As a big fan of live music and the 'festival' experience, I have always been curious as too the technology and creative process behind the visuals displayed at live events. This led me to experiment with TouchDesigner, a node based visual programming language for real time interactive multimedia content. Although a challenge at first, I found the node based visual interface extremely powerful in making live visuals.

So I agreed to put my skills to the test and make a visual for a friend's 21st, combining 4 of his favourite music videos in what was to be a "hypnotic, trippy and y2k" looping mashup. Seen in the first video is a overview of the live interface, with effects and transitions being applied in real time to produce the second video. The overview shows how the python command "0.5 * math.sin(absTime.seconds * 0.1)+0.5" was used to dynamically change the crossfade values from 0 to 1 based on the sine value of the passed seconds. The value absTime.seconds was multiplied by 0.1 to slow down the crossfade, then this value was again multiplied with math.sin and 0.5 to keep it within a range of 0 to 1.

This equation was also used to live change RGB levels of the videos to create that "trippy" effect. Other effects such as noise, normals and edges are also applied live to distort the videos. The really cool thing about this live generative approach to editing is that any video could be easily replaced, or even a live camera feed could be used, without disrupting the projection.

Although this was more of a fun project and a gift to my friend I learnt a lot about TouchDesigner and generative graphics, and received a lot of great feedback on the night. In the future I hope to further develop my skills and make more complex projects, perhaps with live audio, video or even 3D graphics. Enjoy!