Alex J's Audio Self Portrait

(((sorry for the extra stuff at the beginning of the video, I had a lot of trouble trying to edit my video and make it 'cleaner' so I aplogoize, this is the best I could do)))

Hey all!

So for my audio self portrait, I decided on a compass as my object, because it really represents several things about me very well. The whole archetypal concept of 'finding' oneself, and discovering a sense of self can be closely tied to a compass and the search it represents. I decided to go with an antique, worn aesthetic to try and emulate the would-be adventurers of old, who would boldy charter strange new terrain or continents. My love of travel draws many parallels with this exploration (as travel is exploration, in and of itself). I decided to connect sounds to certain directions, marking different events or happenings in my life that I feel reflect parts of me, or my experience.

The audio samples include:
-found audio of me filming my dad playing a hockey game
-2 rock concerts I went to and filmed (rise against and chris cornell, for anyone who was curious :P)
- sounds of my dog barking/howling playfully (he sounds sad, I know! But trust me he isn't)
- a simple audio track created in garage band... I was trying to recreate my love of nature and the sublime (looking out from a cliff at a mountain range is just breath taking and surreal) so I used a lot of synth pads and echos.
- wind chimes, to communicate my love of outdoors and peace
- a make-it-up-as-I-go piano piece, made to communicate how as I go through life, I kind of 'make it up as I go along'. I never have some big great plan, I just see what works out and run with it.


I decided to make it using a potentiometer, with an arduino sketch uploaded to an arduino microcontroller that would facilitate the input of an analog device (the potentiometer) and subsequent communication with my laptop. I had a processing sketch running as well, that mapped the incoming potentiometer data to 7 integers. Using this mapped variable, the processing sketch was built to select different audio files and play them.

This is what the 'inner workings' looked like:


And here is my 'brainstorming' and planning page from my notebook: