OSCILLA: Interactive installation and presentation by Andrea Santini

When: Thursday 17th April, 7.30 pm
Where: 132 Kingsland Road, Corner of Cremer Street, London E2 8DY

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Oscilla is a scalable interactive audiovisual instrument designed & developed by Andrea Santini at UBIKteatro (Venice), which enables musical interplay between multiple users within a responsive, projected visual environment.

Inspired by the Latin ‘Oscilla’ (votive objects that would swing in the wind) and by the Victorian ‘Harmonograph’ (a mechanical instrument for visualising frequency relationships), OSCILLA is a playful exploration of the oscillatory roots of sound, of its visualisation, of the foundations of music and, ultimately, of the ‘harmonic’ relationships within groups.

A projected scalable interface allows for context-specific adaptability and for a variety of intuitive physical interaction paradigms whereby the positions and movements of people or objects, optically tracked within a given area, determine the volume and pitch of a set of sine-wave oscillators.Each position and frequency value is projected on the main surface, along with music notation, while a visual representation of the resulting combination of sounds (Lissajous curves) is plotted in real-time on a second screen.The oscillators’ outputs, when discretely amplified by multiple loudspeakers, also provide different auditory spatial perspectives into each harmonic structure, while enhancing natural acoustics and resonances of the installation space.

Participants can thus create morphing chords and harmonies, explore unusual microtonal intervals and beat frequencies while discovering the fascinating relationships between harmonic structures and their visual counterparts.

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