Hydra.js

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhKkNg-P3EU fun chiptuney set with live guitar by Nobel Yoo. i was going for more minimal, line-oriented visuals (but added some colors and pixel art cause halloween and chiptune). midway through (maybe at 12:00) you can see me wipe the codebase and i start from scratch! :x the second half was thus totally improvised and it still ended up looking surprisingly cool.

starting to record brief hydra sketches and concepts from first principles, since usually i’ve altered or edited other people’s sketches, or relied a lot upon editing camera output of the performer. for my upcoming gray area performance i’m trying to channel some minimalism inspired by audioreactlab (difficult when colors and complex textures are foundational functions in hydra). how to do this in hydra when the elements never seem that distinct from each other? i’m playing with shapes for a start, but it seems like if i want to individually vary these, they’ll need to be in p5, or something more explicit. ...

using this implementation of oscilloscope and learned about currying functions in js @_@! truly the most “visualizer” sketch i’ve ever done. would be nice to get some specific emphasis on certain frequencies next time (bass, etc). pretty happy with how directed the gaze is on this strong shape, and i think the fft reactivity is just right (engaging but not spastic) // contour oscilloscope y = (q=5) => { // oscilloscope implementation by ojack a.setBins(q) x = shape(2,.15) for(i=0;i<q;i++) { x = x.modulateScrollY(osc(1+i*10), ((i) => () => a.fft[i])(i)) } return x } y(5).out() src(o0).repeat(1,[1,15].fast(.1)).out(o1) src(o1).modulate(noise(2,.1)).pixelate(7,2000).out(o2) src(o2).color(1,0,1).add(src(o2).scrollY(.1).color(0,1,0)).out(o3) render(o3) a.setScale(10) a.setSmooth(.9) a.setCutoff(0) ...

leeann invited me to do visuals for her composition for apature 2021, and i improvised a performance at bindlestiff studios using hydra.js to react to her live composition. we later re-recorded visuals and her track to incorporate her concept of i-ching hexagram generator function. thematically i tried to incorporate visual static and warps to correspond to the auditory distortion, and microscope videos of mitosis and apoptosis to represent themes of isolation and attempts at togetherness during the pandemic. ...

this was my first hydra.js set: a collaboration with faited that we originally performed at ambient awakenings, then re-recorded in our studio to a small audience. i used a usb camera and manually controlled optical zoom to incorporate visuals of faited, and worked with her on the concepts of liquidity, flow, and distortion to accompany this set. unfortunately as the video progressed, my hardware couldn’t handle the required capture speed and it is very low framerate towards the end. ...