, positioning the human body as a central, adaptable, and dynamic component in sound creation. Through physiological processes and technological extensions, performers achieve novel interactions with space, sound, and audience. As this chapter demonstrates, the body as a musical instrument not only adapts to evolving technologies but also transforms them, extending the boundaries of human expression in music (pp. 17–18).

This synthesis of embodied interaction, gesture, and physiological integration creates emergent musical forms, aligning with the posthuman notion of hybridized entities that merge physical and digital realms in artistic practices (p. 18).

Atau Tanaka has been a significant inspiration for my practice, particularly as I reflect on the similarities and differences between our approaches, especially in relation to The Ring. While we both explore the concept of the human body as a musical instrument, our perspectives diverge. Tanaka primarily focuses on internal aspects, such as muscle tension and physiological signals, whereas my work emphasizes external bodily movements. Additionally, The Ring seeks to extend this exploration by engaging the audience, aiming to dissolve another layer of duality—not only between body and sound performance but also between the audience and the art piece itself.

Bibliography:

Tanaka, A. and Donnarumma, M., 2018. The Body as Musical Instrument. In Y. Kim and S. Gilman (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Music and the Body. [online] Oxford University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190636234.013.2 [Accessed 27 Nov. 2024]

At this stage of the installation’s development, I have created two distinct “sonic situations” that are integral to the experience: the Entry Scene (also known as the Entry AV Game) and the Scales (or Scale Game).

The Entry Scene: Adjustments and Execution

The Entry Scene was initially designed to create visual and auditory transition for participants as they stepped into the circle. My original concept was to have 16 LED strips progressively light up from left and right to the middle in the front, converging to form a complete ring that encloses the participant. However, due to a severe hardware malfunction the day before the exhibition, I had to scale back the animation to utilise only 8 LED strips. Despite this limitation, the adjustment preserved the core concept of creating an engaging and immersive entry point for the installation.

The sonic aspect of the Entry Scene complements the visual elements by employing rhythmic drum steps that align with the LED animation. As the LED strips transition step by step from white to red, the accompanying drum sounds build intensity, shrinking visually and aurally into a thin ring of light. The drum sound itself is a processed sample, crafted from a recording of a rusty metal tank in my basement. The raw, industrial quality of the sample adds a tactile and somewhat primal atmosphere to the scene, reinforcing the visceral nature of the installation’s aesthetic.

The initial 2×8-step Entry Scene featured a distinct spatial imaging compared to the final 8-step version. In the original setup, 8 drum steps moved to the left and right, converging in the center at a distance from the listener. Reverb was applied to enhance the perception of depth, while panning emphasized the directional movement, creating a more immersive spatial experience.

The final 8-step Entry Scene progresses from left to right, featuring a different panning approach. The reverb, used to convey a sense of distance, is also applied differently, resulting in a distinct spatial perception compared to the original version.

A few seconds after the Entry Scene, The Scale AV Game begins. Each glove is programmed to control a different musical scale—G Minor for the left glove and D Major for the right. The tilt of the left glove also controls a MIDI CC parameter. Currently, only one parameter is implemented to keep the setup simple, but I plan to expand this functionality by adding more MIDI CC parameters to control additional effects in future iterations.

I’ve chosen a simple Saw64 wave in Operator, with a touch of reverb and delay. When the left hand is tilted, the pitch of the note shifts by up to 100 cents, creating a “pulling” or “tuning string” effect in the sound.