Black Ball (2017)

Live electronic performance, Physical computing, Audio recording, Video

 

The Black Ball symbolizes a recurring childhood dream that presented itself when feverish. The dream entails a massive black sphere that drifts slowly but persistently towards, with voices on the peripheries in mundane conversation but overbearingly amplified.

 

Inspired by this, the project deals with grief, vulnerability and overwhelm mixed with confusion, fear and frustration. Feeling incompetent and in the dark. Lacking control, trying to command something that is not understood.

 

The performance combines recorded sound fed through a sequencer written in Pure Data Vanilla and then manipulated by movement using accelerometer data captured by an Arduino Uno attached to a designed prop, the black ball.

 

The sounds are of effort and failed attempts during the making of. Whisperings of coding error messages, stressed out phone calls and a botched first go at making the ball. Field recording samples are also used, the results of the chime of a city clock, light theremins and happy accidents. 

 

Avoiding an electronic sound performance staged behind a laptop, the object was designed to be an extension of the body. Something that still required human expression and displayed a visual connection between the program and the sound. Forging a mutual relationship between body and object as the controller. 

 

To convey the metaphorical weight of anguish and overwhelm the object was designed awkward to hold, projecting feelings of discomfort with clunky untrained movements. 

 

The performance previewed at The Late Shows 2017 at Culture Lab - Newcastle University.