I’m feeling like I’m in a tough spot with thesis, not super enthused to develop it further and not sure exactly how to infuse newness into it. When I was configuring the last presentation, I was fresh off reading pre-history of the cloud and various books on natural radio and I think because of the intense environment at the time, the two topics connected amazingly in my head. Now, after taking a break, it’s difficult for me to relate to that passion for exploring metaphors on The Cloud through electromagnetic storytelling. 

 

I’m still unsure if The Cloud metaphor works, but it was a beautiful way to work through my shifting conceptions of Network topology. I started this thesis deeply interested in the electromagnetic spectrum and fm radio. From a sound design perspective, I’ve always gravitated towards electronic music that sat on the frays of pure electricity and ‘natural’ sound. Currently, that’s where my interests lie and that might mean stepping away from the original performance idea. However, I think even among peers, the world of natural radio, SDR, and electromagnetic sounds is fairly unknown. I’ve also been consistently working with Three JS and exploring positional audio and audio analysis and for the rest of the month, I’d like to better synthesize the two. I think a natural/unnatural virtual radio world is what I’d like to spend the rest of this month developing, which could eventually incorporate more physical components. At this point, I’m just not as comfortable building out analog devices (large antennas, transmitters, and radios) in a short amount of time. The one thing I might try to build if I have time is a frame antenna for more live variability. However, producing one main space for people to listen to (and connect to visually) natural/unnatural radio is my main goal. And added component could include an option for others with sdr or electromagnetic devices to also stream their audio to the world. 

 

For the next week, I need to reconfigure my current Three JS animations to live within one space and to also accept audio streams through webrtc. This is what I hope to user test by Thursday (the effectiveness of the stream).