I first traveled to Cambodia in August of 2004 with faith-based organization Asian Access to meet people, listen to their stories, and document the landscape of this vibrant kingdom. We returned again in 2007 and were impressed by changes occurring all around the capital city of Phnom Penh—new construction, a higher ratio of cars to motorbikes, and newly paved roads to smooth the way for them. Today, as the Khmer Rouge war tribunals proceed, Cambodia seems to be reconciling with its past in the midst of a phase of growth and stability.

Since the last trip, I’ve been meaning to do a project that draws from the archive of video collected along our way as part of an ongoing series of meditations inspired by countries of Asia. My summer class, Live Image Processing and Performance, was just the occasion for this. Applying techniques introduced to us using Max/MSP and Jitter, Phnom Penh Drift explores the topography of Cambodia in fragments of color and light.

The composition is visually structured by an act of wandering beneath a variety of materials stretched over the peripheral corridors of Phnom Penh’s Central Market, Psah Thmei. Fabric, umbrellas, and tarpaulin are the patchwork through which different scenes appear. The direction and speed of this video are determined by cursor movement along the horizontal axis while the vertical axis controls brightness. Finally, sound is generated from scans of the video image processed through a series of oscillators.

As my first full project using Jitter, Phnom Penh Drift allowed me to retrace the threads of a familiar theme in a language that opens up lots of new possibilities. I’m grateful to Luke DuBois for the instruction and offer the Max patch for others to download here.

The project incorporates a GPS module, the coordinates of which are passed through an Arduino microcontroller into Pure Data on my laptop. The Pd program is written to trigger sound according to what neighborhood the train is passing through—a sonic demarcation of civic boundaries that seeks not so much to represent the diverse neighborhoods of Queens as to highlight the transitions between them. For this iteration, I’ve employed a USB speaker to project chords of pure tones into the public space of a train car.

To invite passengers into the experience, we also distributed flyers with a brief statement in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean. This helped to provide a context for the work and allay concerns about the nature of our activity. (Cooperation with the MTA will likely be necessary for a larger scale installation.) It’s my hope that the transformation taking place on the train would also reconfigure the relationship between strangers who simultaneously occupy that space, in inverse proportion to the way a train delay does, for example.

7 Transitions reflects on the dynamics of nomadism, the character of urban neighborhoods, and the influence of proximity on one’s identity. A manifestation of research begun in the fall and developed over the spring semester, it was critically insightful to realize the project in public. For future development, there are at least two aspects to improve upon. First, I’d like for the sound to include input from the immediate environment, processed and output as part or in place of the prepared sound. At present it’s somewhat programmatic. I also need to find a more substantial method of deploying mobile audio as the speaker didn’t have quite the range I was hoping for.

Here is a video of the transition from Woodside to Sunnyside. Additionally, a video of me explaining the project to visitors at ITP’s end-of-semester show can be viewed here.

Last semester, I spent the better part of a day building a Monome with classmates at ITP. Since then, the device has sat quietly on a shelf as I began to develop proficiency in a language it could communicate with. The Monome itself has no inherent functionality—it’s simply a grid of LED-backlit keypads that send serial messages via USB to one’s computer. While compelling as a design object, it’s reconfiguration that makes it particularly interesting.

Probably the most common means of communicating with a Monome is through programs written in Max/MSP. Max was developed by Miller S. Puckette in the mid-1980s as a programming environment for creating interactive computer music. At the time, personal computers weren’t powerful enough to generate and manipulate audio signals so this was handled by external devices. Then, in 1996, Puckette released Pure Data, also known as Pd: a redesigned, open source progression of his work on Max that also included digital signal processing. Meanwhile, Puckette’s longtime collaborator, David Zicarelli, founded the company Cycling ’74 as a commercial distributor for Max and other software packages. Zicarelli adapted the audio signal processing functionality of Pd as an add-on for Max called MSP and soon the two became a standard pair.

Max/MSP and Pure Data have followed rather different trajectories since the late 1990s, though their purpose is essentially identical. As a proprietary, commercial application, Max/MSP has evolved through five full versions into a lingua franca of interactive computer music. Pure Data, on the other hand, remains a free and open source environment for anyone to download and even modify at their discretion. While quite stable, it has yet to (and may never) achieve a full, 1.0 release and also lags behind Max/MSP’s thorough documentation and user interface enhancements. That is not to say Pd doesn’t have a strong community of users. Hans-Christoph Steiner, a Pd developer, computer musician, and my instructor, has been guiding the ongoing development of Pure Data and channeling the energy it sustains into making Pd better and more accessible.

It’s curious that a platform so resolutely open source as the Monome has gravitated toward Max/MSP for most of its programming. Were it not for Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain’s inclination to share, we certainly would not have been making our own Monomes last semester. I believe there’s a place for both profit-driven and open source initiatives to coexist—and even benefit one another—in the domain or art and technology. Still, the relative merits of Max/MSP and Pure Data and the politics of distribution they represent are well-worth debating. For my part, I was interested in interfacing Pure Data with a Monome for my final in Dataflow Audio Programming and making the patch available to others.

Download: monome_toggle.pd (basic toggle functionality) or monome_interface.pd (basic toggle with tones) and press.pd (abstraction to be placed in the same folder, required for both)

In its present form, the script accesses a regularly updated database of weather variables to determine which of nine texts to process. If the wind is blowing north, it will select the text assigned to the top row, middle column. If the wind is blowing southeast, it will select the text assigned to the bottom row, right column and so on. The ninth text corresponds to “variable” wind conditions. Once selected, the program performs a basic randomization of that text’s lines, often resulting in new and interesting juxtapositions.

It’s intriguing to me how circumstance influences the decision making process in various ways—from what we eat to where we go to school—and this program is one way of exploring those dynamics through poetry. Here is a selection of poems generated with Circumstantial Decision Making from original texts by Sachiko Clayton.

I.
The tangled telephone cord’s
one strand, 1,722 yards long.
All the power lines have fallen,
no dial tone, but she was gone.

How many times could I

We’ll speak again,
stretched ours out as kids at home,
that dropped call two weeks ago,

the cord’s been cut at the stem
I think of it’s single strand:
Stretched out, stretched thin
I wonder if when I’m done
as I pull at the knots.
We’ve given up on telephone cords,
Knitting a blanket for my sister’s first son,
across Long Island
from Queens to Suffolk County.
She wrapped it around my wrists
of my tin can.
or drop threads of all conversations
so I’d leave her alone.
Another blue line in the blanket,
exposed wires prick
wrap it around her shoulders?
Language frays and unravels.
like the lost stitch, third row down,

II.
Coins from India, Namibia, Japan and England,
a lacy handkerchief, starched, cotton white,
like a tiny curled hand.
of a bulldog in the Union Jack.
Cameo from your jewelry box
pages of Agatha Christie, a back scratcher
laces from 15-hole docs,
tie tacks, cuff links, your college class ring,

two of your favorite ties.
Your first CD, INXS, argyle socks, red suspenders,

(butter scotch on my tongue)

My glue gun, a wine box, an undated photograph.
the t–shirt brought back from England

III.
The sound of your humming
watching your knuckles
Where are we?
I never asked;
on the steering wheel,
to Saint Augustine.
blue from radio glow,

you and me,
from Jamaica, Queens
A halo of sleeping breath,
and the road pulling you along,
Who’s that on the radio?
awake in the dark;
and highway sign light,
listening to your thoughts,
Mom and Ne-chan sleeping,

I-95 dreams.
a long asphalt conveyor belt;
The sound of the road pulled,
in time with Ray Charles.
Just sat with you, waiting,
the high moon.

IV.
September has been an empty month
Punctuated by a nod or a gesture.
Flow of life
A quarrel in August interrupted this
And the industry of beavers built a dam
I remember the mornings you came by,
And the dead remains of summer.
Random and continuous
Packed with your papers
Sometimes streaming from your mouth
Devoid of the normal clutter of dead leaves
Satchel in hand and bustling thoughts
And scattered papers.

And here is the Python code.

# Circumstantial Decision Making

import sys
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulStoneSoup
import urllib
import random

# Lists for each outcome
verse_NE = list()
verse_NW = list()
verse_SE = list()
verse_SW = list()
verse_N = list()
verse_S = list()
verse_E = list()
verse_W = list()
verse_V = list()

# Change this URL for different places
place_url = "http://www.weather.gov/xml/current_obs/KNYC.xml"

# Gather weather data
place_data = urllib.urlopen(place_url).read()
place_soup = BeautifulStoneSoup(place_data)

# Identify wind direction
place_current_tag = place_soup.find('current_observation')
place_wind_tag = place_current_tag.find('wind_dir')
place_wind_dir = place_wind_tag.string
direction = place_wind_tag.string

# Northeast
if 'Northeast' in direction:
  for line in open('frayed_conversation.txt'):
    line = line.strip()
    verse_NE.append(line)

  random.shuffle(verse_NE)

  for line in verse_NE:
    print line

# Northwest
elif 'Northwest' in direction:
  for line in open('like_cindy_sherman.txt'):
    line = line.strip()
    verse_NW.append(line)

  random.shuffle(verse_NW)

  for line in verse_NW:
    print line

# Southeast
elif 'Southeast' in direction:
  for line in open('mothers_hands.txt'):
    line = line.strip()
    verse_SE.append(line)

  random.shuffle(verse_SE)

  for line in verse_SE:
    print line

# Southwest
elif 'Southwest' in direction:
  for line in open('mottainai.txt'):
    line = line.strip()
    verse_SW.append(line)

  random.shuffle(verse_SW)

  for line in verse_SW:
    print line

# North
elif 'North' in direction:
  for line in open('my_father_driving.txt'):
    line = line.strip()
    verse_N.append(line)

  random.shuffle(verse_N)

  for line in verse_N:
    print line

# South
elif 'South' in direction:
  for line in open('september.txt'):
    line = line.strip()
    verse_S.append(line)

  random.shuffle(verse_S)

  for line in verse_S:
    print line

# East
elif 'East' in direction:
  for line in open('shadow_box_family_portrait.txt'):
    line = line.strip()
    verse_E.append(line)

  random.shuffle(verse_E)

  for line in verse_E:
    print line

# West
elif 'West' in direction:
  for line in open('what_did_you_wear_last_night.txt'):
    line = line.strip()
    verse_W.append(line)

  random.shuffle(verse_W)

  for line in verse_W:
    print line

# Variable
else:
  for line in open('yellow_and_contrary.txt'):
    line = line.strip()
    verse_V.append(line)

  random.shuffle(verse_V)

  for line in verse_V:
    print line

Our project seeks to spontaneously rezone everyday urban space with the appropriation of industrial-grade construction objects. We anticipate that the messages coded into traffic cones, caution tape, and orange flags are sufficiently authoritative to subvert normal pedestrian flow—even in unorthodox places. By positioning these items in various configurations, strangers may feel compelled to address one another as they navigate an unexpected detour or blockade. It’s our intent to stage these interventions primarily in places of leisure and low-urgency transit such as parks, sidewalks, and interstitial spaces. We’re interested in how people respond to these decontextualized encounters.

On a bright Saturday afternoon in late April, Alexandra Kuechenberg and I set out with a roll of yellow caution tape and a hand truck stacked with four large, orange cones. We came to a pedestrian-friendly path along LaGuardia Place, canopied with trees and occupied by a statue of the old mayor himself. We began by setting up the cones in a curve from the main sidewalk into a pathway curving off to the left, curious to see if pedestrians might follow. They seemed not to heed this setup and simply passed between the cones. Next we strung caution tape between the cones so that people couldn’t go between them. As a result, most just went around—an improvement, at least in the sense that our actions were visibly reverberating in some way.

It was beginning to set in between Alex and I that antagonistic gestures are not the most effective in getting strangers to interact. Novelty, creativity, and silliness drew more constructive attention. So the next configuration really didn’t have anything to do with rerouting. We just created a kind of strange monument with cones balanced on top of each other. With each iteration it was interesting to note how disconnected we became from the intervention once we walked away from it. Moreover, the nature of the materials almost guaranteed that no one would interfere with them. One woman I came in contact with while casually walking by remarked, “I love it!” when I asked her what she thought. Carrying on, we decided to extrapolate from our initial plan by creating playful/absurd detours. People now had to choose whether to go around or step over the low-hanging tape. Some expressed amusement, some annoyance, others confusion. We were happy to see them engaging with the scene.

Part of what interested us about this concept in the first place is the communication aesthetics of urban construction. Documenting these objects in the environment, we developed an even better sense of how they stand out against their concrete backdrop. As our search for another suitable location dragged on, we decided to try something else. So we turned the cameras on boundaries of light and shade demarcated by our cones and tape. In some instances we laid the cones on their side along the shadow a building cast. We also tried outlining patches of light with the tape and setting up signifiers for pedestrians about to walk into or out of the sunlight. These images were striking both in their color and their temporality.

Interacting with strangers on your own can be challenging. Getting them to interact with each other is another thing altogether. We set out to disrupt normal pedestrian flow through the use of construction signals. Our plan was ambiguous, though, as to whether we were after a kind of spectacle or antagonism. The settings wherein we had envisioned staging these interventions were such that traffic cones looked out of context. As a result, they were less likely to exert their subtle influence than to draw attention. What excited us about this project was how far something as simple as a roll of tape can go in affecting behavior and suggesting phenomena. While we weren’t particularly successful at provoking stranger interactions, we learned more about its complexity, viewed the city differently, and were redirected into the domain of sculpture.

“How’s it going?” I ask.

“Great!” she replies energetically. Mona then begins to explain to me that she’s waiting to hear back from a music professor whose workshop she attended some years back. Mona has taught music classes to children in the past and now she’s hoping to teach at the college level. She’s anticipating that the professor will be able to put her in contact with people and/or programs that will enable this career path. Mona goes on to describe how the first round of their correspondence went: how he didn’t quite understand what she was asking of him and how she worded her reply which, she included, required her to go to the library early that morning in order to access her email.

Mona’s heart is not in New York, either—though it seems like she’s from around here (including five years at Staples, according to her name tag). Her plan is to move out to Austin where the big music scene will afford plenty of opportunity for teaching. Our conversation is mixed with declarations of the city’s virtue.

Mona’s enthusiasm is infectious and makes me smile along with her. Maybe ten minutes pass before someone starts paging her over an intercom to take a phone call. Mona disregards the call and our conversation continues. After several attempts to summon her she finally acts on the request. At this point we’ve had such an exchange that I’m not even inclined to ask where the envelopes are.

On a recent Sunday morning, a serviceman stood on the platform with me at 14th Street. I decided that, rather than attempt to approach him on the basis of our different roles in society, I would simply remain open to any kind of catalyst for conversation or exchange. So I boarded the same train car with him and it happened that we both got off at the next stop, Christopher Street–Sheridan Square.

The heavy, wide backpack he was wearing was not conducive to passage through the turnstile and he started towards the emergency gate. His first press on the bar yielded no results and he tried a few more times in vain to open the door. Giving up, he began to remove his backpack and bear it sideways through the turnstile. This was my opportunity to interact. Having already gone through, I reached back, offering to bring the pack through for him. He declined good-naturedly.

“It’s the same with mothers and their strollers,” I tell him.

“I don’t know what they do!” he responds. The mood is light.

“Enjoy the day,” I say.

“You too, buddy.”