Prerna Singh

Further work

Sound of Colour

Audio experience design

Year
2024
Place
London
Context
Group project, Audio Experience Design elective, Royal College of Art and Imperial College London
Role
Sound direction, synthesis
XY
colour positions tracked in TouchDesigner
3 voices
built in MaxMSP: red, green and blue

A picture you can play.

01The picture

A webcam reads where red, green and blue sit in a cut-paper picture and sends their positions to synthesisers built in MaxMSP. Move the paper and the music moves.

Cut-paper artwork in blue, red, orange and green on a black ground
Turn the sound on, then move across the picture. Red is bass, green opens the filter, blue pans.
The artwork the system reads. Cut paper on black. The sound here is a browser sketch of the mapping; the installation ran in TouchDesigner and MaxMSP.

02Three colours, three jobs

Red is the anchor: a repeating low bass line with delay and reverb, meant to be felt as much as heard.

Green is the instrument: moving it changes the filter on an acid-style synth.

Blue is space: it pans the whole field around a listener standing in the sweet spot.

03How it is wired

Diagram of the installation: two speakers, a laptop, a webcam, the artwork and the listener
Setup. Two speakers, webcam, laptop, listener in the sweet spot.
Diagram of the signal path from TouchDesigner through OSC to MaxMSP and three sound outputs
Signal path. TouchDesigner tracks colour position and sends it by OSC to MaxMSP.
Screenshot of a node network in TouchDesigner
TouchDesigner network.
Screenshot of a MaxMSP patch
MaxMSP patch.

04In the room

Filmed while it ran. Turn the sound on.

A face made from the cut-outs.
Moving green across the board.
In the room. Webcam on a tripod above the board.