Akiko Hatakeyama

Performance at sonic.focus.3.5, September 23, 2014

     

I’ve never told my mom that I love her.  Most people don’t do that in the culture I grew up with, but we know...  Words are not the only way to communicate.  The image of my mom plays music with me through the moving image on the TV.

This is a live interactive piece that utilizes the instrument “afterglow - ざんぞう” that I built. It receives luminance differences on light sensors. The 27 photocells of the instrument distributed onto the screen of a CRT television react to various light intensities emitted from the screen. In I love you mom, the values that those sensors received from the TV screen control the gain of each audio file in a Max/MSP patch. There are 27 audio files, which are the various notes on piano that I recorded.  Thus, the video on the screen takes a significant role to conduct/compose music by its image. When photocells receive brighter light from the image on the TV screen, they send a higher value to each of the output levels of the sound files on the Max/MSP patch. When parts of, or the whole screen is completely dark, the levels are minimum.  I play this instrument by adjusting the parameter knobs on the TV to manipulate the image on the screen. The video is from a performance in May 2012.