“Taperation”
For this project, I wanted to create a hardware board that a tap dancer could use to play different videos synchronized with their steps. In order to do this, I used four plywood boards with ridges to hold them together and placed a homemade piezo pad in the top corner of the front two boards. These piezo pads went hooked up to a two input mixer which was then redirected to my computer to be controlled with MaxMSP. Through Max, each audio signal picked up from the board would trigger a bang that would play a specific video in a specific part of the screen. There were four videos total with four edited versions. This project was made during the start of quarantine so I did not have access to a venue to perform this in, which is why the example videos of are me in my basement performing to my very captive audience of my two dogs. This project was done under advisor Dr. Steven Rice.
Patch Explanation Video
A brief explanation and tour of the layout of the patches used for the project. All patch screens and with explanations are below. The board itself is made up of four plywood squares that connect to each other through small rivets. Under the top two boards was a piezo pad that acted as the trigger for the bangs. Since the mixer I was borrowing only had two inputs, there are only two inputs used for this piece.
For the videos, I used different TikTok videos and layered them together to fit on one screen all at once. Each trigger either activated one of four original videos to play, one of four distorted versions, or a random selection.
Patcher Performance Demo
Originally, this piece was going to be performed in a larger scale as a concert, but due to COVID restrictions and quarantine, I created the boards and set up in my basement and synced the screens on my laptop to a tv via HDML. My dogs, Cosmo and Beefcake, were my captive audience.
Patch Window Screenshots
Full layout with explanations for base layer of patch.
Performer view and layout of videos used on screen. The videos included “Coke and Mentos,” “Still A Piece of Garbage,” “Very Much Adequate,” and “Get ‘Yo Ass Up.”
Full explanation of video processing patch
Other Video Patches
