Creator

Babble

©Paul Litherland
Date made: 2001
Materials: multimedia performance
Measurements:
Other information: Babble is a performance created by Paul Litherland, and developed by Litherland and percussionist Alexander MacSween. They perform Babble on electronic drum kits connected to computer equipment. As the performers play their drums, the hits are converted to MIDI signals and sent to the computers, which in turn transform the signals into elements of messages. A hit can produce a ‘0’, a ‘1’, a word, or control a video clip. One element of the performance uses the “ASCII Writer”, a program that interprets the drum beats as the 0’s and 1’s of ASCII binary code. (ASCII is one of the languages used by the computer to interpret the input from the keyboard.) As the 8-bit sequences of digits are played in musical time, the performers generate letters and short texts that are projected on the screens behind them. Other performance elements use the drumbeats to control video sequences, allowing the performers to transform the video messages into musical and aesthetic arrangements. Babble explores the codes of var

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